June 5, 2025 • 19 mins
Marketers didn’t have time to review their own content. Consumers clicked random thumbnails. And most of the videos, over 90%, never got watched.
Vyrill was built to fix that.
The insight wasn’t about creating better video. It was about making existing video useful by making it searchable.
Highlights include: Imagine You're Buying a Car (02:20), We're All Buying, Shopping, Browsing on Our Phones (03:40), Landing Porsche as First Customers (06:09), The Typical Founder Mistake when Finding Customers (12:05), and more...
Stay updated with our podcast and the latest insights in Outbound Sales and Go-to-Market Strategies!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Collin Stewart (00:10):
Welcome back to the predictable revenue, podcast I'm, your host, Colin Stewart. Today I'm joined by Ajay bam. He's the co-founder and CEO over at Viral, and we're going to talk about his product market fit journey before we jump in. This episode is brought to you by predictable revenues, founder coaching program
founders. Let's be real scaling. A company is tough. You're juggling product, revenue hiring and a million other decisions. But what if you had a proven framework and expert guidance to help you navigate the chaos? That's where our coaching program comes in, whether you're finding your 1st customers or fine tuning your go to market. We're here to help you build a business that scales well, predictably
ready to to jump into the episode.
Ajay, I'm super excited.
Talk to me about where did the idea from Viral come? Come from?
Ajay Bam (00:20):
Yeah. So thanks for having me. Colin again. Ajay, bam CEO, and co-founder of varel.com. So I have 18 years of e-commerce experience previously built and sold an in-store shopping app company out of Boston called Motive media. So we had built an app where you can scan and bag inside retail stores with your phone, and you can check out on your phone as well. So we increased the basket size and we cut the lines by sending you promos around as you walked around the store.
So I did that sold that company. After that I was at Nokia, where I launched the app store in about 35 countries around the world. So I study online and offline shopping behaviors so fast forward.
The 1st evolution of this or the origin of this idea was, I began noticing that a lot of shoppers are now watching videos, reviews, unboxing videos, how to videos and more before they shop. So really this whole. I started the company just before Covid, and so began noticing that behavior.
And also when I started speaking to brands and retailers, I realized that the big problem today is no one has time to watch videos. So brands are being inundated with massive amounts of video content on social media video reviews. They're creating content as well. And so they're struggling with how to capture video at scale, understand it, and leverage it to drive their 3 key kpis, which is conversion.
engagement and customer acquisition. So the problem today is that no one has time to watch videos. So brand marketers don't even have. If you have more than 2 videos. They don't have time to watch those videos. It's the same problem on the shopper side. So imagine you're buying a car on Bmw. You've selected your car model, and there are 25 videos on the page.
and you, as a shopper, are looking for a car with leather seats that's blue in color, that features a male driver. I'm looking for a car with child seats, that features a female driver. How do you know which of those 35 videos are talking about leather seats versus child seats. Right? So most people today and the problem is videos are not searchable and no one has time to reach. Click every video 35 videos and read talent descriptions. Right? So most people select a random video based on their intuition, based on the thumbnail
and 90% of the time. It's a bad video and a broken experience. You'll see you have selected the wrong video. So Bmw. Spends 25 million every year, making video, and only 5 to 8% of that content is surfaced and watched.
So there are 2 big problems here. One is shop of frustration with finding the right clip, the right video and finding the answer in the video. And the second problem is, video roi.
right? So these problems are now pretty obvious. I mean, of course, you know, since Tiktok, what's changed is I don't believe I have to explain video anymore. You know, we're all like buying, shopping, browsing, watching, and making a lot of video on our phones. So video has become a big problem. And so the larger problem that we're solving is that 95% of world's video today is not searchable. Hence it's not very useful. Yeah. And so that's really the premise of launching viral.
Collin Stewart (00:38):
Cool. So talk to me about the process that led you to this, because that's a really great insight. I was sitting here ticking boxes going. Yeah. I wish I could search videos on Youtube, not necessarily to buy, but just to see if the content is going to be good, I find. I'll sometimes go and search through the transcript like the Youtube generated Transcript, just to see if they're going to talk about certain pieces which is not a great experience.
Ajay Bam (00:40):
Yeah. Yeah. So if you look at social media platforms, right? The search is very generic. When you search for a Bmw. 3, I review, you get a laundry, you get the list of videos based on how Youtube thinks you're going to click on an ad or that matches with their ad platform, and where they're going to maximize the most clicks. Right? It's not necessarily the best review for leather seats.
necessarily right? And so that's 1 thing. The other problem is most video content sits outside social media. So think about your shopping experience. You might browse something on, look for something on Youtube.
But where do you shop? You ultimately shop on a retailer or a Brand Dtc website? Right? How many times have you been able to actually find videos there? How many times, actually, have you been able to search and find that Youtube video on their site? Right? Wish you had that Youtube and that Tiktok video sitting directly in that shopping experience.
Right? So so the problem today is that it's not just social content. But there's social content. There's enterprise videos. So retailers and brands are creating branded videos. They're creating influencer videos. They're capturing Udc videos.
