Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: How do people create those sleek looking demos for startups?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 178 posts

Re: Ask HN: How do people create those sleek looking demos for startups?

#161

Post by tomgs »

fragmede wrote: post #159
tomgs wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh definitely low four figures. Can’t imagine doing it for five figures (maybe I should imagine harder) and for less than that it’s just not an interesting pursuit financially for me (given the amount of work required and how much I think my time is worth).

Low four, so say like $2,000 for a five minute video? Why not list $1,999 for a five minute video on your website? For an open source side project, that's maybe out of reach, for a company, that's peanuts (so they'll readily pay it). Or; how much haggling do you do? It's a very neat product, but how much time do you spend on sales emails to get to a price?

Oh, half the fun is the sales calls. It’s very much something I can delegate off to a person on my team, but this is relatively new and so the volume is not that large yet. I also really enjoy them!

I treat these more as discovery sessions than anything else. It’s also how I’ve landed on the exact pricing points I have - talking to people, especially when early, is a great experience.

There’s also something to be said about showing prices only in calls - people hate it here (or in general), but there is value to showing the price at the end of the call and not at the start. You get to show the thing to the person, get them excited, and then the price point looks a little different.

The trick is tailoring the sales call to the person - if I can convince them that they should keep me around since I provide a good service, they might pay the price.

Also, there are always discounts as the guy above mentioned;)

Re: Ask HN: How do people create those sleek looking demos for startups?

#162

Post by tomgs »

tomgs wrote: post #161
fragmede wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Low four, so say like $2,000 for a five minute video? Why not list $1,999 for a five minute video on your website? For an open source side project, that's maybe out of reach, for a company, that's peanuts (so they'll readily pay it). Or; how much haggling do you do? It's a very neat product, but how much time do you spend on sales emails to get to a price?

Oh, half the fun is the sales calls. It’s very much something I can delegate off to a person on my team, but this is relatively new and so the volume is not that large yet. I also really enjoy them! I treat these more as discovery sessions than anything else. It’s also how I’ve landed on the exact pricing points I have - talking to people, especially when early, is a great experience. There’s also something to be sai…

As an aside, what I normally do is reply to each form submission with a personal video and an overview (albeit a short one) of what I think the project should look like given their demands. I then drop a price and get on a call, if they want to.

Many do! And the ones who don’t still get a taste of how I think like and perhaps want to talk some more about other things - this is a side-business productized service; I mainly contract with technical startup companies to do their GTM.

It’s actually looking like it’d be a pretty decent lead funnel for that too!

Man, going out on my own was a great fucking decision.

Re: Ask HN: How do people create those sleek looking demos for startups?

#163

Post by mlitwiniuk »

Recently I was preparing video for my YC application [1]. I've used RecordOnce[2] and actually it worked pretty great - I've recorded my actions together with voice. It transcribed voice to text and then used text to voice again to render the video. For me, as a non-native speaker, this was really great. And I could edit voice description of my actions post-recording - worked like a breeze. It still rough around the edges, but nonetheless I highly recommend it (for reference - until now I've used Screen Flow for multiple years)

1. https://humadroid.io 2. https://recordonce.com

Re: Ask HN: How do people create those sleek looking demos for startups?

#164

Post by yodon »

jasperstory wrote: post #16

That one is ScreenStudio - it's a great product! I'm a founder at Yarn (YC W24) – we're building in this space and launching on HN soonish. We often see teams combining ScreenStudio with products like iMovie, AfterEffects, or Veed. Other products in the space to check out are Tella.tv, Kite, or Descript. For more advanced motion graphics, you'll often need a freelancer or agency. Feel free to drop me a message (email…

I'm baffled why you'd name your product in a way that conflicts with a heavily used front end tool.

Re: Ask HN: How do people create those sleek looking demos for startups?

#165

Post by ku1ik »

shihanwan1 wrote: post #106

https://asciinema.org/ We use this for really nice terminal only demos. Highly recommend even though there are some minor rendering issues if you are using special fonts.

