Advice to the Online Video Community--
During the interview with the wizard of web video, Yaron Samid, he had some great advice for the online video community. It has been arranged into 7 Tips.
Online video producers, independent filmmakers, programmers and entrepreneurs, listen up! Pennyreel presents . . . Yaron Samid.
Tip 1: Give Back.
I believe in giving back as a principle of not only your life but [also] your business. If you are in the process of helping others you’re going to make money. Make that the filter of everything you do and it guides you in the right direction. [See the full post on Yaron Giving Back]
Tip 2: Get a Mentor
A lot of budding entrepreneurs simply don't have the experience that, now after 12 years of doing this on my own, I have learned the hard knocks way. As a budding entrepreneur you really need some mentorship, from some fellow serial entrepreneurs who have done it before. [They] can tell you here's step A, B, C, D and, by the way, it might be mundane stuff you should do, but there is a checklist of stuff [you need to complete] in order to move forward.
Most start-ups fail early on because most entrepreneurs can't get the first steps under their belt. A lot of that has to do with who you know that can mentor you. I faced that [problem], as a budding entrepreneur.
Tip 3: Pick the Right People
[Picking the right people] is probably the most important decision you will make as an entrepreneur. Who are your partners? In other words, [. . .] your cofounders. It is single handedly the most critical factor that will dictate whether you make it, or break it. Are you going to work well with these people? Can you navigate all the different dynamics that come down the road? Your business plan will change, your idea will change, the market will change and that you have the right team that can navigate that appropriately, is the most important thing to success of a start-up.
The good investors know that, and they invest in teams, they don't invest in ideas.
Tip 4: Don't Worry About the Money
Its very difficult to sell subscription content online as an independent producer, its almost impossible. So you're really limited to advertising and even that is difficult because you need a critical mass of viewers in order to even start selling any ads. You can put some Google Adwords on your site, but that’s not going to generate a lot of revenue until you get some traffic. The big money is in "in-stream video advertising" or "brought to you by" sponsored content, but that’s very hard to get.
The way you get that is, first of all, not worrying about it, first of all, focus on your content. Make great content for a high value audience [ . . .] advertisers care about your viewers, they don't so much care about your content. They want to sell their product and they want to sell their product to the type of audience that buys their product.
I would not focus on trying to sell your content whatsoever. If you are in the independent video content online, you're not going to make money selling it, its pretty much the standard today that content is free online. Focus on building great content for a high value viewer and you will be able to sell advertising when you get critical mass.
Tip 5: Wait to Get Funding
The whole venture capital market is fundamentally broken. I'm actually trying to do something about that in my latest venture but we won't talk about that today.
I made quite a few mistakes in the past, going way too early to investors, trusting people that they would take care of my interests . . .when really, its a business, right? Investors are going to try to get a return on their investment. From my own personal experience, I can tell you that one of the critical mistakes is going a little bit too early to the investors. You have to get it self-funded to the point where it has more concrete value [to investors and you can] keep more control in [your] pocket.
Sometimes you can't get away with doing it any other way because you don't have any money and your living on ramen noodles [. . .] so you got to take money wherever you can.
Tip 6: Promote Yourself
I would say that is critical for distribution to be a part of the communities where your audiences are hanging out online. You should definitely be blogging, you should be commenting on other people's blogs, you should have a Facebook page, you should have a Myspace page, [and] you should be in every social network expanding your social graph as far as you can. You are now part of a community; you’re not just trying to manipulate people to watch your content, but rather your offering some cool content into a community.
You have to be a certain type of person to be OK with [self promotion], but it is very important to grow the overall exposure to what you do. It is to grow the exposure of who you are. You definitely have to be out there selling yourself as a content producer because that’s really part of your business. Your putting something out there that's part of yourself. . . a self-expression. . . art that you create. The more people can go beyond the facade of just the content and see the actual producer and know a little bit about them, the more it becomes an emotional investment for the viewer. It’s very, very important.
[For content producers] there are several sites where you can cross post to as many end points as possible. One I would recommend is Tubemogul. On Tubemogul.com you can publish once and post to all the typical video sharing sites. Blip.tv is the hands down gold standard platform for independent content producers who want to get their content hosted and seen. Those are two sites that I would recommend right off the bat.
Then there is the general principle, which is to be in as many places as possible. Don't limit yourself to distribution channels. If you can get everywhere, be everywhere. Do the legwork to be everywhere. There are several different sites where you can go one by one and get your content up there and you should. Because the whole principle of video online is that it’s available when and where the consumers want to interact with it, not where you want to interact with it. Forget the whole destination site model where [you say] "I'm going to bring everyone to my website," because you don't need that. You need your content viewed.
Tip 7: Get Started
I'd say one of the biggest challenges is just taking that first step. You have an idea, your excited, you believe in this thing, its going to change the world, but now you have to take that very first step."
So get out there and take it!
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