Right? So the problem still remains is, how do you find something? The nugget of gold, or the or the the information that's going to help you with your purchase decision.
Right? So.
Collin Stewart (00:52):
Totally.
Ajay Bam (00:54):
We started the company as a as a video insights platform. And we realized that that video insights are great. So we actually launched with Porsche Revlon, some of some big top name brands, and we were able, we were able to do, give them insights on Youtube content. And and this is like Pre covid.
Collin Stewart (00:56):
Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Go back! How did you launch with Porsche? Come on! You got to tell me the story of like what? What led up to this, because that's an amazing launch partner.
Ajay Bam (00:58):
I mean to be honest with you, like what happened was, you know, when you're early stage company, you're really knocking doors with your network, and we got connected to the the Porsche racing car division in La. And for Porsche. You know, this is between the time period we're talking about is between 2015 to 2019, and at that time influencer marketing was big.
so every brand was looking for to find those influences that will elevate their brand or promote and scream their brand. And so Porsche runs a lot of racing car events in La at their racetrack.
and so they were very keen on understanding. You know, who's making videos of the racetrack and posting video clips, influencers, right? And they understand who they were, what you know, what their Youtube channels were, what are they saying about Porsche cars? What are they saying about competitor cars?
Right? So every brand wants to know their competitors, including, I guess even I would love to know what my competitor is doing right. The Intel right.
Collin Stewart (01:06):
Yeah.
Ajay Bam (01:08):
And so the problem is, there were 10,000 videos on Youtube from Porsche racing car events, right? Or a period of like maybe 5 to 7 years. Right? And, as I explained before, no one has time to watch videos, Porsche is not going to hire 10 people to manually watch a video and understand it right? And this is where AI really begins to play a big role like, how do you analyze volume, high volume of data with a lot of billions of data points in a video, right? Or.
Collin Stewart (01:10):
And.
Ajay Bam (01:12):
In billions of videos. Right? And so, long. Story short, we started the company as an as in purely on a we were actually one of the 1st companies to build a platform based on AI Ml.
Starting in 2018 19 timeframe.
And we actually came out of Uc. Berkeley from the machine learning Lab and the Sky Tech Incubator program there met my co-founder, Dr. Barbara, at Uc. Berkeley as well. So essentially, we decided we were resolved to solve this challenge, which is, how do we help Porsche find influences from racing car events? That was a challenge. Right? Long story short, we build a video engine to be able to pull video data from Youtube based on Porsche car models.
The car names brand name competitor names.
We were then able to analyze that video with our aiml in for sentiment, analysis, influencer analysis, understanding. So the way we discovered whether someone was at a racing track was, we actually analyzed the images in your background? Are you actually sitting at a racing track and making a video? Right? So we.
Collin Stewart (01:22):
Yeah.
Ajay Bam (01:24):
You did see an analysis to identify that you're at a racing track from the video.
Collin Stewart (01:26):
Cool.
Ajay Bam (01:28):
Right? So it narrowed down the videos from 10,000 videos to 2,000 videos. Right with that, with that capability and from the scene analysis. We then went deeper into the videos. So who's making the video? What car are they talking? Are they talking about Porsche or the competitor cars?
Right. And so then, that led to a deeper insight and analysis. So really, Porsche, we offered Porsche insights on top influencers who were posting from the event. We gave Porsche a lot of insights on demographic data, who they were.
information on sentiment, analysis, and information on engagement and important keywords that they were referencing in the videos. So yeah, so that became a 1st project. And and we started as a video insights platform. And then eventually we moved in a different direction.
but I can share more on that.
Collin Stewart (01:36):
That's super interesting. And so you had connection into the Porsche racing team they became. Did they become your 1st customer, or was this.
go see.
Ajay Bam (01:40):
It was a paid pilot. It was a.
Collin Stewart (01:42):
Bye, bye.
Ajay Bam (01:44):
1st customer right? And when a customer picks, you know you're creating something. And and of course, you know, I think video watching a video is a big problem for any any company.
Collin Stewart (01:46):
Totally so. 1st customers. Porch, second customer, Lamborghini, Ferrari.
Ajay Bam (01:48):
We work with Revlon. So we were connected to again the Revlon Cmo. Through a mutual network friend of ours and angel investor of ours. And again, at early stage, when you're still validating your concepts, you need a believer. You need a change. You need a change maker inside an org.
Believes that this is going to solve a problem for them right? And so identifying that buyer who's willing to take a chance and billing is it takes. It takes a little bit of effort to find that person right? I mean, we were lucky that we found these champions right, and also champions who are willing to give us solid feedback on our product.
Collin Stewart (01:52):
Yeah.
Ajay Bam (01:54):
That was all very, very helpful as we were, we were building the company. So again, same with Revlon. They were interested in understanding what people were talking about reviews on social media, on Youtube, about their products. You know, every brand. If someone made an organic review, you want to know what people are saying. Right? And again, you don't have time to watch. So with Porsche, we analyzed 600 videos, right?
And and the beauty is what AI does for you is we were able to analyze that all that content in like 7 days.
