- Duration: 35 min
- Platform: zoom
- Source: Read.ai 01JEBZKGZPSQ7QDT9MXRQPNNGR (https://app.read.ai/analytics/meetings/01JEBZKGZPSQ7QDT9MXRQPNNGR)
Transcript
[UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Hey. Yo, what’s up? [Ben Ornstein]: Not much. What’s going on? [Michael Houck]: Not much kind of hectic day. Um, my, my wife scheduled an exterminator to come during the same time that we were supposed to have the podcast recording with Luke. And so I had to push that, um, and moving all our stuff around for the exterminator. So, um, yeah, it’s a little hectic. [Ben Ornstein]: Gotta do what you gotta do, get those bugs out of there. [Michael Houck]: Yeah, there were a couple. Anyway, how are you guys? Good. Okay, so this is about video stuff. Ben, I’ll kick it to you to start. Basically, let’s just talk about what we’ve got, what we’re thinking for this first long form video. And then at the end, I think Max has a couple ideas for more as we talk about those. [Ben Ornstein]: OK. I will share my screen. So I kicked it off with what we had discussed on. Yeah, well, we discussed yesterday with the like, OK, comparing the so I didn’t really have time to kind of switch up kind of what we were, what I was thinking about. But so how I broke it down was the two inspiration videos, the one that Max found and then that new one that I found, which I agree is very different and a different approach, but the same general content. Each of them had like different categories and they went through a similar story, of course, because the same thing. Talking about, you know, fundraise, startup fundraising, the entire journey. And so how I kind of broke it down was between how they were different, what was actually involved in each one of these little sections, and then potential additions for what we could do that like they potentially missed. That’s how I thought about it. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yeah. [Michael Houck]: Yeah, makes sense. I think that the content is similar. I think that the videos themselves are pretty different. Um, so yeah, let’s see what we, let’s see what we got. [Ben Ornstein]: Okay. So, um, I, I mean, I could go down through the, you know, each little section. Um, but I know you hate your toggles. I’m obsessed with these things. I just, I, I really enjoy them. It puts everything concise, but I’ll, by the time it gets past, I’ll remove it. Um, But so, yeah, I mean, they started, I agree that the new inspiration video, the Slidebean one was slow. It took a long time to get to, and I totally agree with what you said, it took so long to get into the actual content that entrepreneurs actually care about. So, yeah. [Michael Houck]: To your point, you had called out a couple of comments on the video were about like, like even bootstrapping. I think it’s because he made that comparison at the beginning and sort of spent a lot of time on that. It sort of made people want that with people who stuck around. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yeah. [Ben Ornstein]: Which there was an opportunity if he were to do that and the other video was already created and then he could link to it, but that was not the case, so he blew that opportunity. I agree with so. So the thing that the old video did so well is it went right to the point it got. It said, all right, you have an idea. Here you go. You’re excited, and then you need fluff, no extra fluff. It went straight into, okay, so what do you actually do when you go from the idea into the actual, okay, what’s the next step? And so that’s, I think we should do a very similar approach, but like obviously more modern, some nice B-rolls, some nice… [Michael Houck]: Yeah, not just stylistically, but there were a lot of moments when I was watching I think this was true in both, but especially in the older one, there were a lot of moments where I was like, you know, that’s like a wrong perspective. Like that’s like a perspective someone who isn’t necessarily a founder would have about what being a founder is like in this case. So yeah, I think we can probably, you know, create something a lot better. [Ben Ornstein]: Yeah. The old video stayed in general on just more on in general, more high level, which I think is the right approach. The problem with this stuff is a lot of it’s so general and you can go very deep on everything. But I think what’s so great about that first video, the old video, was that it was relatively high level as opposed to some of the topics in the newer video, in the Slidebean one. But it was still very effective. Yeah. I mean, I think they just go into some detail though, right? [Michael Houck]: Like they broke down like, here’s what happens when you issue more shares to new investors and all that. Right. Like they had those visuals. The main thing is that they just had one question they were answering and it was explaining fundraising. It wasn’t explaining every little topic within fundraising. Right. And so I think it was approachable and also they kept it narrative driven. And so going off one of the little tangents about little details would have kind of taken you out of that core narrative. And I think they were good at kind of staying true to that. [Ben Ornstein]: Right. And it was interesting what they chose to go deeper on, like the venture math, like the valuation math. They went deeper on that one, whereas the newer one didn’t do that. The other one that the first one did