Y Combinator Startup Podcast
00:31:47 · Farza Majeed
[00:31:47] S1: I don't. Every channel is different. Think about it. I'm on Twitter. I'm just, like, doomscrolling, basically. Not really doomscrolling. I'm just scrolling through random stuff all the time. And so for YouTube, I I... It was so surprising. And so historically, actually, YouTube is, for most companies, the best performing channel in terms of conversion. But, look, our numbers are very low. Eight seventy two subscribers, 20 k views. Like Mhmm. I'm not mister beast. Mhmm. You know? But, again, if you do the math, this leads to a very real number of sign ups, and this video will keep on performing. That's the most important part. Yep. This... YouTube is a library that will last for decades. Twitter, you got your moment once and you're gone. Mhmm. Instagram is another one. That's so important. All of our traffic, I think 70% of our traffic is Instagram. This is where you gotta be smart. You're like, I'm not trying to go viral. I'm trying to make... Tell people what I'm doing. But I'm, again, down the funnel, how many people actually converted? It's worth checking out. And so that's why I think people should always make their video and then make the first couple of videos, but then start to ask themselves, maybe I should make my... For example, our link in bio is IG. Why? Because then I can track, wait a second. What was the conversion rate of people who hit IG and downloaded my app? Or if it landed on their phone, sent it to the we have a little button that lets them send it to themselves over email. How many of them click that? What's the conversion rate? And so by posting on all these channels, you start to see not only where I'm performing views wise, but actually just, like, who's... Where is my best channel right now in terms of the audience that I'm looking for? And, again, for us, it is by far Instagram, and it's it's not even close.
00:33:21 · Aaron Epstein, Farza Majeed
[00:33:21] S0: And you're basically using the same content for every channel? [00:33:24] S1: Yes. I I do make videos for specific platforms. So most of our videos, we make for Instagram Uh-huh. But then we post to Twitter, whereas some videos, we make for Twitter and then post to Instagram. [00:33:34] S0: What is the difference between one that targets one versus the other? [00:33:37] S1: So simple. I mean, Twitter generally doesn't like vertical videos. Mhmm. It likes sixteen nine. Yep. So then this... For example, we have this drawing video. So we built a system that can draw directly on your screen. It can draw polygons, arrows. This is super optimized for Twitter because just look... Let's let's just watch it muted, and imagine I'm scrolling my feed. Ready? Okay. Guy in front of Blackboard, AI, draw screen. I'll watch. It's like... It's that quick. It's like AI, draw screen, blackboard. He's drawing things, see plot opus, demo, click. You know? Like, my brain thinks like that. Mhmm. What are the quick... Because nobody's reading this entire this entire damn thing. And so this is optimized for Twitter. This video is optimized for Twitter. But what was surprising is we posted the exact same thing to my Instagram, and it performed even better. And you would think that, like, this type of video wouldn't perform that good, but it has, like, millions of views. And it's a vertical video because on their phone, it looks even worse. It looks like this.
00:34:33 · Aaron Epstein, Farza Majeed
[00:34:33] S0: Well, one thing that I... Maybe a couple things that I know about you are you have a very high bar for yourself and the things that you put out there. And while at the same time, almost ironically, you're very comfortable putting a lot of things out there. Yeah. And so you... I hate to use the word taste, but, like, you've been doing this so long that you have a high bar and a good sense of of what you would be excited to watch, and you just naturally have a very, short attention span. You get bored, and you, like, want the next thing. And if you're not getting that, then you move on. And I think that serves you very well with the videos that you're creating here. [00:35:09] S1: Yeah. Either I have good taste or I just put out so much stuff and some of them just hit. [00:35:13] S0: That's how you get it, I think, is you you put it out... You put out a lot of things and you continue to improve, and that that levels up your work. [00:35:20] S1: Totally. I I think I have more of the latter where I just put out so much stuff and some of it some of works. And and, again, we're looking at the stuff that's working, but so much hasn't worked. [00:35:27] S0: Right. [00:35:27] S1: Like my old zip school videos, like, nobody cared. [00:35:29] S0: Yeah.
00:35:29 · Aaron Epstein, Farza Majeed, S4, Farza Majeed
[00:35:29] S0: Yeah. [00:35:30] S1: But this is what... This is a perfect example. This was a super simple video. Basically, just a quick story here. I found out that with GPT real time, you could generate shell commands and control your computer in real time. Mhmm. And so we can watch it real quick. Alright. Check this out. No hands. Ready? Hey, Clicky. Can you please open up Spotify and play ACDC for me? Maybe Back in Black. I love that song. [00:35:54] S4: Rock on. It's playing Back in Black now. [00:35:56] S1: Amazing. Amazing. Clicky... Hey, Clicky. It's a little bit loud. Could you turn it down in Spotify 50%? This is so loud. Got [00:36:02] S2: it. Lowering Spotify to 50% so it's less intense. [00:36:05] S1: Okay. Thank you. Hey, Clicky. Can you open up my So now I'm gonna keep going. Yeah. And this is actually a fun one. Stripe dashboard for me in my browser. Let's see if we made any money today. [00:36:16] S4: Opening your Stripe dashboard now.
00:36:16 · S4, Farza Majeed, Aaron Epstein
[00:36:16] S4: Opening your Stripe dashboard now. [00:36:19] S1: Oh, man. A $140 in a day is not... And so to me, that was just one little moment in the day where I was like, oh my god. This AI model could do this. Does anyone... I didn't check if anybody did it before. I was just like, I'm gonna make a video. Turns out I did something very novel. Mhmm. And, again, the examples I used, playing a song on Spotify lowering the and lowering the volume, that's exactly the first use case that I had as a user myself. Yep. And so, again, always building for, like, the version of myself that's kinda watching out there. Because if I think that's cool, I think someone else would too. And, hey. Look. 3,800,000 views on Twitter. Really good. But, again, then Instagram, 4,600,000. You know, people always say, like, you gotta be super... Like, your brain has to be rotten when you're scrolling Instagram, and you gotta have a lot of quick edits and blah blah blah. Like, there's not a single cut in this video. [00:37:06] S0: Yeah. There's no cuts in the video, but there are beats in the video Yeah. That you do a very good job with. You know? You... We see you first. You say, hey. No hands. So right off the bat, I'm like, oh, no hands. He's just talking to this thing Yeah. Which is the hook that I think gets people [00:37:22] S1: to watch. That's all purposeful.
00:37:22 · Farza Majeed, Aaron Epstein
[00:37:22] S1: to watch. That's all purposeful. [00:37:23] S0: Yeah. Then you play the song. Then you lower the music so that you can continue to talk over it, and it responds to that as well. Then you pull up the Stripe Stripe dashboard, somebody goes, I wonder how much money they made