Y Combinator Startup Podcast
00:17:14 · Aaron Epstein, Farza Majeed, Farza Majeed
[00:17:14] S0: How do you do that? I feel like most people when they post something, they're, you know, incessantly just refreshing and trying to see are people liking it, who liked it. But you launch and you walk away. Yeah. How did you get to that point? [00:17:25] S1: I mean, you just put so much garbage out there. I put so much garbage out in the world at this point. Not, like, bad stuff, but just, stuff that I wasn't like this. I didn't think that I didn't think was good. [00:17:33] S0: Yeah. [00:17:33] S1: And people forget the next day. I can make something right now and post it, and people are gonna forget the next day. That's just how attention in twenty twenty six kinda works. Mhmm. You know? And so this is, like, a perfect example. This is 2021. Mhmm. It's a year after YC. [00:17:47] S0: Yeah. [00:17:48] S1: I'm like a... I'm a solo founder. I've been a solo founder of Zip School and a solo founder of Buildspace, solo founder now. It's not like I'm that... Yes. I know how to put a camera in front of me and edit it, but I'm not a fantastic editor. And so this is back when I was working on Zip School, which is an online elementary school. And I wanted to show off the new classes that we were launching for our users. And this is the launch video. Hey there, Zip Schoolers. Farza from Zip School here [00:18:08] S2: again to show off four new classes that we just added yesterday to Zip School that we are very excited about. The first one is called Mars perseverance, rover landing, aimed at kids ages seven to 12. And this class covers the Mars landing that actually
00:18:08 · Farza Majeed, Farza Majeed, Aaron Epstein, S3
[00:18:08] S2: again to show off four new classes that we just added yesterday to Zip School that we are very excited about. The first one is called Mars perseverance, rover landing, aimed at kids ages seven to 12. And this class covers the Mars landing that actually [00:18:21] S1: Honestly, it's an... I'm already checked out watching this video. And What would [00:18:24] S0: you do differently? What are the mistakes that you're making in this video? [00:18:27] S3: I think
00:18:28 · Farza Majeed
[00:18:28] S1: that's the important part. It's not about It's about the fact that I posted it, and then it got 23 likes, which, by the way, is more than zero. Yep. It got more than zero views. It got more than zero comments. It got one comment from a guy. You got a bookmark? I got a bookmark. So, like, I launched. This to me is a launch. And I know that sounds dumb to maybe some, but to me, this is exactly what launching means. We did something new at the company. We talk about it to the... Into the world, and it doesn't matter if we got 23 views. If there's a chance that we get more than one view, we should talk about it. Mhmm. And so this is a super small thing. This is like an everyday thing in my company where we we have... Because we had new classes dropping every day almost. And so I just make it... I'd be like, yeah. Let's talk about it. Maybe one day I'll talk about it, and one of the classes will be really interesting and get picked up and go super viral, which never happened. But the fact is, I made the videos. And over time, I got so much better at just knowing, how should I talk about products? Because think about it. I'm good at making videos in general and writing stories, but talking about products is hard. How do you come off without sounding silly? How do you come off without sounding full of yourself? And it's hard. This is funny. This is a launch. This was the first day I worked at my company, 12/01/2020, and I shipped a landing page. Aaron, there is no copy. There's just a link, and there is some weird video I made in Canva, and I posted it. And that's a launch. To me, I lost a landing page. Right? In my eyes. And by way, in this sense, had, like, maybe 80 followers or something. So no one was watching what I was doing, and this just continued. What is this?
00:19:59 · Farza Majeed, Farza Majeed, Aaron Epstein
[00:19:59] S2: Next four years? I'm pretty excited for the next four years for The USA, for Zip School, for the world. It's gonna be great. [00:20:10] S1: And so, again, I've just been posting these for just years. And so over time, you you build up... You know, it's like it's like basketball. Mhmm. Just keep on keep on going. Like, oh, man. This one's getting closer. And you internally are a smart... Or a human being. You're smart. Yep. And you'll slowly get better. But if you don't take a thousand shots, you're not gonna make the the the the the five thousandth shot. You know? [00:20:30] S0: Clearly, your advice is just put it out there. Don't worry about it. Just put it out there. You need to get the reps. What are the things that you've learned in the five years since then? [00:20:40] S1: So much. [00:20:40] S0: The tips that you could give people now in order to improve their videos and start from a better starting point than you did when you were first doing this?
00:20:48 · Farza Majeed, Aaron Epstein
[00:20:48] S1: Totally. I wanna be really clear. All my videos are, like... Looked very produced. Mhmm. But that's because it comes very naturally to me. Mhmm. To make a produced video, for me, will take, like, an hour. Mhmm. But for other people, it may take longer. So while I'm showing this, like, I wanna be clear, like, you don't have to produce your videos. It could just be an iPhone video and just go do really well. So this is one of those videos where I just knew, even when I when I when I wrote the script, that it was gonna go big. Mhmm. It does now 21,000,000 views on Instagram. Mhmm. And believe it or not, this one video is still driving a lot of our traffic. Mhmm. So that's how these algorithms work. Like, they'll keep serving the content to people... To more people that wanna see it. Also, I've made this video an ad now. So I'm running Facebook ads now on a video. So, yeah, there's lot of benefit to making videos of your company. Last week, I went super viral for an idea that I built that I thought was actually kinda terrible. And this week, I'm somehow in Y Combinator? Let me show you what... Okay. So just that hook. Yeah. Like, what what did I say? Last week, I went super viral for something I built that I thought was kind of ridiculous or whatever, bad. Cool. Like, that's interesting. And now he's in this thing called Y Combinator. I've heard of Y Combinator, so I was kinda targeting that niche. And then a very simple... Let me show you what I'm working on. I... It's... My formula is always the same. [00:21:55] S0: Yep.
00:21:55 · Aaron Epstein, Farza Majeed, Farza Majeed
[00:21:55] S0: Yep. [00:21:55] S1: This is who I am. This is what's going on. This is what I'm working on. Let me show you. Show you what I'm building. It's called Clicky. It's a little AI buddy that lives next to your computer cursor and teaches you anything in real time for free. Let's say I'm learning how to color grade in DaVinci Resolve. Instead of going to a YouTube video, I just gotta ask out loud, and Clicky will literally tell me exactly how to get there [00:22:14] S2: and even point at it for me. [00:22:15] S1: So again, a little... Pretty produced, but again, this this took us, like, four to six hours to make Mhmm. Because we've just done this. But again, even if this was a simple video where I'm like, hi. This is what I'm working on. Check this out. And then I turn the camera to literally show my computer, I think the effect may not have been as big, but, again, you just start, and you make, like, 10 of those then. You get really good at talking about stuff. But, again, like, that video, super clear hook. A very clear, like, why you should why you should care right now while you're on your scroll. And so a big thing that I'd always do when I watch videos on the Internet, regardless if they're mine or not, is I ask myself, am I bouncing? When am I bouncing? So And if I go to Instagram Reels anytime... And this is what I do a lot, actually. I watch a lot of content, not for entertainment, just to kinda study. Mhmm. And so I can go to Instagram Reels. [00:23:01] S0: It's a page to block my long distance girlfriend and post my weight loss journey.