was it added like some subtle humor, which I think that little comedic relief, very subtle, not like anything. This obviously isn’t humor, right? This isn’t like a comedy scene here, but I think they did very well with like the little subtle comments. Like they had an actor that, I forget his name, was like, what’s an IPO? And he goes, don’t be like him. It’s very simple. Yeah. Oh, I like the little movie clip. Or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I don’t know if that’s our style at all, but, um, I just thought it was interesting cause the new one was very serious compared to that. [Michael Houck]: What do you think about like the biggest stylistic difference between the two videos is that the older one is animated and the newer one is this guy putting a camera in like a rented out conference room in different places and like getting really close to the camera like this and then talking like, having him on screen versus having been totally animated and having to deal with the various shots like we could do that. I could rent out a space or I could just do my apartment. But do we feel like that kind of is a good thing for constant topic like this? [Ben Ornstein]: Or do we feel like it would detract from it? It might be distracted like it. It might be better to just. I think it was more effective. The older video in terms of just getting the point across. And it’ll be easier for us to actually create, I think. Well, I don’t know. I don’t know. I guess it would depend on the editing, like how much editing we’ll have to do or clipping we’ll have to do, I guess. Yeah. [Michael Houck]: It sounds like it could be easier, but it also could be harder because with the clip wing, we might need to give them more direction, have more back and forth. So there’s a possibility that it’s actually more complicated do it that way. [Max]: Max, what do you think on this style for the video? I haven’t watched the full thing of both those, so I don’t think I have the best opinion. Yeah, I’m not sure if I have a great opinion to be honest. [Michael Houck]: OK. I think I lean more towards. The I mean, it’s tough. I lean more towards the animated one for this topic. But at the same time, we do want to establish a channel and have it be like a personality driven channel, not just like a educational channel. So I can see it both ways. I don’t know. [Max]: I don’t have a good I do think you need to be in every video. Yeah, I think showing face is always helpful for any type of content, like Twitter accounts that have the face of someone in the their like always performs better. Thumbnails with somebody’s face always performs better. So, yeah, I do think we should have you in these videos to make it more of an active video. Rather than just a series of animations. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yeah. [Max]: Maybe we can bring the animations into it. [Michael Houck]: But we don’t need to have it be the sort of hyperrealism that the Slidebean video did, where he would put LEGO blocks on the table and then have the camera above it, and then draw in the editing room around the LEGO blocks and add words to it. That’s a lot of production time. Just to film it. So maybe we just do where I’m just sitting at my desk and We have a lot of these like other animations and screens and we send people to, but I’m still doing the video recording and they could splice me in as as needed. [Ben Ornstein]: Yeah, yeah, definitely a hybrid that that can work. Especially when when there is, you know the the camp, the picture of you there like just behind me like there’s so much space that we can use, even while the camera is just panning on you. [Michael Houck]: Yeah, I mean, we would I would do it on my couch. I would do it, you know, over here. No, I know the normal spot. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, there’s a lot of room to they already do this and like the outros and the intros of the podcast, so they could do that. OK. Ben, as you were going through this, are there any, like, any things that we should talk through in terms of structure of the video, anything like that? Or is it more so just, I just need to go through this now and, you know, make notes and then write the script? [Ben Ornstein]: Honestly, I think it’s going through what both of these videos had. I kind of just, I highlighted like what, what’s in each little section. You know, the differences and then things that they didn’t cover. We could go over that really quick. Yeah, there are. There were opportunities and again we. I think we want to stay relatively high level given that this is going to be a 8 to 12 minute video or something like that. So we can’t. We can’t go too deep on things, but there were a lot that was missed. So I was thinking about like like syndicates is, for example, syndicate funds like there’s there’s so many types of investors that people can go to. I don’t know how deep we want to go on any of these things, but the strategy behind fundraising, none of that was covered in either of those videos. We’re just like, okay, leverage, how much funding should I have in the bank? How much time should you go from one fundraising round to the next? Market conditions, when do you want to go? And then FOMO, like we ask about in every case study. Um, leverage, same thing, utilizing FOMO and leverage, same kind of thing. Um, there’s an opportunity there. Um, and then like when you actually receive a term sheet, okay, you don’t just get the term sheet and then you get the money. It’s like, there’s a whole process between there. Um, so I don’t know how deep we want to go in between like negotiation, um, interacting with existing investors. Like there’s, there’s an endless amount to, to go through. One of the things that was a big difference between those two videos is the old video started at seed. They didn’t even talk about pre-seed because pre-seed back then. [Michael Houck]: Yeah, it’s just because back then there weren’t really that many pre-seed rounds. You either took friends and family capital and then raised the seed or basically just went right to seed. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Right. [Ben Ornstein]: I bring that up because that was a change over the last 10 years. That was one of those things. Safe was a change. Um, a very common, a very common, you know, vehicle same with convertible notes. Um, do we want to go into those at all? I have no idea, but, um, that that’s something that changed. Uh, and then the whole due diligence phase completely missed or just wasn’t covered there either. Um, in terms of like, all right, what do you do with your data room? Um, how do you effectively create that? What are investors looking for? Um, and then the slide being video talked about the pitch, but, and the other one did not talk about the pitch at all. Um, or the pitch deck. Um, do we want to include things about the deck or the actual pitch to investors? So, and then what happens after the funding? Yeah. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yeah. [Michael Houck]: I think that as I’m going, as you’re going through these, um, a lot of these are things that we can touch on, but we probably want to also use visual elements to sort of make the case or like, like share the information. So like example would be like you mentioned pitch decks, like what to include, right? I don’t need to say all 10 different slides or whatever that you should include. I can very concisely say like one or two sentences about, and then you’ll prepare your pitch deck or whatever. And it’s, you know, include some things and those things will show up on the screen. Next to me in like a column. It’s going to be because you’re right. The main challenge with this script is going to be keeping it concise enough where it doesn’t become a 20 or 30, 40 minute video. [Ben Ornstein]: Which is how like the research for this became very difficult because it was like, there are so many things that I could research. I could find data points about 20 about each one of just these. So I think to make this really effective, and what the old video did extremely well, was the whole narrative piece. It broke it down so well, it told it from beginning to end, and it kept you along the ride as like a story. That’s what I think we should go for. I think that goes for really all of our videos. I mean, if you can tell a story, that’s what people are interested in. Like the framework for it. [Michael Houck]: Yeah. And I think that’s why when you look at the, the original inspo video, I mean, it’s crazy to think that’s when you look at it, that’s why it has 3.6 million views and the other one has 26,000 views. Right. So yeah, narrative structure for sure. Heavy on animations, but featuring me super concise script, um, where we’re just telling the story and then utilizing visual elements around me. Um, and yeah, I think highlighting the things that are different. Um, I w I would argue that there’s more, more pieces to the process than there were 10 years ago also, but we still should keep the video in that like, you know, maybe like nine to 14 minute range. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yeah. [Ben Ornstein]: They’re like, there’s so much we could include. So That can, and you’re really good at making things that are complex, concise, and that’s why I think we’re gonna make this, I think we’re gonna make a really good video here. [Michael Houck]: It’s just figuring out which parts are the most important, I guess. Okay, so here’s what I’ll do. I’m going to write an outline for the script either tomorrow or over the weekend, and then I’ll probably ping you to do some research on specific data points and I’ll probably just send it to both you guys and if there’s anything that you think is missing or that we could go a little deeper on or that we shouldn’t go as deep on, just let me know and then I’ll aim to record first half of next week. Alternatively, we actually don’t need to record right away because we’re not starting to do editing for these until of January so we could just write a few of the scripts and get like that backlog of scripts and I could have like a big recording day where I just record all of them in a batch. [Ben Ornstein]: It might be easier. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: It might be more effective, yeah. [Michael Houck]: Yeah. Okay, so we’ll get the script done. We’ll get edits on the script done and then in the meantime, Ben, you should start moving on to the second video. Um, which I think we said was, what was it going to be? [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Um, oh yeah. [Michael Houck]: The entire history of Silicon Valley. [Ben Ornstein]: Yep. Okay. Cool. [Michael Houck]: Can you share this doc with me too? [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yes. [Ben Ornstein]: And actually it goes into one of the other linear tasks, um, which is like the content tracker table kind of thing. Yes. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yep. [Ben Ornstein]: Yep. So I’ll share that in the chat right now. So this is what I started. So this is how I structured that content tracker. Maybe I’ll just share my screen. [Michael Houck]: Yeah, just share your screen. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: So relatively basic for now, I’m sure there are things we can add to it. [Ben Ornstein]: But just like the actual content name, there’s like the different, I know one of them, like the deep dive, how to pick who should be the CEO, long form. We could also add things like all the podcast stuff in here if we wanted. Be helpful I don’t I don’t know if that would be. [Michael Houck]: What do you mean all the podcast stuff. [Ben Ornstein]: Like this this is the I was thinking of like this could be the content tracker for all of the content everything that we do. [Michael Houck]: Oh I see what you’re saying like the podcast we have a separate podcast CRM we could bring that in here too. [Ben Ornstein]: Yeah maybe we could but for now I didn’t do that really just like for the short form videos the long form videos the deep dives just the different statuses of where they are. And like, since we’re doing it by week, especially when it comes to the deep dives, I included the week, but I didn’t wanna overcomplicate this in case we wanted to completely change this. [Michael Houck]: Yeah, I think, do you think that this deserves its own notion doc, or do you think we should just do this in linear where we’re already tracking like the individual tasks of each video? [Ben Ornstein]: Yeah, I mean, However, whatever process would be easier for you, I can adjust to either. [Michael Houck]: Like when you click into that, is that the doc you were just sharing? [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. [Michael Houck]: Yeah. Let me think about it. Um, you can, you can leave it here for now and keep doing it here. Maybe we’ll, maybe we’ll consolidate, um, as we sort of get in the groove. Um, this is a new muscle for us. [Ben Ornstein]: So we’re, we’re learning as we go. [Michael Houck]: Sound good. Um, okay. Max. What else we got on new topics? [Max]: Yeah, so I found a few videos. You want me to send you a link? [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yeah, just drop it in the zoom chat. [Max]: Okay, this is the first one. And I think we could do a good video on this same topic. This video is 32 minutes long. I think we could compress the best parts of it and add our own opinions and take on it and put it into a 12 minute video. And it’s one of YC’s best performing videos. It’s people people love startup ideas because it Makes them think they’re actually going to start a startup. This is like the 8th best, 9th, 10th best performing video on their channel. [Michael Houck]: It’s actually the if you take out like the huge name people like, yeah, it’s actually the third best. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Right. Oh. [Max]: That’s a good one. So I think we could, I think we could do that and yeah, how to get an evaluate startup ideas. Um, and we could even bring in a few ideas of our own or we could leave that for another video, which I also found, um, actually probably flag here. [Michael Houck]: Um, if you look at the rest of the popular videos on their channel and again, taking out the Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Peter Thiel interviews. This one is number three, and then the same video, but with a different Y Combinator partner doing it from five years ago instead of two years ago, is the number five. So this idea definitely resonates. They have two outlier videos with it. [Max]: Okay, I’m trying to find that. [Michael Houck]: Here, I’ll grab the- How far did you scroll down when you hit I didn’t. [Ben Ornstein]: It’s on the row right below it. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yeah. [Max]: Oh, how do they start up ideas? Yeah. Yeah. So great. It’s a great idea. Then we should just spin it off and shorten it and it’ll do well. [Michael Houck]: And there’s also the same thing right next to it. The two different Michael Houck, how to make an MVP videos. Same exact deal. Older version and then newer Gary Tan produced version. [Max]: Yeah. I mean, that’s that’s another topic. That we’ve, I believe we’ve written a deep dive on that already, if not touched on it multiple times. So yeah, those are two easy ideas we could execute. Awesome. [Michael Houck]: I feel like just copying these YC ones that were like, okay, like that’s a great framework. Yeah. [Max]: And just shortening them because like most people don’t want to Yeah. [Michael Houck]: And we can also make it more like their videos are very educational, right? [Max]: And luxury. Yeah. [Michael Houck]: It’s, it’s Michael Houck or whoever sitting at a table and just telling you to listen to them and to learn from them. Right. Right. [Max]: We can make something a lot more engaging and fun. Yeah. Um, OK, and then this one. Is it Greg Eisenberg video? This is just a month ago, but it is performed. Pretty well, let me go on this one killed. I remember this. [Ben Ornstein]: Any video with Cody Schneider has done extremely well. [Michael Houck]: Yeah, I feel like Greg is like riding the coattails of Cody’s startup idea, So yeah, I mean his whole shtick is startup ideas. [Max]: Who, Cody? Greg, like look at his channel. Subscribe for startup ideas. Find the startup ideas pod on Spotify and Apple. It’s like kind of a… [Michael Houck]: What’s that? That’s one of my most listened to podcasts. Pretty good. [Max]: Yeah, it’s kind of a Age My First Million. [Ben Ornstein]: That’s where it started from Really? The idea came from he noticed in the My First Million episodes that that was a section of the podcast. That was one of the reasons he started this. Yeah. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yeah. [Michael Houck]: He doesn’t just do that, though. Like, it’s called the Startup Ideas podcast, but he like he’s also had the live coding sessions with the guys. And other stuff too. So he’s very good at finding like the of the moment interesting topic and turning something around with it quickly. But they’re also not like YouTube videos, right? It’s just, he’s very good at doing podcast episodes on like hot trending ideas basically. So what would you, What’s the idea with the seven startup ideas? [Max]: With this one is we can just do the same thing. Like we can do seven or 10 startup ideas you can launch tomorrow and literally just pull them from the two minute Tuesday send, pull the best ones we’ve had over the past three, four months and then we kind of already have the script written out, because you already wrote about it. Again, just repurposing our existing content. [Michael Houck]: I think we’re still not doing enough of that. Yeah, we’re definitely not. We’re definitely not. I want to get better about that with the shorts. But this is a great use for these. We could definitely make this, again, not like a conversation. They probably ramble, and they probably go off. We could make it scripted. Produced we could make it feel just like more concise and more focused on the idea. [Max]: Yeah and then my last one it would basically be a follow-up to kind of like a sequel to the Startup Funding Explained video and it touches on a lot of stuff Ben that you had just had in that Notion doc. But this one did well for this channel. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Startup contracts explain. [Michael Houck]: And it’s their startup contracts. [Max]: It talks about dilution. It talks about the different contracts. Founders sign when they’re with investors and with each other. And it’s their sixth best best video and their second best uh related to startups oh yeah I see that I see that I mean we could literally take one of the ideas talked about in their original video and make [Ben Ornstein]: 10 separate videos based on because like they just cover the the surface level of like we could we could do. [Michael Houck]: Yeah, we could. I mean, we wouldn’t want to though, because again, that would be good for our core audience, but not the casual new. [Ben Ornstein]: I keep forgetting that. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yeah. [Michael Houck]: Yeah, no, I have the same impulse. Like, let me make the most, like in the weeds startup content on YouTube. But it’s, it’s a, it’s a path to low viewership, I think. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yeah. [Michael Houck]: Yeah, I mean, we can throw this one in the backlog too. I think the first two are more exciting to me in the short term. Yeah, I agree. But yeah, I think we should definitely do both of those, maybe even this month. Cool. Cool. Okay. Sounds good. Okay, so Ben, I guess on your side, can you get started on the entire history of Silicon Valley? And basically with that one, we literally just want to go back to why did Silicon Valley start? How did it start? When was the introduction of venture capital? How has that changed? Has anything changed geographically? Has anything changed in terms of its impact on the local city and everything, cities? Just what’s the progression and where is it heading, the whole history? [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yes. [Michael Houck]: And you can use the, I would recommend obviously using the John Coogan one as a starting point, but also watch a couple other of the, like if you just Google the entire history or search on YouTube for the entire history of X, I guess, like you’ll get other good ones. You can just see how these types of videos are structured, just in like pattern matching. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yep. [Ben Ornstein]: And then the other thing was you asked for the how to pick who should be the CEO. You kind of just asked to do like bullet points. Yes. [Michael Houck]: So I have that as well. [Ben Ornstein]: We can go over that now or… No, just send that to me. [Michael Houck]: I’m going to write the deep dive tonight. And if I have any questions before that, I’ll shoot you a note. But the idea would be I’d write a draft tonight. You’d add in any research or additions that make sense tomorrow, and then we’d publish Okay, I so I won’t be around tomorrow. Just to let you know. Oh, right. I forgot. I forgot. [Ben Ornstein]: That’s why that’s why this week has been so crazy. Because I’ve been trying to fit everything into four days. [Michael Houck]: Yeah, that’s fine. Okay, well, if that’s the case, no worries. I probably won’t have a chance to take a look at it till tonight anyway. So I’m just gonna write it tonight. Or I guess we’re not gonna be here tomorrow. Might as well just wait till tomorrow to write it. And I can add something then. Sounds good.