A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders
00:35:18 · Keith Peiris, Pablo Srugo
[00:35:18] S0: Yeah, this is so true. It's funny. Now I have some friends that are building different kinds of systems of record, like an HRIS or a CRM vertical. It's so hard, I've found, to struggle when you have a platform because when you're building a platform, you sort of need to build horizontal capability first and then you very quickly have to figure out how to package the capability to find pain and solve pain. And it's just like a little bit of a different style of thinking than building the wedge first. And I feel like you have to go back and forth over and over and over again to make sure you don't overbuild the platform, underbuild the platform, overbuild for the wedge. And, you know, I feel like we change our mindset on that like every few months. [00:36:02] S1: So the other tactical kind of deep dive I want to do is launch videos. So how would it make a launch video hit a million views every time you've had at least four, I believe, launch videos that have hit over a million views these days? I think since the Cluely era, everybody wants to make a great launch video. I saw one for like the Wispr Flow notetaker go crazy viral recently, but they already, you know, they have a massive following. So it's probably easier for them than the average person. What have you learned doing these videos? Like, put it this way. Like, I'm a founder. I'm like, yeah, I've got this product. It's a solid product. Believe me. I want to have the absolute best odds that when I make this video, it hits a million views. Like, step by step, what should I do?
00:36:44 · Keith Peiris, Pablo Srugo
[00:36:44] S0: It's kind of a product of the company. What do I mean by that? It's very hard to make a video that goes viral for everyone. I mean, you can and there's plenty of cases for it, but I find that what we were looking for, we actually weren't optimizing for a million views. We were optimizing for the people in our ICP feel something when they watch this. And we're like, we need to define this so narrowly so that we can validate if this is true. And in our case, at the time, a year ago, our ICP is different now. We were like, we have to hit a B2B pre-seed founder creator who is on the cusp of finding product market fit. And we need to write a story that emotionally resonates with this person. And we don't care if a late-stage CRO takes this seriously or not. We are going to go very, very narrow and make sure it works. That's sort of the first step. The second is, in our case, this is our taste. You know, we wanted to make it more about the story and the hero's journey than just a product demo. Because, you know, at this point, everyone's got product demos and they all have agents and they all kind of look the same. So we're like, it's really about the hero's arc. And then third, I think the bar to do a video is very high now in terms of production. So we spent a lot of time, the creative at our company, he's like interviewed a lot of directors, looked at lots of styles, looked at lots of videographers. It was a full-time project. [00:38:12] S1: What's the budget, realistically, time and dollars, if you want to make a video like this?
00:38:12 · Pablo Srugo, Keith Peiris
[00:38:12] S1: What's the budget, realistically, time and dollars, if you want to make a video like this? [00:38:16] S0: We spent two months on it and it's low six figures. [00:38:19] S1: For like a minute video, I assume? [00:38:21] S0: Yeah, I think it was like a minute, probably like a minute 30, two minutes. And honestly, the first 10 takes were not great. Yeah. You sort of have to like grind and grind and grind until it looks good. [00:38:34] S1: And great to who? Like this is you guys watching it and being like, ah, it's not good enough? Or is there some way to kind of test it? [00:38:40] S0: Yeah, I mean, for us, we just showed it to people who we want to sell to. We're like, what do you think of this? You know, do you like this? [00:38:47] S1: And people were honest. I mean, most people would be like, oh yeah, it's good. It's nice. Yeah, I like it. Like, no?
00:38:47 · Pablo Srugo, Keith Peiris
[00:38:47] S1: And people were honest. I mean, most people would be like, oh yeah, it's good. It's nice. Yeah, I like it. Like, no? [00:38:51] S0: You could start to push. You're like, you know, would you share this on launch day? You know, do you want to buy this product? What do you like about it? You know, and you can start to sort of tease it out. It was like a full-time effort to drive this thing. And then when we started to like it, and it took a lot of iterations, then you have to come up with a distribution plan, right? For us, it was, you know, find all of our angel investors, find all of our customers, ask our friends, our spouses, be like, look, we're going to put this thing out, you know, on Thursday morning. I'm going to send you a calendar invite. We're going to send you a post. I need you to like it, comment it, reshare, all at the same time. And you just, you just go hard as far as you can. It's like, it's one of the three favors that you're going to ask your entire network to your company up and running. And you have to do it all at once to sort of hit the algorithm. [00:39:45] S1: How many people, realistically, do you need to have actually engage with or reach out to for this to make a dent? [00:39:52] S0: You know, we probably reached out to like 500 or so people asking for this favor. [00:39:58] S1: Of which, obviously, some percentage actually do, but let's say 200 people or so engage, engage in the post as soon as it goes live.
00:39:58 · Pablo Srugo, Keith Peiris
[00:39:58] S1: Of which, obviously, some percentage actually do, but let's say 200 people or so engage, engage in the post as soon as it goes live. [00:40:03] S0: Yeah, exactly. And you do it all at once. You have to be as coordinated as possible. You have to send everyone reminders. If you do all of the above, you have a chance. It doesn't mean that you'll get it. It might be a day that Anthropic puts out something or there's like a, there's like a big world event, but you sort of have a chance. [00:40:21] S1: Tell me a bit more about, because it goes back to this kind of marketing product thing. That's the marketing side, but the product, the video, what makes a great video? Like, you know, tell me a bit more about that. So if I'm thinking about making one and I just haven't done it, I mean, obviously, I'm going to watch some videos and stuff, but what should I be thinking about?
00:40:21 · Pablo Srugo, Keith Peiris
[00:40:21] S1: Tell me a bit more about, because it goes back to this kind of marketing product thing. That's the marketing side, but the product, the video, what makes a great video? Like, you know, tell me a bit more about that. So if I'm thinking about making one and I just haven't done it, I mean, obviously, I'm going to watch some videos and stuff, but what should I be thinking about? [00:40:35] S0: I think you just have to have a really detailed sense of the aha moment in your product. And it's funny, it's the same problem with activation, right? You know, if someone goes through your product, like, how do you get them to the aha moment quickly? I think it's the same thing with the video. You're like, okay, unless I'm making like a, you know, like a world model or a video product, you know, I'm building a productivity tool. You know, it isn't going to be as exciting necessarily, you know, the best stuff on X today, but what is that moment of emotional resonance? What is that moment of, oh, this is neat, you know, and you have to talk to your customers. They probably won't be able to tell you exactly what it is, you know, and you're going to have to like take it and think about it and figure out like, how do I do a cut scene of this product such that I can get it to shine for the five seconds that someone stares at this thing? [00:41:30] S1: Maybe, what did you end up with, for example, for your product? Like what, out of one of the videos, like tell me just a little bit more just to make it tangible.