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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

#41

Post by icelancer »

jakecadams wrote: post #31
icelancer wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ETA? I filled out the form and it said it wasn't quite ready for me (Founder).

Hey! this is Jake, Mike's co-founder. We don't currently have a windows app and only support Zoom users. If that's you, you can email me: jake [at] grain [dot] co If not, we will be working on building out support for windows /linux in coming months [we use electron] as well as other VC providers.

Yeah, I am a Windows (mostly) Zoom (always) user for the purposes of Grain. I'd be willing to use iPad Pro / Retina Macbook to test though, looks like something I could really use. I'll email you.

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

#42

Post by chrismorgan »

crazygringo wrote: post #22

The video on their landing page does a vastly better job explaining how it works: https://www.grain.co/ I've got to say, that for meetings big/important enough where you've got someone dedicated to taking notes/minutes, this seems like it could be a really effective and compelling way of sharing meeting highlights/takeaways/fun bits with a broader audience, people who couldn't make it, or for posterity. A serious win…

I love that the automatic transcription shown in that video has errors. It’s realistic, while also showing that enough is accurate that it’s useful.

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

#43

Post by mgadams3 »

perlgeek wrote: post #40
mgadams3 wrote: post #6

Hey HN. I'm Mike co-founder/CEO of Grain. I decided to start Grain b/c I was tired of requesting access to recordings of convos and repeating myself when I could just share the part of a recording instead. Our team built something pretty cool that I honestly didn't see coming when we started. Happy to answer any questions and thanks for the support.

Since you built your product based on another vendor's platform, are you concerned that they might cut off access? Do you have any contingency plans for that?

Cultivating an app ecosystem on their platform is a publicly stated goal of Zoom. Cutting off any start-up building on it would be counter-productive and lead to their competitors gaining the advantage of innovation on their platform instead.

See: https://marketplace.zoom.us/competition

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

#44

Post by arrmn »

Ken_Adler wrote: post #25
edmundsauto wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you talk about the value you've gotten out of doing this? It sounds very interesting, but also fairly effort-intensive. Does it also help you remember meeting takeaways, because you're actively reviewing your recent day or two?

I do it mostly so I don't have to repeat myself. :) I use the clips so that others can gain from the kernals of wisdom those clips provide... without having to commit to some portion of an hour to find the kernal themselves. Saves everyone time and enforces compliance to decisions made ) Also, of course, by manually editing down a deeply technical discussion from an hour to 20 minutes helps me REALLY listen and under…

Do you have any examples of talks that you've edited?

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

#45

Post by mgadams3 »

MichaelApproved wrote: post #37
mgadams3 wrote: post #6

Hey HN. I'm Mike co-founder/CEO of Grain. I decided to start Grain b/c I was tired of requesting access to recordings of convos and repeating myself when I could just share the part of a recording instead. Our team built something pretty cool that I honestly didn't see coming when we started. Happy to answer any questions and thanks for the support.

Are you concerned that zoom will gradually add these features to their core products?

Not really, Zoom has gotten to where they are by focusing on what they're world class at, which is reliable connectivity. I don't see them changing focus on anything but keeping the lead they have that made them so successful. This DNA has always been the core of Zoom since Eric branched out of Cisco.

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

#46

Post by jeltz »

mgadams3 wrote: post #43
perlgeek wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you built your product based on another vendor's platform, are you concerned that they might cut off access? Do you have any contingency plans for that?

Cultivating an app ecosystem on their platform is a publicly stated goal of Zoom. Cutting off any start-up building on it would be counter-productive and lead to their competitors gaining the advantage of innovation on their platform instead. See: https://marketplace.zoom.us/competition

It would not be the first time a company cuts off parts of their app ecosystem. Strava has done so for example.

https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2019/07/strava-relive-cc-app-pla...

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

#47

Post by tiborsaas »

mgadams3 wrote: post #43
perlgeek wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you built your product based on another vendor's platform, are you concerned that they might cut off access? Do you have any contingency plans for that?

Cultivating an app ecosystem on their platform is a publicly stated goal of Zoom. Cutting off any start-up building on it would be counter-productive and lead to their competitors gaining the advantage of innovation on their platform instead. See: https://marketplace.zoom.us/competition

SoundCloud said the same and they turned their back on the developer community.

It probably happened to many other platforms too

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

#48

Post by mgadams3 »

chrismorgan wrote: post #42
crazygringo wrote: post #22

The video on their landing page does a vastly better job explaining how it works: https://www.grain.co/ I've got to say, that for meetings big/important enough where you've got someone dedicated to taking notes/minutes, this seems like it could be a really effective and compelling way of sharing meeting highlights/takeaways/fun bits with a broader audience, people who couldn't make it, or for posterity. A serious win…

I love that the automatic transcription shown in that video has errors. It’s realistic, while also showing that enough is accurate that it’s useful.

Yup, you nailed it.

Our transcription will naturally get better over time but it doesn't have to be perfect b/c it's a means to an end in Grain. (creating/trimming video clips)

Even perfect transcripts are still terrible to read most of the time b/c the dynamic nature of spoken dialogue just doesn't translate well across mediums.

Google "Media Richness Theory" if you want to go down the rabbit hole on this.

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

#50

Post by alentodorov »

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.

Doesn't everything start out like that? How would you define a feature vs. a product? Could an app like Zoom be considered a feature of an OS because of its dependency of the host system to act?
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