In the episode #4 of the Squeeze Growth podcast, we speak with Brett, the founder of MindStamp, an interactive video platform. We discuss how interactive video is changing the game for marketing and startups, the role of A.I. in the future of video, and much more. Tune in to hear Brett's insights and experiences from his journey of building Mindtsamp from scratch.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dhruvir Zala (00:05):
Okay.
Hello, everyone, Welcome to the squeeze growth podcast today. I'm. Very pleased to be joined by Brett Lyndon Perk, the founder founder of Myinsteem I. O, it is M. I. And the Htmp. I/O.
So mind stamp is an interactive video creation platform that help businesses and even individuals create videos
(00:29):
videos quickly and easily, without needing any expensive software or design skills
or recordings. Coding skills, for that matter.
Hybrid. How are you doing today.
Brett Lindenberg (00:40):
hey? I'm doing great thanks for having me on.
Dhruvir Zala (00:43):
Thanks for joining us, Brett. I'm. Super excited to have this conversation with you, and to get started off. I would like I would like to ask you about a little bit of yourself, your background.
and how you started my STEM.
So yeah.
Brett Lindenberg (00:58):
yeah, sure, Absolutely. So. I am a full stack developer. That's my background. I went to school and studied computer science and college.
I didn't program or anything before school. I wasn't like a whiz, kid that was building computer programs. I like, I like the computer. I like to play games, but I wasn't I didn't program at all until college
computer science itself is a theoretical degree. You know, you don't learn kind of the Web Development skills that you I use today in college. You learn about how computers work algorithms that kind of thing. but I went in doing computer science with the intention of becoming an entrepreneur. I started out trying to study a dentistry, actually, because I thought that would be a good and cozy job. And then, when I realized I didn't like that, I was thinking, what's you know? What's what, what skills can I quit myself with
(01:44):
in order to be an entrepreneur the fastest, what what applies most broadly? And it was pretty clear that computer science, both, you know, computer science and statistics or different maths. you know, fit that, Bill. So I study computer science. I took a little bit of time after
i'm off after college to freely, and to build up my skills a little bit. I was traveling around for about a year and a half or 2 and then after that I settled back in, and I started working, looking for looking for ideas, and there's a long path from there to my stamp. But that's that's generally where it got started.
Dhruvir Zala (02:17):
Awesome. So when I was looking into your linkedin profile, I saw that you did your bachelor of you know science degree from University of Florida.
And
so you know. How how did you started?
Oh.
started with the decision of pursuing this computer science degree like, what? What was your motivation? You said that you had something in mind. You wanted to become an entrepreneur. So at that time was it clear to you that you wanted to build something, or was it because
(02:51):
it you're thinking like you would get a job at first, and then
work at a company, learn stuff and then build something so Was it something like that? Or did you have any specific thought in mind about creating the platform that you created today.
Brett Lindenberg (03:07):
No, no specific thought in mind Back then, like I mentioned, I wanted, I originally started studying dentistry just because I thought that that would be a a good and high paying job. I I
shadowed a local dentist, and he told me he works like 3 days a week, and makes 300 grand, and i'm like that sounds good. I'll. I'll do that quickly realized that I was not what i'm good at. I'm good at math and good at logic. and so I considered majoring in math. After that I spent a couple of weeks trying to figure out what to do, and I was going to do math. But I decided to do a little bit more of a practical application of math, which is computer science. And if you understand computer science, you know, you understand systems, you understand inputs and out
(03:49):
it's algorithms how data is moved how it's stored, and that's really applicable, you know, across the board I'd I'd hire a computer scientist to do pretty much any job maybe outside of like marketing. But, you know, if you can, if you can wrap your head around those problems you can, you can pretty much put them to use anywhere.
So I started studying computer science. but no, no semblance of an idea of what what i'd eventually build. I also think that you know background that time. I think it was 2,012. Ish.
(04:20):
That's when you know, the Internet was still relatively young. I think like that movie the social network just came out. You hearing about all these young guys just like me, that could that have built a company with with little resources right? Because when you're that age you have no resources. You're you're scraping dollars. But by to get a coffee to to go study. So you know the thought of trying to get startup capital and manufacture a physical good and
(04:45):
organize, you know. Actual labor. it's. It was just way more appealing to say, hey, I can use my brain and my creativity to create something and have a mass global audience immediately.
that's how it you know. Obviously, it's not that easy, but the the the core, the core truth. There remains that the Internet enables that distribution around the world at almost 0 cost. Right?
Dhruvir Zala (05:09):
All right. So so when you started in 2,012
the times have changed pretty much quickly after that since then, due to the into advancement in technology. So do you think, the resources to learn programming right now are much
you accessible easily accessible today than it were in 2,012? Or was it easier then.
(05:36):
do you know, start to learn coding and stuff?
Brett Lindenberg (05:40):
Yeah, I I definitely think that the resources have gotten more comprehensive and more available. It's not to say that they weren't accessible, then pretty much everything I do. I learned on my own just by, you know. I I picked up a book.
and it started to learn Ruby on rails. Ruby Andre also has been around for a long time before that, and continues to be around today, and that's what we use on my stamp. so it was just a matter of finding it, and you know, sticking to it. I think a lot of people get tripped up when they try to learn programming, because there's so much out there there's so little direction, and I think you have to have
(06:13):
You know
you have to have projects and goals in mind other than just learning, and that's what freelancing was for me. I I started doing a lot of freelance work and challenge myself to build projects for people that gave me a clear. Here's the things that need to be achieved rather than just. I want to learn, You know there's metrics of successes I can. I can build this database. I can release this feature.
(06:34):
you know they they they certainly weren't good back then apologies to those old clients. But that's how you have to. That's how you have to learn. In my opinion, is set the goal, and then, you know, eventually reach it. It can't just be an open-ended like
I've. I've tried to learn other things as well without those goals, and I just end up getting distracted or overwhelmed, or, you know, burnt out on it. So
(06:55):
I think that there's plenty of resources again. They can be really still be really overwhelming today. But I think that a lot of people have felt that frustration I talked about and have organized, you know, a lot more methodical ways of learning, learning, programming. you know, 100 days of code or a replic or different little coding challenges that
maybe didn't exist back. Then they've They've taken that frustration that people feel when they try to learn the code and try to organize it and try to give people a path because a lot of people just fall off in the you know. In the meantime.
Dhruvir Zala (07:27):
yeah, correct, I I agree to the thought that you. So when you said that when we start to learn programming we should have some direction where we want to go.
so that really helps. So when I started learning python, I didn't have anything in mind, any project that I wanted to build, so it was really hard for me to stick with it because I was busy learning the if and l statement conditional all the theoretical stuff that comes in the beginning
(07:52):
instead, I should have focused more on building projects and with some intention. I yeah, that that would be a pretty better approach, relatively. better approach, I would say so. Yeah, that's that's spot on
Brett Lindenberg (08:09):
yeah, 100 you have to have. Yeah, you know it's it's easy to say. But you should set some goal that's outside significantly outside of your current, your current capabilities, right? If you're learning. If you're learning python, it's not. Hey. I want to write a a a loop that does this 10 times it's. No. I want to build this small calculator. I want to.
you know, have a multi component goal. I want something to email me the weather every morning. That sounds really simple, and there's plenty of services that could do that. But in order to achieve that yourself, you have to put together, you know, 6 different components, and if it's
(08:42):
that, you know not for a client, and it's not for actual business like you can. You can cut the corners. But you're gonna get 80% of that of that learning just by hooking up to that Api and just learning how to set up a mailer and just learning up. You know how to how to set up an interval to to check that like that. So
I think you gotta go when you're programming, you gotta go broad with it as well. You can't just be focused on the little. The little things
Dhruvir Zala (09:06):
right, and and the satisfaction that we get after building something is is quite a wonderful to have. So yeah, that that's pretty good.
