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

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

#151
post #48

Hi everyone! I'm the CEO of Arcade (who a few people have already mentioned...thanks!). +1 to that being ScreenStudio. Sometimes people import ScreenStudio videos into Arcade to add branching, annotations, and get analytics about who is engaging with the tool. We're about to announce a big release on May 17th which will be very relevant - we're going to show how you can capture beyond the browser and get even more po…

Thanks for featuring Intercom in your site :-)

Hello Des, I recently watched the intercom video series that kicked off about AI. I thought it was absolutely terrific! Great production and content.

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

#153
post #148
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Place your recordings on a 3D device like a phone or laptop What does this mean?

I'm guessing they mean overlaying the screen recording on top of a 3D render of a phone or laptop to show them being used "on device" instead of just as a flat screen recording.

Yep, exactly that! You can show the recording on the screen of a phone, laptop, monitor etc to add more context than just a plain recording

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

#154
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

still, give me a ballpark for pricing. is this a $50 thing, $500, or $5,000? how many videos so I get for $50,000? that looks super neat and I'd love to do those for people. if there was a way to get those kinds of jobs, one-off, I'd give it a try. RIP taskrabbit.

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).

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

#155

I've used Keynote to add some basic 'special effects' to videos. It's not super fancy, but you can do quite with just iMovie + Keynote! [1] 1: https://medium.com/hackernoon/adding-visual-effects-to-your-...

Really great article! I'm definitely going to use that in the future. Thanks for sharing.

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

#156
I'm trying to do this exact thing, but I want it to be in vertical video format for Instagram Reels. Do any of these software allow you to record screen captures so it will fit nicely in a vertical vid? i.e. not a horizontal video with black bars and below

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

#157

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…

ScreenStudio is really good, I use it for all of my capture. Main feature I find missing is ability to reorder or combine multiple recordings into one clip, or add audio from within the app.

You can do that with ScreenRun (which I developed) https://screenrun.app/

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

#158
post #77

Others mentioned ScreenStudio (which is awesome), but if you don't need all of its features (or can't afford it at the moment), I've found ScreenRun to be a great alternative: https://screenrun.app/ It's browser-based, but there's a Mac (and Windows I think) companion app that records the screen with click-tracking for zooming (as it's not possible with browser screen sharing just yet). It's somehow limited compared…

Thanks happy you like it. Send us feedback for new ideas

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

#159
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

still, give me a ballpark for pricing. is this a $50 thing, $500, or $5,000? how many videos so I get for $50,000? that looks super neat and I'd love to do those for people. if there was a way to get those kinds of jobs, one-off, I'd give it a try. RIP taskrabbit.

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?

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

#160

Side note, but I see two YC-backed startups mentioning themselves in this thread: Yarn - Make Videos Like The Best (W24) https://yarn.so Kite - Product Videos Made Easy (S23) https://kite.video It's sort of crazy YC is backing so many hundreds of companies that there's this level of overlap. I assume one pivoted into this? Still, crazy to imagine all the YC companies competing with each-other these days. I've even se…

Value isn’t zero sum, or more accurately, most spaces are not winner take all so there is room for multiple great companies to be built. Every company I’ve ever started, I even make a point of reaching out to the competitors in my space to meet the founders. These frienemies are often some of the most fun people to compare notes with. We generally don’t share everything but enough for the conversations to be productive.
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