What would take you 7 months to manually watch a video, right? That's the power of being able to analyze and leverage video analysis at scale.
Collin Stewart (02:00):
I might have to go watch a week of Porsche racing videos just to gut check your math here. No, no, honey, I'm doing. It's research for work. I swear.
Ajay Bam (02:02):
Yeah, I think what changes to be honest with you is it used to be long videos for a while. And that was primarily because Youtube had no restriction on your video length. If you look at video content today, the evolution of video content itself. It is short form. Now, most videos. I would say on average, unless it's a podcast. It's 3 min long, average video. Right? Max, 12 min. Maybe.
Collin Stewart (02:04):
Gotcha.
So 1st customers came from your Network Angel network. Typical founder, elbow grease and hustle. Where did the next customers that next.
Ajay Bam (02:08):
Yeah. And then then I made a classic mistake that a founder does right. I hired a senior person a salesperson
too soon, based on someone's recommendation, and I hired and fired, hired and fired the person, and I don't think it was the person's fault like he was a much senior guy.
you know you don't hire a senior person unless you have a repeatable business model. And you're there yet. Right? Yeah, for me. Having sold my 1st company before. I know how this works. Right? But having said that when you're creating a new market right, it's still a challenge. Video search is a whole new market that we have created. That didn't exist until maybe 2 years ago. 3 years ago.
right.
Collin Stewart (02:16):
Right on.
Ajay Bam (02:18):
You could do some search on Youtube. But video search has really now taken on.
Collin Stewart (02:20):
Why do you think that.
Ajay Bam (02:22):
So long story short. So we hired to answer your question. We hired the wrong person, and then, in the process we also launched many other customers, smaller customers. And we started learning about what's working, what's not working? What do they like? What problem are we solving? Right? And it turns out that, of course, insights are important video insights, but at the end of the day all they care about is conversion
and customer position and engagement. Right? Yeah, the key Kpi, that we discovered from these all these we had 10 customers, other brands in other in category, different categories, and we quickly discovered that all they care about is revenue.
So Covid happens. And we said, Okay, how do we move this in the needle in the direction of revenue? What problem can we solve with video to address the problem around? How can we help them generate more revenue with video? Right? And so that's when I realized I had this Aha moment as a founder, which was the real problem we were solving wasn't video insights. That's what we thought we were right. It turns out the real problem is video search.
which is a different problem than video insights. Right? So most people, when we started asking shoppers, what's your biggest challenge with video people are like, I don't have time to watch 35 videos. I don't have time to even watch a 3 min video. Or if there are 20 Tiktoks. I don't have time to watch 20 tiktoks in the shopping mindset. I just want to find that video that's going to answer my question so I can buy my car or my beauty product or something else.
Right? And so we became the 1st company. We said, Okay, let's build a product on. Let's build a an app on shopify.
Collin Stewart (02:32):
Actually.
Ajay Bam (02:34):
That can help make your video content, searchable and useful on your e-commerce site.
right? And that was the pivot where we where we are today is, and that changed everything for the company. And of course Tiktok happens 2021 end of 2021 early, 2022. And that changed everything. It's all about timing in life.
Before Tiktok, I had to explain what video why, video
after Tiktok, that is not a question anymore. The question now is, how quickly can we launch? How many videos do we have? Do we have a budget for this? They all do thankfully. They all have video budgets. Now they have it for influencer marketing, for Ugc marketing. So even budget has not become a constraint anymore as such forward. But of course, you know, I think what happens is as you begin to scale. I think, more important issues, like legal terms and conditions, licensing rights.
I would say legal and compliance tends to become a bigger issue than your tech platform.
Collin Stewart (02:44):
Right? And so and so, yeah, we're we're solving those problems as well.
That's really exciting.
Ajay Bam (02:48):
Yeah, so essentially, I mean to summarize. You know, viral has a platform to help brands and retailers capture video, including video reviews. Understand video reviews in 18 dimensions. So we have, we analyze the audio text images and transcription
for sentiment, topic, scene, demographic diversity, brand safety product, safety. And so on, we rate your video. We tell you whether the video is good or bad for promotion, and we give you insights. And then we have e-commerce tools. We offer site search, we offer search video experience on your homepage product page and support FAQ videos. And it comes with, we have solved the holy gut of commerce, which is search personalization, SEO recommendations and buy. Now.
right and then we measure your conversion attribution. So that's the most important thing is which video is converting the customers most. And we're able to optimize conversion. And the video experience based on what drives conversion.
Collin Stewart (02:54):
Love. It seems like you've mastered Ecom. What comes next?
Ajay Bam (02:56):
Well, it's taken 5 years to master it. But yeah, I suppose. Yeah, we're getting there.
Collin Stewart (02:58):
Cool.
So what comes next for viral.
Ajay Bam (03:02):
I mean, honestly, at this stage, like, we're signing up 2 customers a week the biggest thing right now is brand awareness, right, like no one knows we exist.