So
yes, so. So what inspired you to create mind stamp. Brett.
Yeah. So like you mentioned, Binstein is an interactive video platform today, and it's primarily business to business.
Brett Lindenberg (09:29):
You know, individuals use it. But for business purposes like training, right? Instead of watching an hour long lecture and putting a 5 min quiz at the end. Put those questions right throughout the video right every 5 to 10 min. Ask a couple of questions, make sure the learner knows
really simple right training and education marketing. So you can let people buy right in the video. You can let people, you know, ask some questions to gather information about their preferences.
(09:52):
but it actually didn't start that way. When I was searching out for an idea to build, I had actually just moved across the country from Florida to California, and I had left a a bunch of my friends back home, and I was still keeping in touch with them. We used to go to a lot of concerts and
you know, specifically one artist that would play really unique sets of these concerts. Right? You didn't hear the same song twice. So whenever you play the set, you would, it would be a big thing of oh, what did he play right? So we're always sending these videos back and forth to each other, being like. Look at. Look at 4 min and 30 s.
(10:25):
And so I try to tackle that problem. The problem that we have first. I was sick of that, you know, back and forth on messenger opening up the video. It was like, what if we could just put you know my thoughts into the video itself.
So the first version of my stamp was actually called H. And it was a collaborative video annotation tool, if you want to call it so, as i'm watching the video, I can just type my comment right at the timestamp and say, you know, Wow, or look at that, or that's crazy. And then, when I share that video with them.
(10:53):
those comments are popping up right at that time that I put them. So the first version of it wasn't really interactive in that sense. It was. Just let me add my comments to yours
to the video and share them with you. I was trying to do a little bit of a social video aspect.
And I made at some point in in some way
made
(11:14):
some functionality where you could request that you know a comment be responded to like, hey, this is important. I want to know your thoughts on this rather than just consume it. I want to know it.
And when we did that it would pop up and let you put a reply to it. And that was kind of the turning point in this interactive video experience where i'm like, oh, wow! This is actually this transformed it from a one way, you know, one way video experience into a 2 way interactive experience. Now, i'm part of it. Now, i'm actually having to respond to what's happening on the screen.
(11:44):
took that kind of a like well, but off, and we we worked with a couple got some interest from a couple of different agencies that we're using video for, you know, client reviews. Right Here's the Here's the video that we're producing for the client rather than sending the video and then sending a Google Doc and saying, Tell me what you think they'd send it. And then they'd ask that. I said, hey, would you like this color at this time? Should we change this?
(12:05):
And that was kind of where things turn and it became interactive video. And we shifted to a business use case because these agencies were clearly getting value. For as a video interactive review tool. So the social aspect is kind of pushed to the side and the the business interactivity use case. We we started down that path, and
we're really customer to customer Driven company, right? We we don't claim to prescribe the big, the big solution, the the big art solution.
(12:32):
We do think it is art right? Because you are creating these artistic experiences through video. But you know we we listen to what people want. They say I want to do this, and if we hear it a couple of times, we're like that makes sense, probably for other customers. So we'll, we'll go ahead and add it, and that's generally how we've gotten today is just by listening to customers ever since that first. You know a little request for feedback.
anything we add pretty much is is based on what customers are telling us. They need
Dhruvir Zala (12:58):
awesome. So initially, it started out as a collaborating platform rather than an interactive video creation platform where you could send someone some someone the video that you want them to see at a specific timeframe. Okay? And then you started adding enhancement and functionalities like
responding to that to that time stems through comment. And now that I look at it, I saw some of the features and capabilities that you guys give. It's quite wonderful to think about it like. Now we can through mind stamp.
(13:32):
add what sports buttons.
and a a lot of stuff that you know.
It's. It's awesome. So it's truly great to see where it is today.
Brett Lindenberg (13:46):
It's it's come a long way since then, but pretty much. Everything that we've done like I said, is is based on what we've heard from customers and what they're not. They explicitly say it. you know we we have to interpret what their goals are right like if they want to. One example is personalization right? You could set up a video and set up template variables within it
and then personalize that video to thousands of people, you know, just with one video and says, You know, in just like email, you can include their name
(14:13):
with their company include their size. And I've given this video that says, You know, hey, Brett. how is how is mind Stamp doing? I had know that you had guys have under under 20 employees. So here's our small resource Guide for small businesses, right? you know. So we just
yeah, we we just keep keep going. You know, we added all those things, and even what you see today is not nearly at the state that it started in right like hotspots when we first everything now on my step is drag and drop a little resizable right? You can place it anywhere on the screen. Resize style as you wish, but when Hotspot started, you know it took the simple approach.
(14:48):
I made a a 3 by 3 grid on the video and let you put a a little blinking indicator in each one of those in the center. What? Whatever you wanted so you know you couldn't necessarily get that hotspot right? We wanted it. But that got people 80% of the way there, if it was near the item, and then from there you just iterate over time. Get better over time. So
my stamp is just a you know kind of a almost 6 year journey now in the
(15:11):
in the art of refining and improving, based on custom, feedback.
Dhruvir Zala (15:16):
awesome.
I would, I would say, also creating videos through a platform like mind STEM is much more effective for businesses, even for something like lead generation than using simple email templates. So yeah, that makes all the difference.
Brett Lindenberg (15:34):
Yeah, One thing we like to say is that, like my instant kind of feature proofs your content, too. Right? My sense always a hosted and hosted experience. Right? So you can make a change on the video, and it's live immediately. There's no uploading, no downloading and you can continually update your content. So you have a lecture that something, some fact is now wrong, right? The statistic changed.
(15:54):
or that we've got me some new understanding rather than having to, you know. Slice up that video or or re-record a section or whatnot you can just put some text over in mind stamp. You can record a little video, clip in it into mind, stam, saying, hey, actually this fact change. This is different now. So you know, keep that in mind.
So it just it gets it gets that second life out of out of content as well like Webinars. You know a lot of people do Webinars, and then they just toss them up on Youtube and hope somebody hope somebody find them. Why not take that Webinar put it into mind, Stamp, You know gate it so that you can capture a lead like that. Enroll them in a in a marketing workflow
(16:30):
top it up, put more little pieces of content. Branch them out like you can just infinitely, infinitely reuse content on mindst and create these dynamic experiences.
Dhruvir Zala (16:40):
Wow! That's wonderful. the fact that you can, you know. Keep updating your content, your video content, just like, you, you know you can update your block. Content is is truly amazing, because when it comes to uploading a a video on Youtube, and when you want to change it you'll have to upload a new one. But yeah, through Mystin that, that that saves a lot of time because you can just update
(17:05):
a specific part of the video. You're good to go. So that's pretty cool.
Brett Lindenberg (17:09):
Yeah, yeah, we love it.
Dhruvir Zala (17:12):
Yeah. So what are the unique features feature of features that months munch tamp offers which other competitors of your do not offer as of now.
So so
Brett Lindenberg (17:24):
yeah, I think that today Myinstein is probably the most powerful and feature comprehensive platform out there. There were a couple that we were that we didn't have one, for example, was like sticky hotspots. We call them trackable hotspots. So if you have something in the video, you know, a shopping video and this guy's folding up a shoe, comparing the 2 previously. You could just have one hotspot, you know, sitting near it. Now we can make it. Track that object right you can. You can have that so that he's moving it around that hotspots moving with it whenever they click it.
(17:53):
That's a you know that's a big one. We have conditional logic. So you can do. You can show or hide different interactions that could include like changing new video based on either what you've told told the video about the view, or they've said themselves right. So if I asked the question, how big is your company?