If you use Nerd Fonts then you can select this on the recording settings page, or globally in your user settings.

Re: Ask HN: How do people create those sleek looking demos for startups?

#167

Post by peteforde »

fragmede wrote: post #159
tomgs wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh definitely low four figures. Can’t imagine doing it for five figures (maybe I should imagine harder) and for less than that it’s just not an interesting pursuit financially for me (given the amount of work required and how much I think my time is worth).

Low four, so say like $2,000 for a five minute video? Why not list $1,999 for a five minute video on your website? For an open source side project, that's maybe out of reach, for a company, that's peanuts (so they'll readily pay it). Or; how much haggling do you do? It's a very neat product, but how much time do you spend on sales emails to get to a price?

Because every project is different.

Because the first person to say a number in a negotiation tends to lose.

Because maybe they aren't selling five minute videos. The point is not ever to create five minutes of video. The point is to clearly explain what a product does, and that process is going to be wildly different depending on whether the product makes any fucking sense. You usually don't know if you're going to be able to work with a client until you talk to them.

If someone is sexy and charming, you'll probably go home with them for free. If someone else is neither sexy nor charming, they better be prepared to put something pretty amazing on the table or you're going to pass.

Re: Ask HN: How do people create those sleek looking demos for startups?

#168

Post by tomgs »

peteforde wrote: post #167
fragmede wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Low four, so say like $2,000 for a five minute video? Why not list $1,999 for a five minute video on your website? For an open source side project, that's maybe out of reach, for a company, that's peanuts (so they'll readily pay it). Or; how much haggling do you do? It's a very neat product, but how much time do you spend on sales emails to get to a price?

Because every project is different. Because the first person to say a number in a negotiation tends to lose. Because maybe they aren't selling five minute videos. The point is not ever to create five minutes of video. The point is to clearly explain what a product does, and that process is going to be wildly different depending on whether the product makes any fucking sense. You usually don't know if you're going to…

Oh, I should have 100% said this instead.

Yeah, yeah, scrap what I said - let's go with Pete.

Re: Ask HN: How do people create those sleek looking demos for startups?

#169

Post by peteforde »

tomgs wrote: post #105
peteforde wrote: post #67

Arcade looks genuinely great, so thanks for posting this question. Several folks have already mentioned that the real value of screen capture tools is to create assets that can be used by a person whose job it is to explain abstract concepts to an audience. I would go so far as to say that if you're a founder, hiring someone who is really good at product videos is something you should 100% outsource even if you're ta…

I actually do that as a service for companies: https://syntaxcinema.dev I think that product tutorials are somewhat of a black art. On the one hand you have: 1. Keeping the flow moving and the video fast-paced and interesting 2. Adding aftereffects and other visual niceties 3. Pointing out the relevant bits with zooms, highlights, etc... But on a deeper level, you also have questions of: 1. Am I using the right sampl…

I love everything about this.

Your site looks great. Your service is very needed.

My only advice is to stop apologizing for not offering pricing on your website, both here and on your website. Seriously: cut it out. Go right now and remove those What you do is the literal best-case scenario for value based pricing. After having read "The Win Without Pitching Manifesto" by Blair Enns, some of the comments on this thread feel like mosquitoes trying to get in between your toes.

If you absolutely must, you can say something that alludes pricing that won't get you fired by your board. However, even that is too much word, because what you do only "costs" money until it either a) launches the company or b) keeps a failed company from having spent way, way more.

Okay, maybe I do have a 2nd suggestion. It's not as urgent: consider morphing the 3/5/7 minute "products" into "products" that reflect the typical reason those lengths work eg. "The Product Video", "The Explainer" and "The Demo". Even in this thread, people get hung up on the length instead of the goal of the outcome.

It's much more useful for all parties to think of them not as lengths, but formats.

TL;DR: stop apologizing, consider doubling what you charge

Post reply on HN