So we're growing with building our own sales team. We've signed a number of partnerships now with e-commerce agencies, with resellers, with e-commerce indicators as well. So, and then most recently, we won an exclusive deal with Tiktok
to help Tiktok capture, understand, and leverage video reviews for 500,000 Tiktok merchants. And the reason Tiktok selected us is we have one of the best in class video content moderation systems today in e-commerce. So the biggest problem is, you know, when you upload a video review to your page, you want to make sure it doesn't have nudity. Right? It's it's brand. Safety is a big concern, right? No minors.
Collin Stewart (03:08):
Yeah.
Ajay Bam (03:10):
Make sure it's licensed. Maybe Tiktok doesn't want the word Amazon to be mentioned in the in the video, and so on. Right? So every retailer, every platform has, or every brand or retailer has rules, what can and cannot go on their site right? So, in order to do that at scale. Tiktok was looking for a platform that can help them with content, moderation with both capture reviews, but also moderate the review itself, and understand whether it's good or bad.
right? And so our vision is, we're not an influencer platform. We are a platform for scale. How can a brand capture video 40 million video reviews for on Walmart. Or if you're a smaller brand, how can we help you with your 30 Skus and capture reviews for your 30 Skus programmatically at scale.
Collin Stewart (03:14):
Amazing
ajay, I really appreciate you coming on sharing your story. If people want to learn more about viral, or if they want to get in touch with you. What's the best way for them to reach out.
Ajay Bam (03:18):
Yeah, I mean, please check out on. Go to world.com. We also do referrals as well. If you are, if you have a friend or 2, a brand or retailer, or a Cmo. Or a head of e-commerce.
Please send us an intro, and we'll compensate you for the sign up for the referral. But check us out, and I promise you the future of commerce. It's going to be very different than what it's today. It's going to blow your mind what's coming with video and the experiences that even Varl is creating now.
and you can check out a couple of our customers if you go to odrskis.com, you'll see the the video experience. You know that we have many customers, and you can see our customer list as well on our site. So please visit our site and check us out. Thank you.
Collin Stewart (03:24):
Very cool, ajay. Thank you so much for coming on the show, and, thanks to everybody for listening. We'll catch you all next time.
Ajay Bam (03:26):
Thank you.
Collin Stewart (03:28):
That was great man.
Ajay Bam (03:30):
Yeah, thank you. Thank you.
So, coming back to a question on what you do like right now, I'm not. I already have an account. Exec, I'm working with a company right now for Linkedin. We do a lot of Linkedin lead Gen. Right now. It's working really well, like we do cold, outbound, and Linkedin, and we're starting Linkedin as right now. But you know, in future maybe we might do. We might hire account execs and more. So what stage do you? What stage you help with.
Collin Stewart (03:34):
Anywhere from where you're at today, like we've helped companies figure out their like strength and product market fit and like, go back to customer development and find the thing. And then, because my overlap of like Venn diagram is the customer development side and the sales side, and how to bridge the gap. And so if you're trying to hire Aes, if you're trying to hire Sdrs, if you want to build up your outbound sounds like you've already got outbound going. So but yeah, if you're doing any of those things, that's the that's the area where we like to operate.
Ajay Bam (03:36):
Yeah, yeah. Got it makes sense makes sense. Yeah, all good. I mean, let's stay in touch.
Collin Stewart (03:38):
For sure, and if you're a person, whoever's using clay at your play over at your side, if they want to swap ideas, if they want half an hour to just like, Hey, let's share ideas. I'm happy to walk them through some of the things we're doing. I'm sure they know this, but there's tons of e-commerce stuff and shopify, super accessible. And so I've done quite a bit with. I had one customer that we did like an exclusively shopify motion.
and we were like pulling products down, and then had classifiers and reaching out to only companies that had the certain number of that. And then we were also looking at
social followers. And then Clay just launched Reddit and reddit integration and an X integration. And so those 2 things are probably super relevant for you.
Ajay Bam (03:44):
Got it.
Yeah, makes sense. I'll I'll keep that in mind. I'll ask them. They're interested.
Collin Stewart (03:48):
Sounds good. Yeah, happy to share. And we've got a lot of clay videos on the website or on our Youtube as well. So if they're curious, just drop me a line and I can forward you a few videos that they might be interested in.
Ajay Bam (03:50):
Yeah, I think we're doing a pretty good job honestly, with clay and smart lead, and like we have our stack right now. But if if they want, if they're interested, I'll definitely ask them to reach out.
Collin Stewart (03:52):
Sounds good. Okay. Well, great to meet you. Ajay.
Ajay Bam (03:54):
You take care, and then let me know when you promote the video.
Collin Stewart (03:56):
Yup, Google.
Ajay Bam (03:58):
And I work with a lot of founders. I'm part of a lot of founder network. I'm happy to see other founders your way. This everyone is looking for. Go to market and salespeople. So.
Collin Stewart (04:00):
For sure, if you know any founders that are that would be open to coming on the show for any interesting founders that have really interesting product market fit stories. I'm all ears. I have a newsletter, and I do a free founder revenue roundtable every once a month, where we just it's sort of like eo. But if we only ever talked about revenue, it's just a free thing that I do once a month.
and then I've got a newsletter for founders, and I got a book coming out in October.