I could add 2 but 2. But the video for a big big company, hiring guide and small company hiring guide based on what they answer on that other. To that question. One of them is going to show our hide. I don't think any other platform has conditional logic out there today.
(18:25):
but i'll say. The biggest differentiator, in my opinion, is that we've been really good about sticking to this concept of of making it all as non technical as possible like you mentioned like code, free, right? A lot of these platforms. You have to work with their work, work with them, work with an agency, do custom custom stuff all the time.
and just like you said, like my stamp is not a heavy video editor. If you've edited video, it can be overwhelming. You've got multiple timelines, tiny little clips scrolling, zooming right? We're not that at all. You You put in the video. And then, as you're watching, you have 6 8 buttons. I forget what it is, but if you want to add a button at that time you click the click, the add button button and a button appears on screen. You drop it where it is.
(19:08):
set it what you want it to do, You know, we have like 10 click actions, and just like that, you save it, and it's in right. So we have done a really good job of keeping things despite the power, keeping things simple enough that anybody can create a powerful interactive video whether you're a you know a single employee at a company, a training manager, whether you're d-learning professional
like we we try to hit the perfect blend of power power and simplicity that we definitely see that you know a lot of our reviews say that it's so. I I didn't think I could do this. but it's so easy.
(19:41):
and that's something that we see a lot with people is that when we show them, you know. Get them on a down and show them they really gotta take a step back, and
we rethink about how they think about a lot of their things, whether it's marketing or training. They didn't know this is possible. So you know they had no idea that you could do all of this in a video, and they like, Hmm.
I kinda got to go back to the drawing board here to think about how i'm going to plan this previously. I was just planning a video, and then, you know, to the quiz at the end, or send this video and hope they click the link you know, on the web page beside it. Man, I got a I gotta really think about what i'm doing here now that I know that this capability exists. So we're still super early and interactive. Video
(20:19):
like. You mentioned like technologies come so far we're not the first to do Interactive Video
devices, you know, laptops, phones, Internet is getting good enough is good enough that it can be a mass market product. Now, right like your your phone, and your computer has so much power that we can deliver this really rich data, intense experience anywhere around the world, and it'll work for people.
Dhruvir Zala (20:48):
Yeah, I am pretty sure you guys can be like the canva for interactive video creation. So we've used that phrase before we these that for canvas awesome now they've they they certainly deserve all the praise they get. We use Canada. We're customers. but we certainly take inspiration for them in that regard.
Yeah, because because the fact that you can, you know, you get to edit and create a video without using any technical knowledge. So even a non techie like someone like me can create a video very easily. And that video is interactive. So that's a bonus, I would say.
(21:25):
and the fact that it saves too much time. that is a huge, a unique value proposition in itself. So
Brett Lindenberg (21:32):
yeah, yeah, yeah, saves time, and you know, especially for maybe non non training and education use cases that can save you can save a whole employee right like we have one customer that use mind stamp, a unique use case for
auto loan financing right? They They do auto loans for people to get cards, and they've created this 10 min interactive experience where they send the data in using those variables like I mentioned like the personalization. So say your payment amount is payment right? And that payment that payment gets substituted for whatever they pass in for all these customers.
(22:06):
and it just goes ahead and confirms information. Does a little education, little confirmation, and that saving, you know, a 30 40 min phone call with the person live that has to call each one of these people Instead, they just set into the video. It's all hooked up into the system. The system goes ahead and pings them when it's ready, confirms all the information and boom. So you know we're saving them
hundreds of hours per month on the phone just by creating this because they invested in an interactive video that achieves their goals.
Dhruvir Zala (22:33):
Yeah.
So so what kind of analytics feature, or I would say reporting features. Or do you guys offer for an interactive video? So let's say, if someone creates an interactive video asking about something specific, like a survey or something so like, does Does it get recorded in some kind of pie charts, or something like, how do we measure the performance of a video?
Brett Lindenberg (23:00):
Yeah, Absolutely. So. We haven't even gotten to the analytics. But mind stamp offers probably the richest, richest video analytics out there today. Every time somebody presses play on that video you're gonna get a full report showing, you know, exactly when they started. When they stopped exactly what seconds they watch to. You know. We don't just do like oh, they skip to the end. So they got 90% watch time like you'll. You'll see graphs and information that show the Yes, yes, yes, yes. And then they skip this 5 s section
(23:26):
See all the interactions you any any buttons they click hotspots, they click questions, they answer anything like that is all going to be included. And then we also, you know, go ahead and summarize that as well as you get high level insight into your content. So you'll see a a drop off graph. And you see, yeah, the 75% of people miss this portion of the video. Here's the interactions that they're missing.
and also some, you know, variant comparison as well, like, hey?
(23:49):
80% of people that answered Yes, here dropped off, whereas 20 that answered No. Kept watching like, what is that? You know? What does that mean for your business? You have to do some interpreting of that right. But we try to make all that data as highly accessible and understandable as possible. And obviously we have a bunch of integrations as well that you can send this like we have a Zapier app. We have a Hubspot integration with salesforce.
(24:12):
We have web hooks. We have an Api so you can get really. You can really kind of automate your whole workflow. if you have a goal in mind with mind stamp, and you know, like when that when that auto load company I mentioned. When somebody finishes we send them a web hook. They hit our Api. They grab the information that they need and then automate. Should they do they get another video? Did they get a phone call, whatever it is? So
(24:36):
every every time somebody presses play. We capture pretty much everything you could possibly want about them. Obviously, with with privacy concerns that data is super secure and only available to the viewer, but or to the to the owner. But we give you, you know, deep insight into your content, how it's performing, and most importantly, how to improve it.
(24:57):
Awesome.
Dhruvir Zala (24:58):
Yeah, it's wonderful.
So Brett as you said that when you started out in creating mind, stamp it wasn't really what it is today. It was quite different, and you guys started out as a collaborative platform, and it's been a long journey.
Tell the date to the date to the date, so to what it has truly become. So what are the challenges that you have encountered while developing the platform? And how did you overcome them. So what what were some of the most prominent challenges in building the video creation platform?
Brett Lindenberg (25:35):
Yeah. A couple like I mentioned, You know, when I was building my stamp. I was completely learning as I as I went. I had some basic experience with with Javascript right, but nothing like we're like nothing like we're doing today. I didn't know anything about online video. I had to learn about all these different little intricacies that come with
video delivering it. Browser compatibility. Those are the technical challenges. Obviously there's a lot of issues slash challenges that come when you're learning as you're building right as you're as you're getting customers, and you're not a 100% bulletproof on what you're doing there's gonna be some problems. You try to handle them as best you can.
(26:13):
But i'd say like more. So the big
the big challenge for me personally was just how long it took, and how long you kind of have to do that wandering in the wandering in the dark right to try to find what the value is. So Monday it started in 2,017. We didn't really start.
you know. Get going and start getting real customers until 2020 late. 2019.20. Obviously the pandemic has been has been great for mind stamp as everything goes remote. That's when people really started to come in. But you know we spent a good 2 years, and during that time. It was just just me in the beginning of the company
(26:48):
trying to build, trying to really happen to reach out and say, hey, can you? Can you use? This is this valuable, you know, really having to put yourself out there in front of people and ask them to ask them for feedback, honest feedback that's super important. A lot of people will be like, yeah, this is awesome like. Looks really cool, but they're not paying for it. They don't. They don't actually use it like. So I think the wandering in the dark aspect being so long is what was really challenging.
