Y Combinator Startup Podcast
00:10:47 · Aaron Epstein, Farza Majeed
[00:10:47] S0: Yeah. What's going through your head? Are you imagining the audience listening to this, or how do you evaluate if something is actually good and interesting? [00:10:54] S1: For me, it's always I'm the audience. Like, would I be interested in what what the script is saying? So, And honestly, this script is actually not that strong, but I still recorded the video because you gotta you gotta be launching. In the first kind of little bit, am I getting across what I'm doing? Why is it important? Like, you can get across so much in just ten seconds. What you're doing, why it's important, let's get into it. Know, that's what the first ten seconds of any kind of video should be about. Because most of these videos are one minute long. Right? It's kinda like a movie. You know, a movie is an hour and a half, two hours, and the first twenty minutes is just a setup. Mhmm. That's a two hour thing. So And for a video that's one minute long, you need a setup. But it should only be like 10, 20%. So I write this down. And so in this case, I said, hi. I wanna share a new demo of our new... A demo of our new agent interface when talking to our users, blah blah blah, and then getting into the demo. And so for me, this is kind of this is kind of how I think through it, you know, before I get in front of the camera. The worst part is when you're in front of the camera, and you're like, oh, what am I saying? You know? Like, you have you have nothing to ground yourself. Yeah. It's good to ground yourself. Yeah.
00:10:54 · Farza Majeed, Aaron Epstein
[00:10:54] S1: For me, it's always I'm the audience. Like, would I be interested in what what the script is saying? So, And honestly, this script is actually not that strong, but I still recorded the video because you gotta you gotta be launching. In the first kind of little bit, am I getting across what I'm doing? Why is it important? Like, you can get across so much in just ten seconds. What you're doing, why it's important, let's get into it. Know, that's what the first ten seconds of any kind of video should be about. Because most of these videos are one minute long. Right? It's kinda like a movie. You know, a movie is an hour and a half, two hours, and the first twenty minutes is just a setup. Mhmm. That's a two hour thing. So And for a video that's one minute long, you need a setup. But it should only be like 10, 20%. So I write this down. And so in this case, I said, hi. I wanna share a new demo of our new... A demo of our new agent interface when talking to our users, blah blah blah, and then getting into the demo. And so for me, this is kind of this is kind of how I think through it, you know, before I get in front of the camera. The worst part is when you're in front of the camera, and you're like, oh, what am I saying? You know? Like, you have you have nothing to ground yourself. Yeah. It's good to ground yourself. Yeah. [00:11:56] S0: You start with the script, and then you move on to some of the visuals. How do you think about what that first shot should be? It's so important. Right? It's the first thing people see when they're scrolling.
00:12:04 · Farza Majeed
[00:12:04] S1: I'll show you a quick example of one of our videos. So this video actually is really good on YouTube. This is like a brand new fresh YouTube channel. Like, we literally made it and then posted this video three days later. Yep. And this is one of our highest converting videos despite being 19,000 views. Yeah. This video, I think it did, like, 3,000,000 views on Twitter Mhmm. 20,000 on YouTube, and, like, some crazy amount on Instagram as well. The same video. So it kind of did... We post it just everywhere, you know, just to see what happens. But, yeah, I mean, the way I like to do my videos is who is the person making this thing? You know? Like, just show yourself. Show your face very clearly. This is you. This is your personality. Just be proud of who you are, and confidently tell the camera what you're working on. Because if you think it's cool, then I think you'll find at least... My thought is always at least one other person will think this is cool. Mhmm. And that's who I'm talking to. I'm talking to that, like, one other person in that world that may think this is cool. And so, yeah, I always start with a very clear, hi. This is what I'm working on. All you gotta do is press and hold This how it works. Plus control, start talking, and whatever you're saying will stream in as text into whatever text box your cursor is on. For example, if I'm on Apple Notes, I can just say... Great. That's how it works. Can you give me an example? Hey. Today, I have to ship three things. First, skills. Second, memory. And third, this bug that this one user gave about dictation. Okay. That's pretty cool. But this is like every other product I've ever seen. There's nothing special about this. So that's pretty cool. And honestly, many products already do this exact thing today. But here's the thing. When I'm writing, I often don't really know what I even wanna say. So check this out. We're shipping... So then, like, I bring the problem for myself. Mhmm. I'm not saying everyone has this problem where they don't know what to write. Like, I'm not involving everybody. I'm only talking about myself Mhmm. And because these are my problems because I'm always putting stuff for myself. Queen aware dictation. It's pretty cool. I've never seen anything like it before, and I wanna show you. Let's say I wanna write...
00:13:54 · Farza Majeed, Aaron Epstein
Again, that's just me being myself, which is like, hey, I wanna show you. [00:13:57] S0: You come across very natural here. Was that easy for you to do from
00:14:01 · Farza Majeed
[00:14:01] S1: the beginning? No. First of all, this whole video is scripted. Mhmm. Every every line that I'm saying, I wrote, like, three days before. Mhmm. And I said it... And I I I will say it in my head, like, over and over and over again, in the shower, going to work. And I'm always like, how should I say that line? How should... And by the time I'm in front of the camera, I've already visualized it, like, 10 times. Mhmm. It's so funny. After this video, we were finished it. I told the the person who I make videos with, and I'm like, this is the worst video we've ever done. It's not even worth editing it. And he's like, no, bro. Be quiet. Shut up. I'm gonna bake it, then we're gonna post it. And so, again, it's good to have the team also be really, hey. We made this. Like, we're gonna put it out. It doesn't matter how cringe we think it is. Like, we'll let the audience decide. This video did 3,000,000 views on Twitter Mhmm. And people went crazy over it. And it's so funny. I thought it was horrible. I just thought, like, this is so this is so bad. So this is one of the situations where I was wrong. Yeah. And I think founders, I mean, me especially, think something we made is bad or I made is bad, and then I don't wanna put it out because it's gonna make... I don't like how it sounds or feels. I'm constantly forcing myself to put it out. It's not natural for me to click post. Mhmm. But sometimes it is, sometimes it's not. Yeah. And so this is one example where I was, like, so surprised that people even cared to begin with because I thought it was just pretty simple thing.
00:15:15 · Aaron Epstein, Farza Majeed
[00:15:15] S0: It's interesting. I... I've heard you talk about this almost like demo driven development where everything that you're working on, you're almost working backwards from a demo that you want at the end of it. And that's kind of the proof that the thing is ready to go. It lets you test it out. Yeah. And then you get to the end of it, you're like, let's just publish the demo. [00:15:31] S1: The most important thing in my company that I try to always... And every company I've ever run is, you know that feeling when you're working with someone often on the team or a cofounder? And you're like, yo. Check this out. That... You have to be so aware of that, because that is the thing that you could probably talk about online. Mhmm. That check this out is exactly like... That raw check this out is exactly how you should be kinda presenting yourself on the Internet. In this case, you know, sometimes I go a little bit more fancy if I want to, but sometimes I'm also just a guy in a simple video in in the YC office. And then sometimes, maybe once a quarter, we'll do a polished launch where it's like, this is, like, something I'm really proud of. I wanna make sure it's talked about properly. But, generally, we're launching, like, demos every single day almost.