Ajay Bam (04:04):
Makes sense. I'll keep that in mind and add me to the newsletter.
Collin Stewart (04:06):
Okay. We'll do.
Ajay Bam (04:08):
Yup, thank you. Take care.
All right, man. Nice to meet you. Ajay cheers.
Welcome back to the predictable revenue, podcast I'm, your host, Colin Stewart. Today I'm joined by Ajay bam. He's the co-founder and CEO over at Viral, and we're going to talk about his product market fit journey before we jump in. This episode is brought to you by predictable revenues, founder coaching program
founders. Let's be real scaling. A company is tough. You're juggling product, revenue hiring and a million other decisions. But what if you had a proven framework and expert guidance to help you navigate the chaos? That's where our coaching program comes in, whether you're finding your 1st customers or fine tuning your go to market. We're here to help you build a business that scales well, predictably
ready to to jump into the episode.
Ajay, I'm super excited.
Talk to me about where did the idea from Viral come? Come from?
Ajay Bam (00:20):
Yeah. So thanks for having me. Colin again. Ajay, bam CEO, and co-founder of varel.com. So I have 18 years of e-commerce experience previously built and sold an in-store shopping app company out of Boston called Motive media. So we had built an app where you can scan and bag inside retail stores with your phone, and you can check out on your phone as well. So we increased the basket size and we cut the lines by sending you promos around as you walked around the store.
So I did that sold that company. After that I was at Nokia, where I launched the app store in about 35 countries around the world. So I study online and offline shopping behaviors so fast forward.
The 1st evolution of this or the origin of this idea was, I began noticing that a lot of shoppers are now watching videos, reviews, unboxing videos, how to videos and more before they shop. So really this whole. I started the company just before Covid, and so began noticing that behavior.
And also when I started speaking to brands and retailers, I realized that the big problem today is no one has time to watch videos. So brands are being inundated with massive amounts of video content on social media video reviews. They're creating content as well. And so they're struggling with how to capture video at scale, understand it, and leverage it to drive their 3 key kpis, which is conversion.
engagement and customer acquisition. So the problem today is that no one has time to watch videos. So brand marketers don't even have. If you have more than 2 videos. They don't have time to watch those videos. It's the same problem on the shopper side. So imagine you're buying a car on Bmw. You've selected your car model, and there are 25 videos on the page.
and you, as a shopper, are looking for a car with leather seats that's blue in color, that features a male driver. I'm looking for a car with child seats, that features a female driver. How do you know which of those 35 videos are talking about leather seats versus child seats. Right? So most people today and the problem is videos are not searchable and no one has time to reach. Click every video 35 videos and read talent descriptions. Right? So most people select a random video based on their intuition, based on the thumbnail
and 90% of the time. It's a bad video and a broken experience. You'll see you have selected the wrong video. So Bmw. Spends 25 million every year, making video, and only 5 to 8% of that content is surfaced and watched.
So there are 2 big problems here. One is shop of frustration with finding the right clip, the right video and finding the answer in the video. And the second problem is, video roi.
right? So these problems are now pretty obvious. I mean, of course, you know, since Tiktok, what's changed is I don't believe I have to explain video anymore. You know, we're all like buying, shopping, browsing, watching, and making a lot of video on our phones. So video has become a big problem. And so the larger problem that we're solving is that 95% of world's video today is not searchable. Hence it's not very useful. Yeah. And so that's really the premise of launching viral.
Collin Stewart (00:38):
Cool. So talk to me about the process that led you to this, because that's a really great insight. I was sitting here ticking boxes going. Yeah. I wish I could search videos on Youtube, not necessarily to buy, but just to see if the content is going to be good, I find. I'll sometimes go and search through the transcript like the Youtube generated Transcript, just to see if they're going to talk about certain pieces which is not a great experience.
Ajay Bam (00:40):
Yeah. Yeah. So if you look at social media platforms, right? The search is very generic. When you search for a Bmw. 3, I review, you get a laundry, you get the list of videos based on how Youtube thinks you're going to click on an ad or that matches with their ad platform, and where they're going to maximize the most clicks. Right? It's not necessarily the best review for leather seats.
necessarily right? And so that's 1 thing. The other problem is most video content sits outside social media. So think about your shopping experience. You might browse something on, look for something on Youtube.
But where do you shop? You ultimately shop on a retailer or a Brand Dtc website? Right? How many times have you been able to actually find videos there? How many times, actually, have you been able to search and find that Youtube video on their site? Right? Wish you had that Youtube and that Tiktok video sitting directly in that shopping experience.
Right? So so the problem today is that it's not just social content. But there's social content. There's enterprise videos. So retailers and brands are creating branded videos. They're creating influencer videos. They're capturing Udc videos.
Right? So the problem still remains is, how do you find something? The nugget of gold, or the or the the information that's going to help you with your purchase decision.
Right? So.
Collin Stewart (00:52):
Totally.
Ajay Bam (00:54):
We started the company as a as a video insights platform. And we realized that that video insights are great. So we actually launched with Porsche Revlon, some of some big top name brands, and we were able, we were able to do, give them insights on Youtube content. And and this is like Pre covid.
