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Grain, a startup built atop of Zoom for note-taking and video-clip making

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Re: Grain, a startup built atop of Zoom for note-taking and video-clip making

#11

Post by mgadams3 »

edoceo wrote: post #7
imron wrote: post #4

> a startup built atop of... ...a third-party company that can kill your business at any time (see for example what happened with, twitter, facebook etc).

Maybe they shooting for an acquihire play? This thing is more of a Feature than a Product.

Zoom is just where we start (huge distribution channel and the most developed platform). As soon as you build your own WebRTC based thing... you're nuking millions of existing video based workflows you could otherwise tap into to create value. There are several 2-3 year older than us companies that are doing quite well hooking into the data generated from all the VC platforms without providing the VC service themselves.

But yes, this was def the #1 objection of VCs when we raised our seed round. Fortunately we got others to believe that the first move we just launched is just one of many in a strategy sequence. Time will tell.

Re: Grain, a startup built atop of Zoom for note-taking and video-clip making

#13

Post by mgadams3 »

shunicorn wrote: post #10

I think this product is way overdue for how ubiquitous video has become, even pre-social distancing. Scrubbing through lengths of video to find the relevant clip is such a pain. I'm digging the integration features, e.g. slack, imessage I feel like this is one of those tools that will end up being used in ways not initially planned. Meme generation and reaction videos perhaps, lol. Good luck Grain team!

Thanks! We think so too.

We actually spent 9 months building a prior version of Grain that was basically a Google Doc w/ Zoom integration & time stamps. Ultimately, we threw that version away (kill your darlings as they say). People told us that what you described was the bigger problem b/c it was too much work to unlock a stream of recorded video w/ traditional post-hoc video editing tools.

But if it's easy enough to break the best content down into just the good parts that live on their own, independent of the parent recording file... well that unlocks some interesting things you can do to combine those blocks and share them in feeds w/ teams.

But it all comes down the the quality of the content you make with the tool. So that's where we're focused first.

Re: Grain, a startup built atop of Zoom for note-taking and video-clip making

#14

Post by bobbyz »

mgadams3 wrote: post #8
imron wrote: post #4

> a startup built atop of... ...a third-party company that can kill your business at any time (see for example what happened with, twitter, facebook etc).

Like anything in start-ups it's a calculated risk. Zoom's app marketplace is designed to facilitate start-ups like ours as they move to become a platform. See https://marketplace.zoom.us/competition . One of the partners behind it told me they had 600 applications so at the very least there are dozens of us! Dozens!

Haha maybe even a baker's dozen

Re: Grain, a startup built atop of Zoom for note-taking and video-clip making

#15

Post by mgadams3 »

jaimex2 wrote: post #12

I wouldn't be spruiking 'built atop of' a product being banned by so many companies and schools. If anything you should be pivoting to support as many of the other popular video conferencing apps out there.

I've been building apps on Zoom for 5 years (3 years building private apps for Zoom based schools) and I'm grateful for the recent news helping Zoom to prioritize critical things that Eric said himself that they should have prioritized a long time ago.

The concerns are 100% valid, I'm glad to see them finally surfaced and addressed. I still like our odds w/ Zoom relative to WebRTC, their team is a proven mammoth. My son was on a Zoom call for school this morning... likely some PR relativity of the past week.

It's a two horse race at this point Zoom or WebRTC. Most start ups choose to build on WebRTC and focus on new workflows, we chose to build on Zoom to add the most meaningful leverage we could think of (data utility) to existing workflows.

Re: Grain, a startup built atop of Zoom for note-taking and video-clip making

#16

Post by mgadams3 »

bobbyz wrote: post #14
mgadams3 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like anything in start-ups it's a calculated risk. Zoom's app marketplace is designed to facilitate start-ups like ours as they move to become a platform. See https://marketplace.zoom.us/competition . One of the partners behind it told me they had 600 applications so at the very least there are dozens of us! Dozens!

Haha maybe even a baker's dozen

We never nudes need to stick together! ;)

But seriously... if anyone else here is building on Zoom's platform hit me up. I'm looking to build more community in the Zoom App ecosystem.

Re: Grain, a startup built atop of Zoom for note-taking and video-clip making

#18

Post by mgadams3 »

chirau wrote: post #9

Is this a feature or a product? How about 9 months from now? There is a genuine concern with startups built "atop of" another product. There is a thin line between alive and dead in that space. Twitter devs can tell you a thing or two about it. Hopefully this is a catapult or an entry point. All the best, regardless.

Thanks for the well wishes skeptical but kind stranger!

No doubt we're aware of the analogs and risks. Have spent a collective month in Zoom calls with other platform founders to understand the risks but feeling really good about Zoom as a GTM platform partner. Have mentioned in other threads but there's long-sequence of strategic moves at play and this is the first of them.

Re: Grain, a startup built atop of Zoom for note-taking and video-clip making

#20

Post by eloff »

jaimex2 wrote: post #12

I wouldn't be spruiking 'built atop of' a product being banned by so many companies and schools. If anything you should be pivoting to support as many of the other popular video conferencing apps out there.

You'd be surprised that the adoption trajectory of zoom has only increased of late. The cases you talk about are the exception to the rule.
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