(27:15):
And you know there are times definitely that I thought I was like all right. It's time to move on like I just can't get. I can't get the momentum that I need to justify the time. The input here.
you know, had to go back to freelancing for a couple of months, and I I kind of thought that was. I thought that was a failure right there, right? That's the end where
i'm i'm not spending time on this. It's gonna die. I'm having to neglect these customers, but I need to. I need to eat, so I need to spend some a couple of months freelancing, and that ended up being a pretty big blessing in disguise at that time, because I was so in the weeds with
(27:47):
every single day trying to figure out. Think what what can I do, what can I do? That? Taking a step back, working on another project for for money that gave some financial security.
but also gave that head space to come back and say, okay, you know, I've stopped thinking about this primarily for for 2 to 3 months.
What is the one or 2 big things that I thought of in the meantime, that can that can actually affect change here. And that was the first the first implementation of like these, you know, per second analytics that I just mentioned. Where you get a view report like, okay, we right now, we can create these videos, and people can consume them. But you have no idea what's what's happening with them. you have no no reporting, no understanding, and when I came back from that little hiatus.
(28:30):
I went right to work because I had a clear picture in my mind of You know, this is this is gonna we're gonna create this back end to the experience where the owner can see exactly what happened, and that's been super popular. So you know a lot of technical challenges along the way.
but mostly it was a matter of persistence, and you know it's got a
keep persisting and and recognize when you do have to take a step back but but be able to get back to it as quickly as possible.
Dhruvir Zala (28:59):
So you said that you started as a solo solo premier, and you, pretty much had to figure out everything on your own. So
hello!
When you created a minimum minimal viable product, Mvp.
The Which platforms did you use to reach out to the customers? And how did you differentiate those who liked your platform and those who really wanted to pay for it? Because there are 2 categories of people. Someone may like your product, but they may not need it at that point in time, so they will not be willing to pay for it. But then there are people who really have the pain point, and the your product is solving that pain point. So which platform did you use, and
(29:43):
you recommend for
interacting with your potential prospects? Would in turn be your customers like there are forums and subreddits where you can, you know, talk with real people and pitch your product. So how did you get started with that?
Brett Lindenberg (30:01):
Yeah, the you know, the the classic, the classic ones at that time, you know, Indie Hackers. Back in the day I read a lot of Indie Hackers back in like 2,017 is something like this is I'm alone I can build software. This is what I want to do.
We got a good. We got a good lucky break with product time back in the day where we were, I think the number
we the number one for most of the day, and then somebody passed us. We ended up getting number 2 of the day, but it doesn't matter if the traffic, you know, if you're on the front page, the traffic is the same, and that just brought. If you look at our our users by time. Graph, you know you've got, you know nothing, and then product on, then back to nothing for a long time with that product on
(30:37):
launch was what you described, where people come in, and they are actually interested. But they have, you know a lot of people say it's cool. But then the people that are actually interested to be like
this is great. But can it kind of do this, and I I need this like it's so close. Can I do this? And that gave us a lot of fuel, or at least me a lot of fuel in the fire to say, okay, there is actual interest here. Here's the most common things I heard from this launch.
(31:01):
Here's where people might have tried it and dropped off because it wasn't working, and at least give you some path to go on right like You're no longer no longer in the dark of just i'm trying to find the value in this product. People are finally telling you that product or that value. So
Indie hackers is good for community back in the day. I'm sure it still is. I just don't go on there much anymore. And but product time, you know, having a an army of kind of product enthusiasts that
(31:27):
both celebrate you as well as give you real honest feedback. that was super valuable back in the day.
Dhruvir Zala (31:34):
Okay, so
I would like to talk a little bit about AI and video content creation. So if you I have seen the recent use open a, I have come up with a new technology known as Chat Tippy. So Gp
We're rocking the content writing world when it comes to generating
(31:57):
human-like AI content. So do you think.
how do you think with video creation space evolve over the next few years? Do you think AI will help to? AI will be a part of that, too.
Brett Lindenberg (32:13):
Absolutely. Absolutely. I think it's gonna completely rock it like you said you know, there's we're we're we're exploring some a our projects ourselves right now. Everybody says that. But I think video
video is just so time consuming and costly to create at any edge that people can get is going to be really welcomed. there's a really cool company.
(32:33):
multiple. The one that's really prominent is called synthesia. That AI, I don't know if you've seen them, but they make synthetic AI like very, very realistic avatar videos, You know I could be. I could be an avatar right now, and I could have programmed myself to say this. I'm not. But I could have been and that's
that's a challenge that we get a lot of people with at my stamp like I mentioned. They come in, and they're like man. I got to rethink about how I do this? How do I film in order to create interactivity? and being able to leapfrog that they probably that physical requirement, the time and money requirement and go ahead and just
(33:07):
generate the script and then program in AI avatar or program. The the cinematic experience is going to be a game changer, you know. Right you can just.
You can go from hours and hours and revisions to just. I have my script, especially something like training right like you don't. You generally don't need a You don't need somebody from your company standing up there trying to film training, trying to learn how to speak that audio right?
(33:32):
You've got the content you want them to learn. Drop that script and something like synthesia. You'll get a video in a few minutes. You can drop that into my stamp, add your questions and boom. You're done, you know the only work there is creating the script, and then placing the questions. And You've got a an evergreen training asset that can that took, you know, an hour, and can now be used for forever. It ever.
(33:53):
So I think you know. That's the the basic version, the whole, you know, like I I think it's Dolly some some version of that for video where you know it's creating these actual actual videos with landscapes and objects moving and stuff like that's just gonna be
that's gonna wrap a lot more than the content marketing industry. But you know Hollywood movies content creation itself, like when you can just say say what you want the video to be that's gonna be that's gonna be absolutely insane. So we have a we have a close eye on that.
(34:27):
you know, an interactive video. The objects in screen are are important, right. so as we move more and more towards this AI AI generated model.
there's definitely synergy where we can say, oh, we're creating this, and we know that that that product is in the screen at this point right here, so we can automatically put a hot spot on it rather than having you go, and you know, place it, which is fine and easy now. But there's definitely going to be synergy between the 2 as as AI comes to even more prominence.
Dhruvir Zala (34:57):
Yeah. So
is it possible to think that in you know, in few years there will be a time where we will be able to give command
or a prompt to AI, and it will automatically generate video for us. So do you see that coming
pretty sooner or
in in at least a few years.
Brett Lindenberg (35:19):
Yeah, yeah, Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that. unfortunately, a lot of a lot of video producers and editors. They're gonna go out of business, as you know, you can just tell the computer what to make, and it makes it. And you can say, oh, no! At that 30 s change that to green, and it immediately does that right? As
as the cost of you know, compute power continues to go down like that's just going to become more and more of a real thing.
(35:43):
Even I'm I'm really excited about other other areas of AI to there's another cool company called Adapt AI that I saw the other day, and they are basically a browser based AI, where you tell, you know, you have a little chat box, your personal chat box
and you tell it what to do. You can just say, add, add Brett Lindenberg as a as a contact in salesforce, and set his company to this
(36:08):
and it, you know interprets that, and then takes all those actions for you in the browser. Right? So you're saving these clips where you're navigating and doing this you know, create a spreadsheet with 10 columns, and make the eighth column a combination of 3 and 4 right that that, saving it, it shows you kind of how
early we are on with technology and our interface with it. to the point. It's like, oh, that makes that makes total sense. I shouldn't have to go click, you know, file new. Find the box type in their name. I can just tell the if we can bridge that gap between what i'm thinking and what we want the computer to do. Same thing with video. that's
(36:45):
you know. That's a new paradigm that we're we're definitely going to see in the next in the next 5 years.