Collin Stewart (00:56):
Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Go back! How did you launch with Porsche? Come on! You got to tell me the story of like what? What led up to this, because that's an amazing launch partner.
Ajay Bam (00:58):
I mean to be honest with you, like what happened was, you know, when you're early stage company, you're really knocking doors with your network, and we got connected to the the Porsche racing car division in La. And for Porsche. You know, this is between the time period we're talking about is between 2015 to 2019, and at that time influencer marketing was big.
so every brand was looking for to find those influences that will elevate their brand or promote and scream their brand. And so Porsche runs a lot of racing car events in La at their racetrack.
and so they were very keen on understanding. You know, who's making videos of the racetrack and posting video clips, influencers, right? And they understand who they were, what you know, what their Youtube channels were, what are they saying about Porsche cars? What are they saying about competitor cars?
Right? So every brand wants to know their competitors, including, I guess even I would love to know what my competitor is doing right. The Intel right.
Collin Stewart (01:06):
Yeah.
Ajay Bam (01:08):
And so the problem is, there were 10,000 videos on Youtube from Porsche racing car events, right? Or a period of like maybe 5 to 7 years. Right? And, as I explained before, no one has time to watch videos, Porsche is not going to hire 10 people to manually watch a video and understand it right? And this is where AI really begins to play a big role like, how do you analyze volume, high volume of data with a lot of billions of data points in a video, right? Or.
Collin Stewart (01:10):
And.
Ajay Bam (01:12):
In billions of videos. Right? And so, long. Story short, we started the company as an as in purely on a we were actually one of the 1st companies to build a platform based on AI Ml.
Starting in 2018 19 timeframe.
And we actually came out of Uc. Berkeley from the machine learning Lab and the Sky Tech Incubator program there met my co-founder, Dr. Barbara, at Uc. Berkeley as well. So essentially, we decided we were resolved to solve this challenge, which is, how do we help Porsche find influences from racing car events? That was a challenge. Right? Long story short, we build a video engine to be able to pull video data from Youtube based on Porsche car models.
The car names brand name competitor names.
We were then able to analyze that video with our aiml in for sentiment, analysis, influencer analysis, understanding. So the way we discovered whether someone was at a racing track was, we actually analyzed the images in your background? Are you actually sitting at a racing track and making a video? Right? So we.
Collin Stewart (01:22):
Yeah.
Ajay Bam (01:24):
You did see an analysis to identify that you're at a racing track from the video.
Collin Stewart (01:26):
Cool.
Ajay Bam (01:28):
Right? So it narrowed down the videos from 10,000 videos to 2,000 videos. Right with that, with that capability and from the scene analysis. We then went deeper into the videos. So who's making the video? What car are they talking? Are they talking about Porsche or the competitor cars?
Right. And so then, that led to a deeper insight and analysis. So really, Porsche, we offered Porsche insights on top influencers who were posting from the event. We gave Porsche a lot of insights on demographic data, who they were.
information on sentiment, analysis, and information on engagement and important keywords that they were referencing in the videos. So yeah, so that became a 1st project. And and we started as a video insights platform. And then eventually we moved in a different direction.
but I can share more on that.
Collin Stewart (01:36):
That's super interesting. And so you had connection into the Porsche racing team they became. Did they become your 1st customer, or was this.
go see.
Ajay Bam (01:40):
It was a paid pilot. It was a.
Collin Stewart (01:42):
Bye, bye.
Ajay Bam (01:44):
1st customer right? And when a customer picks, you know you're creating something. And and of course, you know, I think video watching a video is a big problem for any any company.
Collin Stewart (01:46):
Totally so. 1st customers. Porch, second customer, Lamborghini, Ferrari.
Ajay Bam (01:48):
We work with Revlon. So we were connected to again the Revlon Cmo. Through a mutual network friend of ours and angel investor of ours. And again, at early stage, when you're still validating your concepts, you need a believer. You need a change. You need a change maker inside an org.
Believes that this is going to solve a problem for them right? And so identifying that buyer who's willing to take a chance and billing is it takes. It takes a little bit of effort to find that person right? I mean, we were lucky that we found these champions right, and also champions who are willing to give us solid feedback on our product.
Collin Stewart (01:52):
Yeah.
Ajay Bam (01:54):
That was all very, very helpful as we were, we were building the company. So again, same with Revlon. They were interested in understanding what people were talking about reviews on social media, on Youtube, about their products. You know, every brand. If someone made an organic review, you want to know what people are saying. Right? And again, you don't have time to watch. So with Porsche, we analyzed 600 videos, right?
And and the beauty is what AI does for you is we were able to analyze that all that content in like 7 days.
What would take you 7 months to manually watch a video, right? That's the power of being able to analyze and leverage video analysis at scale.
Collin Stewart (02:00):
I might have to go watch a week of Porsche racing videos just to gut check your math here. No, no, honey, I'm doing. It's research for work. I swear.
