In One Year, We Launched A Video Hosting Platform & Hit $10K MRR

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Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?

Hey guys! My Name is Ankur Singh and I am the co-founder and CEO of Vadootv.

Vadootv is a video hosting and marketing platform for creators and small businesses to grow their reach using videos.

We allow users to record, upload, manage and share your videos on your website or blogs using our embed code or share videos using our landing page, email, or on social media.

It is an alternative to Vimeo and Wistia.

Features:

• Video Hosting
• Video Player
• Video Landing pages
• Screen Recording
• Podcast Hosting
• Video Security & more

We have onboarded 15,000+(free and paid) creators, SMBs, and brands around the world who are using our platform to scale the business online using videos.

We’ve made $300k in revenue with one-time license sales and our monthly recurring revenue is $15,000+.

What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?

We launched the company in 2020 when I met my co-founder Anil and started discussing issues faced , as we saw rapid adoption of videos in content and communication online because covid19 had accelerated this pace of digitization and consumption of videos.

Growing consumption of video online has posed challenges like latency for users and bandwidth cost for companies. We wanted to solve them using Peer Peer streaming and compression as mobile devices are primary consumers of videos and can be used to view and distribute content at the same time and are powerful enough to run a compression algorithm.

We rolled out an SDK for developers on GitHub and we got 50k MAUs to use our SDK to stream videos. Within a couple of months of talking to our customers, we realized our early adopters wanted a complete video hosting platform rather than an optimization solution. We pivoted to a video hosting and marketing platform.

Take us through the process of building the MVP.

We built out our MVP in 45 days. 2 developers worked on the initial version of the product that was built using HTML Bootstrap for the frontend and Python framework as a backend running on AWS cloud servers.

We ideate and prototype using Figma, Trello, and google forms. We did a combination of research. competitor analysis and user feedback with early adopters to come up with initial features and design.

We compared features, ease of use & UI/UX of the products available in the market and decided on the most important features with simple & easy to use interfaces with fewer clicks to perform an action.

We have an open roadmap and allow our users to vote and we take up features-based user feedback.

Describe the process of launching the business.

We launched our MVP in 45 days.

Facebook Group

We created a Facebook group for early adopters for feedback and iteration on our MVP.

It has now grown to 3.2k and users ask queries, give feedback, and suggest features and we communicate the latest updates on the product.

AppSumo

We launched our first version on Appsumo in April 2021 and got 4,000+ paying customers for our one-time license within 2 months of launch.

Tips for a successful launch

• Zero down on the value you provide with your marketing pitch

• Create a FB group for feedback from users

• Round the clock support for the initial surge of users

• Nudge users to review your product on Appsumo

Affiliate & Word Of Mouth

We worked with affiliates(Youtubers, tech bloggers and micro saas builders) and early customers to grow our monthly revenue to $10,000 purely through affiliates and word of mouth.

Although we did expect a quick adoption of video as the primary source of content and communication, remote work has pushed ahead of the adoption by at least 5-7 years.

We were part of an accelerator called EF and have raised $55,000 but we have remained profitable and never had to use the funding but have scaled like a high growth startup growing more than 30% m.o.m.

Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?

We have always been close to our customers using the FB group and email updates and rolling out new features to power users in our email list. We increase the rollout to a larger percentage of users based on the feedback from these power users.

While building a great product and an organization to support it, you need to learn fast from your failures and iterate to secure wins.

We have created a loop of feedback and iteration based on feedback from our power users on our email list and FB group and it has helped to improve our product fast and has also allowed us to gain the trust of our users. The users have spread positive word of mouth and have come on board as affiliates to drive more paying customers for us.

How are you doing today and what does the future look like?

We are profitable and growing fast month on month. We are innovating in terms of live videos, online events, and ultra low latency video delivery to make videos and interactions as close as possible to real life.

Covid19 has accelerated the pace of digitization and consumption of videos online. We as a company would like to enable the consumption of videos online and provide tools to help creators and businesses have direct relationships with their users.

Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?

We believe perseverance and responsiveness are key for your growth as a company in the early days. While building a great product and an organization to support it, you need to learn fast from your failures and iterate to secure wins.

" Build, release, fail & iterate. You will grow 10x by applying this algorithm rather than trying to analyze and perfect your product”.

Building distribution before features is key to growth and scale in the competitive internet landscape. We need to find ways to acquire users before building additional features as finding the distribution rationalizes the need and value of building a new feature.

What platform/tools do you use for your business?

Tools we love using;

• Trello for product management
• Canva for design
• Webflow for landing page and blog
• Ahrefs for SEO
• Stripe for payments
• Crisp for support

What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?

Thinking Fast and Slow was the most intellectually rewarding non-fiction book that has helped me with decision-making and rationalizing my thoughts and outlook.

Another book that I enjoyed reading recently was Seven Brief Lessons on Physics. It helped me understand basic concepts of physics effortlessly in an enjoyable manner.

I listen to Acquired, a podcast which talks about the greatest companies, IPOs, and acquisition, and another podcast called Farnam Street which gives us insights on mental models and helps us learn by experiences of others.

Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?

My top recommendation for early startups and entrepreneurs would be to build, release, fail & iterate. You will grow 10x by applying this algorithm rather than trying to analyze and perfect your product.

Where can we go to learn more?

• Website
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Email

If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!

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