We built an AI that lets you CTRL+F inside any video (crossed $1.5k MRR)

A few months ago, I was talking late at night with my brother about a universal transcripts/subtitles retrieval tool I was selling on marketplaces. It worked across multiple platforms like YouTube, X, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Vimeo, Dailymotion, and others. And people were paying for it.

The next morning, we kept thinking: what if this wasn’t just about pulling subtitles? What if we could actually search inside videos, like a CTRL+F, not just for YouTube, but even for private content? That question turned into a prototype, and eventually into what is now VidNavigator.

With VidNavigator, instead of scrubbing through a one-hour video for a single answer, you just ask a question in plain English. The AI takes you directly to the exact second where the claim, quote, or topic is mentioned. No guessing, no endless fast-forwarding. You can share the result as a timestamped link, or explore it in an interactive transcript. What used to take hours now takes seconds.

As we built it out, we realized this wasn’t just useful for individual users. Developers wanted more. So we made VidNavigator API-first: you can fetch transcripts and subtitles from almost any online video, run Q/A directly on the content, and receive structured JSON with timestamps and metadata. Teams can even index their own private libraries and make them fully searchable, whether it’s for research, compliance, or internal knowledge sharing. We added an MCP server for agent workflows and even a Chrome extension for instant timestamp search on YouTube.

The motivation behind all of this was simple: I was tired of wasting hours hunting through videos for one quote or claim. Most search tools stop at titles, keywords and descriptions, they don’t take you to the proof. I wanted something that could answer in plain English, land on the timestamp, and give me verifiable, shareable evidence.

Fast forward to today, and VidNavigator has just crossed $1.5k MRR. We haven’t spent a cent on paid marketing. The traction so far has come from researchers, creators, and developers who felt the exact same pain.

We’re two brothers building this. Both engineers. My brother is a Harvard postdoctoral researcher. We love solving hard technical problems… but honestly, we suck at marketing.

So here’s my question to you, Indie Hackers: would you use something like VidNavigator to make your own video library searchable? For the devs here, does an API / MCP server that gives you transcripts and direct timestamp search fit into your workflows? And finally… any advice for two engineers trying to get better at marketing and scale this from $1.5k → $10k MRR?