Ajay Bam (02:02):
Yeah, I think what changes to be honest with you is it used to be long videos for a while. And that was primarily because Youtube had no restriction on your video length. If you look at video content today, the evolution of video content itself. It is short form. Now, most videos. I would say on average, unless it's a podcast. It's 3 min long, average video. Right? Max, 12 min. Maybe.
Collin Stewart (02:04):
Gotcha.
So 1st customers came from your Network Angel network. Typical founder, elbow grease and hustle. Where did the next customers that next.
Ajay Bam (02:08):
Yeah. And then then I made a classic mistake that a founder does right. I hired a senior person a salesperson
too soon, based on someone's recommendation, and I hired and fired, hired and fired the person, and I don't think it was the person's fault like he was a much senior guy.
you know you don't hire a senior person unless you have a repeatable business model. And you're there yet. Right? Yeah, for me. Having sold my 1st company before. I know how this works. Right? But having said that when you're creating a new market right, it's still a challenge. Video search is a whole new market that we have created. That didn't exist until maybe 2 years ago. 3 years ago.
right.
Collin Stewart (02:16):
Right on.
Ajay Bam (02:18):
You could do some search on Youtube. But video search has really now taken on.
Collin Stewart (02:20):
Why do you think that.
Ajay Bam (02:22):
So long story short. So we hired to answer your question. We hired the wrong person, and then, in the process we also launched many other customers, smaller customers. And we started learning about what's working, what's not working? What do they like? What problem are we solving? Right? And it turns out that, of course, insights are important video insights, but at the end of the day all they care about is conversion
and customer position and engagement. Right? Yeah, the key Kpi, that we discovered from these all these we had 10 customers, other brands in other in category, different categories, and we quickly discovered that all they care about is revenue.
So Covid happens. And we said, Okay, how do we move this in the needle in the direction of revenue? What problem can we solve with video to address the problem around? How can we help them generate more revenue with video? Right? And so that's when I realized I had this Aha moment as a founder, which was the real problem we were solving wasn't video insights. That's what we thought we were right. It turns out the real problem is video search.
which is a different problem than video insights. Right? So most people, when we started asking shoppers, what's your biggest challenge with video people are like, I don't have time to watch 35 videos. I don't have time to even watch a 3 min video. Or if there are 20 Tiktoks. I don't have time to watch 20 tiktoks in the shopping mindset. I just want to find that video that's going to answer my question so I can buy my car or my beauty product or something else.
Right? And so we became the 1st company. We said, Okay, let's build a product on. Let's build a an app on shopify.
Collin Stewart (02:32):
Actually.
Ajay Bam (02:34):
That can help make your video content, searchable and useful on your e-commerce site.
right? And that was the pivot where we where we are today is, and that changed everything for the company. And of course Tiktok happens 2021 end of 2021 early, 2022. And that changed everything. It's all about timing in life.
Before Tiktok, I had to explain what video why, video
after Tiktok, that is not a question anymore. The question now is, how quickly can we launch? How many videos do we have? Do we have a budget for this? They all do thankfully. They all have video budgets. Now they have it for influencer marketing, for Ugc marketing. So even budget has not become a constraint anymore as such forward. But of course, you know, I think what happens is as you begin to scale. I think, more important issues, like legal terms and conditions, licensing rights.
I would say legal and compliance tends to become a bigger issue than your tech platform.
Collin Stewart (02:44):
Right? And so and so, yeah, we're we're solving those problems as well.
That's really exciting.
Ajay Bam (02:48):
Yeah, so essentially, I mean to summarize. You know, viral has a platform to help brands and retailers capture video, including video reviews. Understand video reviews in 18 dimensions. So we have, we analyze the audio text images and transcription
for sentiment, topic, scene, demographic diversity, brand safety product, safety. And so on, we rate your video. We tell you whether the video is good or bad for promotion, and we give you insights. And then we have e-commerce tools. We offer site search, we offer search video experience on your homepage product page and support FAQ videos. And it comes with, we have solved the holy gut of commerce, which is search personalization, SEO recommendations and buy. Now.
right and then we measure your conversion attribution. So that's the most important thing is which video is converting the customers most. And we're able to optimize conversion. And the video experience based on what drives conversion.
Collin Stewart (02:54):
Love. It seems like you've mastered Ecom. What comes next?
Ajay Bam (02:56):
Well, it's taken 5 years to master it. But yeah, I suppose. Yeah, we're getting there.
Collin Stewart (02:58):
Cool.
So what comes next for viral.
Ajay Bam (03:02):
I mean, honestly, at this stage, like, we're signing up 2 customers a week the biggest thing right now is brand awareness, right, like no one knows we exist.
So we're growing with building our own sales team. We've signed a number of partnerships now with e-commerce agencies, with resellers, with e-commerce indicators as well. So, and then most recently, we won an exclusive deal with Tiktok
to help Tiktok capture, understand, and leverage video reviews for 500,000 Tiktok merchants. And the reason Tiktok selected us is we have one of the best in class video content moderation systems today in e-commerce. So the biggest problem is, you know, when you upload a video review to your page, you want to make sure it doesn't have nudity. Right? It's it's brand. Safety is a big concern, right? No minors.