Dhruvir Zala (36:51):
That will be awesome to see, and you know the jobs for virtual assistant may
Brett Lindenberg (36:57):
certainly be in danger danger after that. So yeah, yeah, I mean, Chat Gbt
(37:17):
The cake you'll get a nice list of, you know, exactly the steps to take. And if you ask Google. That same question you're going to get, you know, 15 SEO optimize list list articles that you have to grow and scroll and find like
we're moving. We're moving way closer to the I ask you what I want, and you tell me what i'm asking you rather than you're giving me. You know, an indication of where I might find what I'm asking for.
Dhruvir Zala (37:42):
Yeah, right right. It will be a pretty hard time for search engines to figure out what content is written by, you know, human. And what content is written by an AI, because, as you said Chat Chip, it is pretty awesome at what it does right now.
and it is still evolving day after day. So
Brett Lindenberg (38:01):
yes, we do want human content, but also it also doesn't really matter, you know, like if you look at if you look at a recipe article, it's basically written by an AI today, and the way it's SEO optimized right? They They fill you up with a bunch of blabber about some dish. Blah! Blah blah! They try to get you to scroll, and then eventually show you the steps, and you know. Is there any? Is there any real human element to that? That would be different than if an AI wrote it?
(38:26):
I I don't. I don't know. I I think, that 80% of the time people are looking for information, and the human editorial aspect is just imposed upon them, because that's what we know how to create and share. So you know.
I I don't think people necessarily care as long as you're giving them the information that they want.
Dhruvir Zala (38:47):
Yeah, you are right. As far as we get the solution. It does not matter whether it comes from an AI or a human being. So that's that's
so. I I also glen through your blog where you write content about. You know a multimedia so there is this blog post.
Name the power of multimedia and interactive video. And you write articles related to those. So do you think creating block content helps you drive traffic and potential customers?
Brett Lindenberg (39:19):
Yeah, absolutely. SEO is a is a super long game, right like we've been blogging for a long time, and you don't really get too many hits on specific blogs, but you just have to. It's a long game, and eventually over over years, Google starts to recognize that you are providing value, and they're going to surface. You right like we I wrote a
(39:39):
There's a lot of ways you can spend money trying to get customers. and if you're spending money, usually the synergy isn't there, you know. Obviously paid ads are important, especially if someone's looking for a solution. But I wrote an article back in like 2018 or 2019. Maybe that was how to add a button to a video.
right? And I think I think we just got unseeded. I think we're number 2. But that was the number one to Google. Search result for for a long time, right? So any anybody ever asked add button to video. They see mind stamp right there. We've got a nice little step by step, Guide. So I, if you are.
(40:13):
you know, starting something and planning a work done it for a long, long time. I would try to be cracking out one a blog post every week or one every 2 weeks, and just build up that Content Library. Show these search engines that you are. You've been around, and you're here to stay.
You can't fill with garbage.
thankfully the AI writing tools. Make that. Make that easier now to to generate content quickly without filming it with garbage.
(40:38):
But yeah, a SEO is the
you. You pay the price over a long period of time, but the price ends up, being relatively free, right. It's just evergreen evergreen leads for you. if you can, if you can get on the app there.
Dhruvir Zala (40:52):
Yeah. And and it also helps create awareness about your product organically, without being a penny. So that's pretty organic awareness, organic trust to like if they, If you come to our blog and see that we've written, You know, a 100 articles on interactive video.
Brett Lindenberg (41:08):
Say, oh, these guys have thought about this. They've been. They've been thinking about this for 2 years, right? They've you know. I can. It's just a little semblance of trust when you can see that somebody actually actually cares. And it's been putting in the time.
Dhruvir Zala (41:21):
Yeah. And and when you keep writing about a single topic or a single niche
Brett Lindenberg (41:26):
people start believing you to be an authority around that niche, and then they'll eventually end up investing in your product or service. You know you're at least in that you're at least in their mind. if they don't have a need. Now then, the second they do. Maybe their job says we should do interactive video and say, oh, I know, I know mindset because I read this article, You know I I've been reading their information so
(41:49):
definitely definitely an investment, but I think a a very worthy one, and one that can be paste out too right? You don't have to be creating a blog every single day. Doesn't have to be back. Phone just a little bit of consistency, a little bit of keyword research. And you're gonna you're gonna see some results.
Dhruvir Zala (42:05):
Yeah, right? So my next question for you is Brett. what are your thoughts on email marketing? I would say, how do you implement implement email marketing as a medium of communication or promotion for mind stamp.
Brett Lindenberg (42:20):
Yeah, I I think email marketing has been king for a while, and it's still mostly King SMS marketing is Park popping up a lot more. But I think that the email in box it's still the best way to reach people, but it's just gotten so much more crowded. Right? I think cold email effectiveness has gone down a lot.
I think people do just getting inundated, especially if you don't manage your inbox. I managed mine pretty well, you know subscribing folders, whatnot, and even then there's too much stuff for me to consume. So I think that you have to, you know. Communicate with your customers via email. It's a direct marketing channel.
(42:55):
But I don't think that you can
rely on it like you used to, and we've tried it. We've tried some cold, cold email campaigns before, and just generally has had lackluster results in that. People like I mentioned. There's a big educational aspect to interactive video. So unless they've taken the initiative to seek you out and learn.
(43:18):
you'll get. They'll get this email, and they'll be like that's cool like I I want a demo, but I have no idea what i'm. I'm gonna i'm gonna do. I don't you know, Have any plans for this?
what even is this? I don't. I don't understand this.
So you know, we use email to communicate with our customers. We don't do too much. We we communicate important feature updates. We try not to abuse their inbox. We send maybe one to one to 3 emails a month depending on what we've shipped that month. We have a newsletter. but we try to keep that line of communication open, but we know that it's not. You know
(43:52):
the the the liver die that it used to be in terms of marketing.
Dhruvir Zala (43:56):
Right? Right? Right?
So yeah, this is the last question that I have for you. so what are the top pieces of advice you would like to give to people who are looking to become entrepreneurs or starting their own business specifically.
those who set out on a path to create something online, maybe a product or a service.
Brett Lindenberg (44:19):
Yeah, it's it's tough to it's tough to give that advice, especially because I can remember like
getting that advice back of the day, and you just kind of discount it because you like. Oh, they've already made something like that's just generic advice. But i'd say the the first thing is to get started. Get started on some project, whatever it is, I think way too many people spend too much time thinking about. You know. What can I? What can I build, or what? What's my company gonna be?
(44:45):
Nope, you should. You should run a bunch of little experiments right? A little experiments with those goals like we talked about of oh, this, you know.
Maybe there's something here with this email. Add on, or something. What's the what's the smallest thing I can make and make that work and then test it to works. so get started. you have to.
(45:05):
There's a balance between staying committed while also not spending too much time right like, or
you can't. You can't start something. And then 3 days later it'd be like, you know i'm i'm sick of this. I'm bored. I I don't. I don't believe in it anymore, because there's gonna be times you don't believe in it. You know it was a brilliant. You had a brilliant idea. And you like, this is the future. And then 3 days in the challenges Here.
(45:28):
you've come down from that high of thinking about it. And then you're like, okay on to the next thing. So I think there's a lot of people that hop from thing to thing never go deep enough. I think you need to go deep enough.
but also, you know, know, when it's time to time to move on.
You have to get things out in public right like you, can I? I have certainly guilty of building for too long in private and thinking, you know, when I don't deal this, it's gonna be. It's gonna be awesome that people are gonna love it like you need to.
(45:55):
You know the all the advice that Yc gives is is super important that you need to be iterating rapidly, getting real feedback from your customers.
and most importantly in the Macro picture. Just be, you know, persist, persist, persist every day resist the temptation to follow the shiny new object. and don't give up and don't don't give up in.
