Hey all,
Happy Sunday from a flight from Austin to NYC.
I’m leaving before all the SXSW craziness because the next few weeks are going to be insane with work travel. Sad to be missing all my friends who are gonna be in town tho!
Two things are now fundamentally true:
Videos are now cheaper to make than ever before
Videos are now more important for startups to make than ever before
I’m a big believer in the “why now vs. five years ago?” framework when thinking about trends. Video for startups is a perfect example.
Why it’s easier to make now:
The tools are insanely cheap (iPhone + CapCut is enough to start)
If you want strong but simple animations, overseas talent is excellent and instantly reachable
If you want even higher quality animations, there are thousands of freelance editors online (literally search “video editor” on Instagram)
Why it matters more now:
Capital, talent, partnerships, and customers increasingly flow from your brand. Your brand carries status online where your customer spends time: LinkedIn and X for B2B brands or IG and TikTok for consumer brands.
Here are the 5 types of videos startups need to know about & consider making:
UGC
Launch video
Founder-led videos
Product explainer videos
Bonus: Customer videos
1. UGC
What it is: UGC traditionally was an acronym for “user-generated” content. In today’s marketing world, this acronym describes content that brands pay for that looks incredibly organic.
Why is it important: Brands are flooding social media feeds on IG, TikTok, and X with videos that look like they were made by customers or someone who just “heard” of the brand. This comes across incredibly organic, and it can make it seem like your brand is exploding online
Why startups care:
UGC for organic feeds: The price is CHEAP. Under $500 per video, with the lowest-quality forms even going for under $50. If you’re looking for high-volume content and don’t care about how high-quality this looks, the cheaper options work.
B2B & B2C brands: Get a “UGC engineer” and build your UGC program with Sideshift
It’s the cheapest way to produce massive video volume
You can test dozens of hooks, narratives, and angles quickly
When one video hits, it can generate millions of organic impressions
UGC for paid ads: Higher quality than a college student ripping a 30s video in their dorm room. Especially in tech, look at how well-shot the videos in paid ads are now (e.g., check out Claude’s videos on IG)
For context, at KV we charge $300/video and handle everything – scripting, sourcing the creators, editing the videos…. It’s a lot of work, and we only do this with brands that we also do media buying for
2. Launch Videos
What it is:
Fundraise launch video: Announcing a new round with investors
Example: Profound’s Series A announcement video (literally the first thing in their company blog post is the video)
Product launch video: Announcing a major product milestone
Example: a series of features, like beehiiv’s Winter Release Event that showcased 10+ killer features. Tyler + team rented out a studio in NYC, scripted and filmed the entire thing. The bet is to package all the new features into one big, hot release.
Everyone in your network shares a strong launch video: investors, creators, employees, press, even competitors
Why is it important:
Signals your momentum to the world
Why startups care:
Truthfully, it’s the hot thing to do rn. You need to use every opportunity to gain product adoption and these videos are now less expensive than ever to produce.
3. Founder-Led Videos
Really funny to me when founders still say they don’t feel comfortable posting on LinkedIn or making videos. Not sorry for saying this: you need to. If you don’t, someone else in your category will, and they’ll eat your distribution alive.
You are the person driving your product's mission into the world….obviously your customers want to hear from you.
What it is: Videos where the founder talks directly to the internet about the product, the industry, the mission, or what they’re building
Maggie Sellers from Hot Smart Rich started posting all about her VC career a few years back, then spun out this incredible brand, which has exploded over the last year
Prediction: I promise that in one year from now, founders are going to rip more quick 30s content and throw it on X, LI, and TikTok across B2B and B2C
Why is it important: Founders who post videos build massive distribution that compounds over time because the audience forms a direct connection with them
Why startups care:
Founder posts perform better than brand posts in terms of views and trust building.
Example: When we put paid spend behind content on LinkedIn, content that comes from the founder page always outperforms the brand page
Example: Grifin’s top ad for 1+ year is a video of their founder, Aaron, talking about the product casually
Example: The popular fintech app, Grifin’s, top ad for 1+ year is a video of their founder, Aaron, talking about the product casually
Example: Tyler’s digital playbook on how to scale to 100K+ subscribers is a video digital product on beehiiv
Huge trust-building mechanism
If you’re a founder and you’re not posting, someone else in your category is, and they’ll steal the audience.
4. Product Explainer & Tutorial Videos
What it is:
Long form: Longer-form videos that clearly walk through how to use the product, in detail, like a YouTube tutorial
Short form: 30s-45s videos that walk users through doing one thing with your product (why + how)
Why is it important:
Seeing a product in action is far more convincing than hearing someone describe it
We all learn from video tutorials now, so it’s critical that you make them for your software in both B2B and B2C. The fastest product adoption happens when people can actually quickly learn how to use your product.
You can make educational video hubs on YouTube that also have benefits, like boosting SEO and LLM visibility (AEO = answer engine optimization)
Why startups care:
Becomes your permanent product education library
Sales, partnerships, and onboarding teams reuse these constantly
Shows you can simplify your product and make people’s lives easier
A 15-second clip of a product solving a real problem can explain more than a full landing page
Easy for customers to visualize the product in their lives and/or workflow
5. Bonus: Customer Videos
What it is: If your customers aren’t talking about your product, does it even really exist? These videos, where customers show and explain how they use the product + the impact it has on their life, absolutely crush online.
These are typically shorter forms, around ~1 min, but you only need 30s.
Why is it important:
When someone who isn’t on your payroll explains why they use your product, the credibility is fast. It feels real because it is.
The strongest brands show people winning with their product
Why startups care:
Social proof drives adoption
Customers = distribution engines
These videos often outperform traditional ads
Well, How’d I Do?
The cost of making videos has collapsed.
The importance of making them has simultaneously exploded.
Five years ago, startups were sneakier: hiding behind product, distribution hacks, and press. That world is gone.
If your company isn’t producing videos consistently, you’re invisible inside the medium where everyone (including your customers) lives.
The companies winning now understand that attention compounds, and it is necessary to be default-alive.
The internet is now a stage where you can host a 24/7 TV show for your brand. How lucky are you!
Let the tapes roll! I hope you have an excellent and productive week.
Julia