Collin Stewart (03:08):
Yeah.
Ajay Bam (03:10):
Make sure it's licensed. Maybe Tiktok doesn't want the word Amazon to be mentioned in the in the video, and so on. Right? So every retailer, every platform has, or every brand or retailer has rules, what can and cannot go on their site right? So, in order to do that at scale. Tiktok was looking for a platform that can help them with content, moderation with both capture reviews, but also moderate the review itself, and understand whether it's good or bad.
right? And so our vision is, we're not an influencer platform. We are a platform for scale. How can a brand capture video 40 million video reviews for on Walmart. Or if you're a smaller brand, how can we help you with your 30 Skus and capture reviews for your 30 Skus programmatically at scale.
Collin Stewart (03:14):
Amazing
ajay, I really appreciate you coming on sharing your story. If people want to learn more about viral, or if they want to get in touch with you. What's the best way for them to reach out.
Ajay Bam (03:18):
Yeah, I mean, please check out on. Go to world.com. We also do referrals as well. If you are, if you have a friend or 2, a brand or retailer, or a Cmo. Or a head of e-commerce.
Please send us an intro, and we'll compensate you for the sign up for the referral. But check us out, and I promise you the future of commerce. It's going to be very different than what it's today. It's going to blow your mind what's coming with video and the experiences that even Varl is creating now.
and you can check out a couple of our customers if you go to odrskis.com, you'll see the the video experience. You know that we have many customers, and you can see our customer list as well on our site. So please visit our site and check us out. Thank you.
Collin Stewart (03:24):
Very cool, ajay. Thank you so much for coming on the show, and, thanks to everybody for listening. We'll catch you all next time.
Ajay Bam (03:26):
Thank you.
Collin Stewart (03:28):
That was great man.
Ajay Bam (03:30):
Yeah, thank you. Thank you.
So, coming back to a question on what you do like right now, I'm not. I already have an account. Exec, I'm working with a company right now for Linkedin. We do a lot of Linkedin lead Gen. Right now. It's working really well, like we do cold, outbound, and Linkedin, and we're starting Linkedin as right now. But you know, in future maybe we might do. We might hire account execs and more. So what stage do you? What stage you help with.
Collin Stewart (03:34):
Anywhere from where you're at today, like we've helped companies figure out their like strength and product market fit and like, go back to customer development and find the thing. And then, because my overlap of like Venn diagram is the customer development side and the sales side, and how to bridge the gap. And so if you're trying to hire Aes, if you're trying to hire Sdrs, if you want to build up your outbound sounds like you've already got outbound going. So but yeah, if you're doing any of those things, that's the that's the area where we like to operate.
Ajay Bam (03:36):
Yeah, yeah. Got it makes sense makes sense. Yeah, all good. I mean, let's stay in touch.
Collin Stewart (03:38):
For sure, and if you're a person, whoever's using clay at your play over at your side, if they want to swap ideas, if they want half an hour to just like, Hey, let's share ideas. I'm happy to walk them through some of the things we're doing. I'm sure they know this, but there's tons of e-commerce stuff and shopify, super accessible. And so I've done quite a bit with. I had one customer that we did like an exclusively shopify motion.
and we were like pulling products down, and then had classifiers and reaching out to only companies that had the certain number of that. And then we were also looking at
social followers. And then Clay just launched Reddit and reddit integration and an X integration. And so those 2 things are probably super relevant for you.
Ajay Bam (03:44):
Got it.
Yeah, makes sense. I'll I'll keep that in mind. I'll ask them. They're interested.
Collin Stewart (03:48):
Sounds good. Yeah, happy to share. And we've got a lot of clay videos on the website or on our Youtube as well. So if they're curious, just drop me a line and I can forward you a few videos that they might be interested in.
Ajay Bam (03:50):
Yeah, I think we're doing a pretty good job honestly, with clay and smart lead, and like we have our stack right now. But if if they want, if they're interested, I'll definitely ask them to reach out.
Collin Stewart (03:52):
Sounds good. Okay. Well, great to meet you. Ajay.
Ajay Bam (03:54):
You take care, and then let me know when you promote the video.
Collin Stewart (03:56):
Yup, Google.
Ajay Bam (03:58):
And I work with a lot of founders. I'm part of a lot of founder network. I'm happy to see other founders your way. This everyone is looking for. Go to market and salespeople. So.
Collin Stewart (04:00):
For sure, if you know any founders that are that would be open to coming on the show for any interesting founders that have really interesting product market fit stories. I'm all ears. I have a newsletter, and I do a free founder revenue roundtable every once a month, where we just it's sort of like eo. But if we only ever talked about revenue, it's just a free thing that I do once a month.
and then I've got a newsletter for founders, and I got a book coming out in October.
Ajay Bam (04:04):
Makes sense. I'll keep that in mind and add me to the newsletter.
Collin Stewart (04:06):
Okay. We'll do.
Ajay Bam (04:08):
Yup, thank you. Take care.
All right, man. Nice to meet you. Ajay cheers.
Popular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com