(46:16):
You know you can put individual projects aside or move on to different things. But if your goal is to be an entrepreneur, you should be attacking a problem at all times, and always looking for a solution to that, you know. it could be the the first, second or twentieth thing that you take on over a a week, or it could be years.
But you know your goal. Your job as an entrepreneur is to show up every day and attack attack a problem. and and just try to choose better problems over time.
Dhruvir Zala (46:46):
That's a great advice for it. Thank you.
Brett Lindenberg (46:48):
Oh, okay.
Dhruvir Zala (46:51):
please forgive me. But I suddenly had one more question in my mind. So sure it goes. It goes like that. So do you guys? I Are you guys planning to raise capital from a venture capitalist or from Yc. Combinator from anyone? Or are you guys planning to go bootstrap what do you prefer As of now?
Brett Lindenberg (47:11):
right now we're we're bootstrapped and self-funded. we've taken some small angel investment but
generally
i'm not religious about venture capital one way or another. I think that you need to understand what you're signing up for when you take venture. Capital, right? These venture capitalists are looking for a 100 X return and and nothing less
(47:32):
and so you need to understand if your company can
tolerate that that level of of growth and and risk. And you know, innovation.
tolerate can mean many things there it's whether you want to do it or not, whether your your team wants to do it, whether you think that the market is there.
and so far, you know, we're comfortable with where we're at, and Don't necessarily think that the market is ready for a venture. Capitalist funded, you know, super high growth, interactive video company.
(48:03):
you know, they've certainly had success with interact the video in the past. But right now, like I said that we're still so early.
but we are certainly not opposed that if if somebody
if we find the the the spot that needs gas port on the fire. We'll for that gas, right? We'll we'll get money if we're like. Oh, this is what this is working 100% repeatedly, and we can scale this up, you know we can put. We could put money in, and more money comes out. then let's go ahead for that, for that money and for the gas. But right now we're at a little bit more of a phase where we're, you know.
(48:36):
working, refining, getting people the results that they need, and trying to conceptualize. What is that? What is that spot that we can pour the gas where we know it's going to go go gonna go up and to the right.
I was definitely, you know, trying to get into those accelerators in the very beginning, I I think i'm reject. I've been rejected from y combinator like 7 times now, which is a personal, a personal point of of pride. Now, because didn't didn't end up needing it, you know. Who knows? Maybe it would have been quicker or better faster if we did.
(49:08):
I have a lot of respect for those guys, but they
they also didn't. you know just kind of what I said. They don't they don't think that it's ready the business or the the market itself for that that level investment.
But some businesses need venture capital, others don't others kind of exist in an area where they where they can take it. They have it available to them. But don't necessarily
(49:30):
have the, you know need for it right now, and I think we're in that middle spot right now. So as soon as we see an opportunity not opposed to taking capital. But until then we're not getting on that on that rocket ship, you know if we don't have the the moon insight kind of thing.
Dhruvir Zala (49:45):
Yeah. I I would also like to point out that when we, when you guys, or when when a business take some kind of funding from someone the expectations
of that product or service may change. So, as you said that some venture capitalists are looking for high returns, so they may demand you to alter your promotional techniques or go against what you do not believe in. So yeah, sometimes it can lead to changes in expectation. So it it it may have happened for the better. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, 100%. I mean you. You give up control of your business, and that's really important to me and my team, You know we have a we have a really good team really good culture.
Brett Lindenberg (50:25):
We have a a good life that we've we've created here. and
again, if we see an opportunity, we're ready to pounce. But Until then we're not, you know. I think I think there's definitely a trap of thinking that you need venture capital in order to to create a business.
A lot of people try to put that as their first their first step, you know. Okay, i'm gonna i'm gonna to form an Llc. And then i'm gonna go out and raise capital. It's like you need to.
(50:51):
You need to get a product. You need to understand the the product. The market space before you can, even one probably raise capital, and to understand whether your business needs it or not, and whether that's going to be a a net positive or net negative. and unfortunately, I think a lot of people
some people
don't find that out until too late. Right? They've they've over capitalized a business that doesn't have that potential that
(51:15):
the expectations would would need right. And then you've got bad energy between the founders and investors. The the founder regrets
selling. They've hired too much, and so they have too many capital obligations now. because they had these big plans earlier when they raise capital, so
it can be. You know it's a drug it can be. It can be good for you, or it can or it can kill you. So that's really up to the individuals to understand and make themselves
Dhruvir Zala (51:43):
right. Right? Right?
So yeah, thank you so much for joining us today, Brad. It was a real pleasure hearing your insights and experiences, and most importantly learning from you. So do you have any final thoughts or comments?
Brett Lindenberg (51:58):
no, I appreciate you having me on. You guys can find us at, you know. Mind stamp, I/O, or use mind stamp on all socials.
I think we'll have a little discount code for squeeze growth listeners, maybe 20% off for the first 3 months or so. we can link that down in the show notes. I imagined.
or we can add it. After this i'll get you the actual code. But yeah, I appreciate you having me on it's been a great chat, and everybody out there, just you know. Get started and keep going.
(52:25):
You You got it.
Dhruvir Zala (52:27):
Thank you again for joining us, Brett. We wish you all the best with mind stamp and your future endeavors until next time. Yeah, goodbye.
Brett Lindenberg (52:35):
Thank you very much. Cheers.
Okay.
Hello, everyone, Welcome to the squeeze growth podcast today. I'm. Very pleased to be joined by Brett Lyndon Perk, the founder founder of Myinsteem I. O, it is M. I. And the Htmp. I/O.
So mind stamp is an interactive video creation platform that help businesses and even individuals create videos
(00:29):
videos quickly and easily, without needing any expensive software or design skills
or recordings. Coding skills, for that matter.
Hybrid. How are you doing today.
Brett Lindenberg (00:40):
hey? I'm doing great thanks for having me on.
Dhruvir Zala (00:43):
Thanks for joining us, Brett. I'm. Super excited to have this conversation with you, and to get started off. I would like I would like to ask you about a little bit of yourself, your background.
and how you started my STEM.
So yeah.
Brett Lindenberg (00:58):
yeah, sure, Absolutely. So. I am a full stack developer. That's my background. I went to school and studied computer science and college.
I didn't program or anything before school. I wasn't like a whiz, kid that was building computer programs. I like, I like the computer. I like to play games, but I wasn't I didn't program at all until college
computer science itself is a theoretical degree. You know, you don't learn kind of the Web Development skills that you I use today in college. You learn about how computers work algorithms that kind of thing. but I went in doing computer science with the intention of becoming an entrepreneur. I started out trying to study a dentistry, actually, because I thought that would be a good and cozy job. And then, when I realized I didn't like that, I was thinking, what's you know? What's what, what skills can I quit myself with
(01:44):
in order to be an entrepreneur the fastest, what what applies most broadly? And it was pretty clear that computer science, both, you know, computer science and statistics or different maths. you know, fit that, Bill. So I study computer science. I took a little bit of time after
i'm off after college to freely, and to build up my skills a little bit. I was traveling around for about a year and a half or 2 and then after that I settled back in, and I started working, looking for looking for ideas, and there's a long path from there to my stamp. But that's that's generally where it got started.
Dhruvir Zala (02:17):
Awesome. So when I was looking into your linkedin profile, I saw that you did your bachelor of you know science degree from University of Florida.
And
so you know. How how did you started?
Oh.
started with the decision of pursuing this computer science degree like, what? What was your motivation? You said that you had something in mind. You wanted to become an entrepreneur. So at that time was it clear to you that you wanted to build something, or was it because
(02:51):
it you're thinking like you would get a job at first, and then
work at a company, learn stuff and then build something so Was it something like that? Or did you have any specific thought in mind about creating the platform that you created today.
