4
10 Comments

Web app to sell your video courses/content

Hi!

I'd like to try and get a bit of feedback/validation on this idea.

Main idea could be thought of as similar to Gumroad but specifically for video.

You host the video wherever you want, and payments are taken through your own Stripe account - the platform takes a commission on sales.

Suppose it would work with audio and other content too without much modification.

Spent some time this weekend putting together an MVP of the system to see how it might work - it'd be great to get some feedback and see what people think.

https://dev.vdo.watch

An example video page:

https://dev.vdo.watch/LyYp5XAPD9

  1. 2

    At least for me, the real power of Gumroad is that you can just share a link to make sales. That's why I'm using it for my new ebook. Can literally just drop that link on my site or on Twitter and start making sales. If you look at my twitter feed, you'll see I've done both.

    With Gumroad, you can sell straight from Twitter/FB/YouTube even if you don't have a web site! You can just drop a link anywhere and drive sales.

    I'd say Stripe is the easiest way to go for subscriptions that doesn't tie you directly to the video distributor (i.e. YT/Twitch/Vimeo), but not for one-time payments.

    So, in your shoes, I'd look at either focusing my offering around subscriptions or maybe integrating some other payment providers for the leanest checkout funnel possible.

    1. 2

      Thanks for the feedback.

      I agree initially setting up a Stripe account might be a bit of a hurdle. I think I've approached it from someone who has a Stripe account already, which could be a problem for some people.

      Using Stripe for one-time payments seems fine to me though? You can definitely just drop a link to a video page anywhere you like in a similar way.

      1. 1

        You can definitely just drop a link to a video page anywhere you like in a similar way.

        I spent a while trying to do that a couple years ago and could have sworn it wasn't possible! In this case, I'll retract that part of my feedback and just say to add this example in your pitch!

  2. 1

    What is the difference between https://www.memberstack.com/ and this?

    1. 1

      Thanks for the reply.

      I'm not familiar with Memberstack - it looks great, I guess there are lots of similarities.

      vdo is a little more video focussed in its niche I guess.

      Also no monthly fees - Memberstack is affordable at $25 for the feature set. But might be a barrier for entry for some people?

      1. 1

        Thanks for your reply. :)

        A crazy idea, but maybe the value proposition could be something like: Netflix-like platform for your video content. So people could share videos under subscription or pay-per-view.

        I'm not familiar with this field and not a potential user, but it sounds interesting to me.

        1. 2

          It's definitely something I've thought about - one of the client projects that helped spark this idea was pretty much exactly that, and it's doing pretty well at the moment.

  3. 1

    Hi Rich -- I am sure this makes me sound like an idiot, but that's the zone in which I'm most comfortable: what does this do that is different from Gumroad that would make me use it over Gumroad?

    1. 1

      No idiots here! Good question.

      In my eyes, there's a couple of reasons you might be interested in something like this over Gumroad:

      • You don't need to upload your content to my system - it would live on Vimeo, YouTube, Vidello, Self-hosted... Gives you some portability incase you want to move to another system without re-uploading all your content.
      • You can embed a Vimeo pro livestream and basically charge for a "ticket" to watch the event.
      • Your payments & customers are all managed by a Stripe account that you're in complete control of.
      • It might work out a bit cheaper if you already have a Vimeo pro account/don't want to pay anything monthly

      Another potential revenue stream is fully white labelling the view video page - maybe for bigger livestreams/high value content.

Trending on Indie Hackers
How I grew a side project to 100k Unique Visitors in 7 days with 0 audience 47 comments Competing with Product Hunt: a month later 33 comments Why do you hate marketing? 27 comments $15k revenues in <4 months as a solopreneur 14 comments Use Your Product 13 comments How I Launched FrontendEase 13 comments