Y Combinator Startup Podcast
00:38:48 · Aaron Epstein, Farza Majeed
[00:38:48] S0: I think another thing that's unique is you actually invest a lot in your early team, which is small, but a large portion of it is actually built to help you create and produce and get these videos out the door on a regular basis. [00:39:01] S1: Yeah. I mean, I always say, like, I'm okay at videos. There are people out there who who are way better at me. Mhmm. My first two hires were... I knew from the beginning, even before I started my company, it's gonna be number one, a filmmaker, and number two, an engineer. And it's... Number one is film... Is filmmaker for me. So that is the first one or whenever... Whatever order they can come in. [00:39:22] S0: Why was that so important to you?
00:39:23 · Farza Majeed
[00:39:23] S1: I don't wanna put a ton of attention every day on making videos. I mean, any founder watching, any founder in YC, nobody wants to do that every day. At at some at some level, you do have to in the beginning, the early days. Yeah. And, yeah, I mean, look at my Clicky videos. Like, I'm forcing myself to just make videos and make stuff every day. At one point, you're like, well, this would be really great if someone's full time job at my company was to kinda observe what we were doing and help us launch and constantly make it their their mission to make us look good when we launch as well and make us come off properly. And so that's why a filmmaker was one of the first hires I I made at this company. And my last company, our film team was two people. We were only, like, a seven person team. Yeah. So even at this company, at one point, hey, Clicky. We had three people making videos and one engineer. Because it's so funny. Now it's so easy to pump out more code and more software, but it's harder than ever to actually talk about what you are doing in a coherent way in front of an audience. Mhmm. Because now, Aaron, you know, someone can clone my product in, like, two minutes at this point. But, again, what they... What's really hard to clone is the audience and the community that I built around what I'm doing and the energy around it. If you had an audience around your company, I'll say a 100,000 people that was really into what you were doing, maybe enterprise AI, you know, maybe something around, like, photography or whatever, whatever your niche is Mhmm. That'd be useful. Because because that's why, you know, I can make a video now about a new feature, and, like, thousands of people flood my app. That's awesome. That's, like, every founder's dream.
00:40:48 · Aaron Epstein
[00:40:48] S0: Right? Tell us more about the gear that you're using today to to produce these videos.
00:40:52 · Farza Majeed
[00:40:52] S1: Yeah. So for demos on my computer, which is just, like, what I'm hacking on that day, I always use this thing called Screen Studio. I think it's, like, made by some indie hacker, and it's just really good. It records your screen, records your local audio, makes your cursor look good, and I think it costs like $30. That's one level. Then the next level is, well, videos that more include me in a more native way. And for that, just pull up my iPhone, literally just a selfie camera, just and record myself talking, post, or edit on my phone even. I use on my phone Instagram's editing tool. It's called edits a lot. So when I... I do edit on my phone a good amount. So that's the iPhone. Nothing else required. But then there's the next level, where it's like you feel like you wanna do something a little bit more kind of, like, thought through, cinematic, and that's where I use my Sony FX three and Sony FX 30 or Sony FX three, the cheaper one, along with a DJI mic. It's actually funny. The most import... This is actually so important. I I can't believe I missed this. The most important thing in any video you make, doesn't matter if it's a shitty Loom or a shitty, like, little video or your iPhone, is audio quality. If your audio is bad, I'm bouncing. I've watched some some demos that are, like, seven twenty p, and just, like, the guy's in, like, a weird room in a basement, but his audio is crisp. And what he's working on is actually genuinely interesting, so I stick around. And so I don't care about the the rest of it. Don't care what he looks like, anything. I'm like, I can hear him, and I can see what he's doing.
00:42:17 · Aaron Epstein
[00:42:17] S0: That's it. Yep.
00:42:18 · Farza Majeed
[00:42:18] S1: And so I think if every founder could just invest in one of those super cheap DJI mics, find them used online, or just any mic that's not your MacBook mic. Your... It's... Or your AirPod mics. Those don't count. Yeah. That would be really good. And then for editing on my actual laptop, I use DaVinci. Yeah. And maybe the most important part of my stack, he's not here right now, but Vikrant. Vikrant has made all the Hey Clicky videos. And without that guy making me look good and making us look good, none of this would happen. And so I don't wanna sit here and be like, I made all these videos and did all this stuff. Every video we just looked at, apart from the the bad zip school ones which were made by me, are made by Vikrant. And so having a person that is actually talented at filmmaking, storytelling, writing next to you is the biggest bonus a founder could have today. So a big part of how I work with Vikrant, who's the person who helps me with all these videos, is we just brainstorm. We're like, hey. We made this feature. What should... How should we make the video now? Mhmm. What are we thinking? Where should we do it? And so Vikrant is actually the main guy that's like, I had this shot idea, or I had this hook idea, or, hey, I have this other idea. And often, I'm the guy that's bringing the script and the song and the vibe that I'm going for. Because as the founder, I think you'll slowly find what are the things that you're good at in video making. There's some aspect to it. Yeah. So for me, I find I'm really good at writing, and I'm really good at the music. And then Vikrant is good at literally everything else, from shooting to picking the set to editing after to, you know, all the little motion graphics he does. Just so talented. And then as the founder of me, Farza, I can go back to focusing on growth, hiring, making the product. I don't wanna spend all my time making videos. You know? I don't think any founder watching this wants to do that. And and look, I think a lot of these... A lot of people watching probably can't afford to hire a filmmaker or, like, an actual person on their team. They're maybe just solo with a cofounder. And what I'll say is, hey. Go back to my old Zip School videos. Go back to... Just scroll through any of my social media and look at all my old shitty videos and just start somewhere.