Brett Lindenberg (03:07):
No, no specific thought in mind Back then, like I mentioned, I wanted, I originally started studying dentistry just because I thought that that would be a a good and high paying job. I I
shadowed a local dentist, and he told me he works like 3 days a week, and makes 300 grand, and i'm like that sounds good. I'll. I'll do that quickly realized that I was not what i'm good at. I'm good at math and good at logic. and so I considered majoring in math. After that I spent a couple of weeks trying to figure out what to do, and I was going to do math. But I decided to do a little bit more of a practical application of math, which is computer science. And if you understand computer science, you know, you understand systems, you understand inputs and out
(03:49):
it's algorithms how data is moved how it's stored, and that's really applicable, you know, across the board I'd I'd hire a computer scientist to do pretty much any job maybe outside of like marketing. But, you know, if you can, if you can wrap your head around those problems you can, you can pretty much put them to use anywhere.
So I started studying computer science. but no, no semblance of an idea of what what i'd eventually build. I also think that you know background that time. I think it was 2,012. Ish.
(04:20):
That's when you know, the Internet was still relatively young. I think like that movie the social network just came out. You hearing about all these young guys just like me, that could that have built a company with with little resources right? Because when you're that age you have no resources. You're you're scraping dollars. But by to get a coffee to to go study. So you know the thought of trying to get startup capital and manufacture a physical good and
(04:45):
organize, you know. Actual labor. it's. It was just way more appealing to say, hey, I can use my brain and my creativity to create something and have a mass global audience immediately.
that's how it you know. Obviously, it's not that easy, but the the the core, the core truth. There remains that the Internet enables that distribution around the world at almost 0 cost. Right?
Dhruvir Zala (05:09):
All right. So so when you started in 2,012
the times have changed pretty much quickly after that since then, due to the into advancement in technology. So do you think, the resources to learn programming right now are much
you accessible easily accessible today than it were in 2,012? Or was it easier then.
(05:36):
do you know, start to learn coding and stuff?
Brett Lindenberg (05:40):
Yeah, I I definitely think that the resources have gotten more comprehensive and more available. It's not to say that they weren't accessible, then pretty much everything I do. I learned on my own just by, you know. I I picked up a book.
and it started to learn Ruby on rails. Ruby Andre also has been around for a long time before that, and continues to be around today, and that's what we use on my stamp. so it was just a matter of finding it, and you know, sticking to it. I think a lot of people get tripped up when they try to learn programming, because there's so much out there there's so little direction, and I think you have to have
(06:13):
You know
you have to have projects and goals in mind other than just learning, and that's what freelancing was for me. I I started doing a lot of freelance work and challenge myself to build projects for people that gave me a clear. Here's the things that need to be achieved rather than just. I want to learn, You know there's metrics of successes I can. I can build this database. I can release this feature.
(06:34):
you know they they they certainly weren't good back then apologies to those old clients. But that's how you have to. That's how you have to learn. In my opinion, is set the goal, and then, you know, eventually reach it. It can't just be an open-ended like
I've. I've tried to learn other things as well without those goals, and I just end up getting distracted or overwhelmed, or, you know, burnt out on it. So
(06:55):
I think that there's plenty of resources again. They can be really still be really overwhelming today. But I think that a lot of people have felt that frustration I talked about and have organized, you know, a lot more methodical ways of learning, learning, programming. you know, 100 days of code or a replic or different little coding challenges that
maybe didn't exist back. Then they've They've taken that frustration that people feel when they try to learn the code and try to organize it and try to give people a path because a lot of people just fall off in the you know. In the meantime.
Dhruvir Zala (07:27):
yeah, correct, I I agree to the thought that you. So when you said that when we start to learn programming we should have some direction where we want to go.
so that really helps. So when I started learning python, I didn't have anything in mind, any project that I wanted to build, so it was really hard for me to stick with it because I was busy learning the if and l statement conditional all the theoretical stuff that comes in the beginning
(07:52):
instead, I should have focused more on building projects and with some intention. I yeah, that that would be a pretty better approach, relatively. better approach, I would say so. Yeah, that's that's spot on
Brett Lindenberg (08:09):
yeah, 100 you have to have. Yeah, you know it's it's easy to say. But you should set some goal that's outside significantly outside of your current, your current capabilities, right? If you're learning. If you're learning python, it's not. Hey. I want to write a a a loop that does this 10 times it's. No. I want to build this small calculator. I want to.
you know, have a multi component goal. I want something to email me the weather every morning. That sounds really simple, and there's plenty of services that could do that. But in order to achieve that yourself, you have to put together, you know, 6 different components, and if it's
(08:42):
that, you know not for a client, and it's not for actual business like you can. You can cut the corners. But you're gonna get 80% of that of that learning just by hooking up to that Api and just learning how to set up a mailer and just learning up. You know how to how to set up an interval to to check that like that. So
I think you gotta go when you're programming, you gotta go broad with it as well. You can't just be focused on the little. The little things
Dhruvir Zala (09:06):
right, and and the satisfaction that we get after building something is is quite a wonderful to have. So yeah, that that's pretty good.
So
yes, so. So what inspired you to create mind stamp. Brett.
Yeah. So like you mentioned, Binstein is an interactive video platform today, and it's primarily business to business.
Brett Lindenberg (09:29):
You know, individuals use it. But for business purposes like training, right? Instead of watching an hour long lecture and putting a 5 min quiz at the end. Put those questions right throughout the video right every 5 to 10 min. Ask a couple of questions, make sure the learner knows
really simple right training and education marketing. So you can let people buy right in the video. You can let people, you know, ask some questions to gather information about their preferences.
(09:52):
but it actually didn't start that way. When I was searching out for an idea to build, I had actually just moved across the country from Florida to California, and I had left a a bunch of my friends back home, and I was still keeping in touch with them. We used to go to a lot of concerts and
you know, specifically one artist that would play really unique sets of these concerts. Right? You didn't hear the same song twice. So whenever you play the set, you would, it would be a big thing of oh, what did he play right? So we're always sending these videos back and forth to each other, being like. Look at. Look at 4 min and 30 s.
(10:25):
And so I try to tackle that problem. The problem that we have first. I was sick of that, you know, back and forth on messenger opening up the video. It was like, what if we could just put you know my thoughts into the video itself.
So the first version of my stamp was actually called H. And it was a collaborative video annotation tool, if you want to call it so, as i'm watching the video, I can just type my comment right at the timestamp and say, you know, Wow, or look at that, or that's crazy. And then, when I share that video with them.
(10:53):
those comments are popping up right at that time that I put them. So the first version of it wasn't really interactive in that sense. It was. Just let me add my comments to yours
to the video and share them with you. I was trying to do a little bit of a social video aspect.
And I made at some point in in some way
made
(11:14):
some functionality where you could request that you know a comment be responded to like, hey, this is important. I want to know your thoughts on this rather than just consume it. I want to know it.
And when we did that it would pop up and let you put a reply to it. And that was kind of the turning point in this interactive video experience where i'm like, oh, wow! This is actually this transformed it from a one way, you know, one way video experience into a 2 way interactive experience. Now, i'm part of it. Now, i'm actually having to respond to what's happening on the screen.
(11:44):
took that kind of a like well, but off, and we we worked with a couple got some interest from a couple of different agencies that we're using video for, you know, client reviews. Right Here's the Here's the video that we're producing for the client rather than sending the video and then sending a Google Doc and saying, Tell me what you think they'd send it. And then they'd ask that. I said, hey, would you like this color at this time? Should we change this?
(12:05):
And that was kind of where things turn and it became interactive video. And we shifted to a business use case because these agencies were clearly getting value. For as a video interactive review tool. So the social aspect is kind of pushed to the side and the the business interactivity use case. We we started down that path, and
we're really customer to customer Driven company, right? We we don't claim to prescribe the big, the big solution, the the big art solution.
(12:32):
We do think it is art right? Because you are creating these artistic experiences through video. But you know we we listen to what people want. They say I want to do this, and if we hear it a couple of times, we're like that makes sense, probably for other customers. So we'll, we'll go ahead and add it, and that's generally how we've gotten today is just by listening to customers ever since that first. You know a little request for feedback.
anything we add pretty much is is based on what customers are telling us. They need
Dhruvir Zala (12:58):
awesome. So initially, it started out as a collaborating platform rather than an interactive video creation platform where you could send someone some someone the video that you want them to see at a specific timeframe. Okay? And then you started adding enhancement and functionalities like
responding to that to that time stems through comment. And now that I look at it, I saw some of the features and capabilities that you guys give. It's quite wonderful to think about it like. Now we can through mind stamp.
(13:32):
add what sports buttons.
and a a lot of stuff that you know.
It's. It's awesome. So it's truly great to see where it is today.
Brett Lindenberg (13:46):
It's it's come a long way since then, but pretty much. Everything that we've done like I said, is is based on what we've heard from customers and what they're not. They explicitly say it. you know we we have to interpret what their goals are right like if they want to. One example is personalization right? You could set up a video and set up template variables within it
and then personalize that video to thousands of people, you know, just with one video and says, You know, in just like email, you can include their name
(14:13):
with their company include their size. And I've given this video that says, You know, hey, Brett. how is how is mind Stamp doing? I had know that you had guys have under under 20 employees. So here's our small resource Guide for small businesses, right? you know. So we just
yeah, we we just keep keep going. You know, we added all those things, and even what you see today is not nearly at the state that it started in right like hotspots when we first everything now on my step is drag and drop a little resizable right? You can place it anywhere on the screen. Resize style as you wish, but when Hotspot started, you know it took the simple approach.
(14:48):
I made a a 3 by 3 grid on the video and let you put a a little blinking indicator in each one of those in the center. What? Whatever you wanted so you know you couldn't necessarily get that hotspot right? We wanted it. But that got people 80% of the way there, if it was near the item, and then from there you just iterate over time. Get better over time. So
my stamp is just a you know kind of a almost 6 year journey now in the
(15:11):
in the art of refining and improving, based on custom, feedback.
Dhruvir Zala (15:16):
awesome.
I would, I would say, also creating videos through a platform like mind STEM is much more effective for businesses, even for something like lead generation than using simple email templates. So yeah, that makes all the difference.
Brett Lindenberg (15:34):
Yeah, One thing we like to say is that, like my instant kind of feature proofs your content, too. Right? My sense always a hosted and hosted experience. Right? So you can make a change on the video, and it's live immediately. There's no uploading, no downloading and you can continually update your content. So you have a lecture that something, some fact is now wrong, right? The statistic changed.
(15:54):
or that we've got me some new understanding rather than having to, you know. Slice up that video or or re-record a section or whatnot you can just put some text over in mind stamp. You can record a little video, clip in it into mind, stam, saying, hey, actually this fact change. This is different now. So you know, keep that in mind.
So it just it gets it gets that second life out of out of content as well like Webinars. You know a lot of people do Webinars, and then they just toss them up on Youtube and hope somebody hope somebody find them. Why not take that Webinar put it into mind, Stamp, You know gate it so that you can capture a lead like that. Enroll them in a in a marketing workflow
(16:30):
top it up, put more little pieces of content. Branch them out like you can just infinitely, infinitely reuse content on mindst and create these dynamic experiences.
Dhruvir Zala (16:40):
Wow! That's wonderful. the fact that you can, you know. Keep updating your content, your video content, just like, you, you know you can update your block. Content is is truly amazing, because when it comes to uploading a a video on Youtube, and when you want to change it you'll have to upload a new one. But yeah, through Mystin that, that that saves a lot of time because you can just update
(17:05):
a specific part of the video. You're good to go. So that's pretty cool.
Brett Lindenberg (17:09):
Yeah, yeah, we love it.
Dhruvir Zala (17:12):
Yeah. So what are the unique features feature of features that months munch tamp offers which other competitors of your do not offer as of now.
So so
Brett Lindenberg (17:24):
yeah, I think that today Myinstein is probably the most powerful and feature comprehensive platform out there. There were a couple that we were that we didn't have one, for example, was like sticky hotspots. We call them trackable hotspots. So if you have something in the video, you know, a shopping video and this guy's folding up a shoe, comparing the 2 previously. You could just have one hotspot, you know, sitting near it. Now we can make it. Track that object right you can. You can have that so that he's moving it around that hotspots moving with it whenever they click it.
(17:53):
That's a you know that's a big one. We have conditional logic. So you can do. You can show or hide different interactions that could include like changing new video based on either what you've told told the video about the view, or they've said themselves right. So if I asked the question, how big is your company?
I could add 2 but 2. But the video for a big big company, hiring guide and small company hiring guide based on what they answer on that other. To that question. One of them is going to show our hide. I don't think any other platform has conditional logic out there today.
(18:25):
but i'll say. The biggest differentiator, in my opinion, is that we've been really good about sticking to this concept of of making it all as non technical as possible like you mentioned like code, free, right? A lot of these platforms. You have to work with their work, work with them, work with an agency, do custom custom stuff all the time.
and just like you said, like my stamp is not a heavy video editor. If you've edited video, it can be overwhelming. You've got multiple timelines, tiny little clips scrolling, zooming right? We're not that at all. You You put in the video. And then, as you're watching, you have 6 8 buttons. I forget what it is, but if you want to add a button at that time you click the click, the add button button and a button appears on screen. You drop it where it is.
(19:08):
set it what you want it to do, You know, we have like 10 click actions, and just like that, you save it, and it's in right. So we have done a really good job of keeping things despite the power, keeping things simple enough that anybody can create a powerful interactive video whether you're a you know a single employee at a company, a training manager, whether you're d-learning professional
like we we try to hit the perfect blend of power power and simplicity that we definitely see that you know a lot of our reviews say that it's so. I I didn't think I could do this. but it's so easy.
(19:41):
and that's something that we see a lot with people is that when we show them, you know. Get them on a down and show them they really gotta take a step back, and
we rethink about how they think about a lot of their things, whether it's marketing or training. They didn't know this is possible. So you know they had no idea that you could do all of this in a video, and they like, Hmm.
I kinda got to go back to the drawing board here to think about how i'm going to plan this previously. I was just planning a video, and then, you know, to the quiz at the end, or send this video and hope they click the link you know, on the web page beside it. Man, I got a I gotta really think about what i'm doing here now that I know that this capability exists. So we're still super early and interactive. Video
(20:19):
like. You mentioned like technologies come so far we're not the first to do Interactive Video
devices, you know, laptops, phones, Internet is getting good enough is good enough that it can be a mass market product. Now, right like your your phone, and your computer has so much power that we can deliver this really rich data, intense experience anywhere around the world, and it'll work for people.
Dhruvir Zala (20:48):
Yeah, I am pretty sure you guys can be like the canva for interactive video creation. So we've used that phrase before we these that for canvas awesome now they've they they certainly deserve all the praise they get. We use Canada. We're customers. but we certainly take inspiration for them in that regard.
Yeah, because because the fact that you can, you know, you get to edit and create a video without using any technical knowledge. So even a non techie like someone like me can create a video very easily. And that video is interactive. So that's a bonus, I would say.
(21:25):
and the fact that it saves too much time. that is a huge, a unique value proposition in itself. So
Brett Lindenberg (21:32):
yeah, yeah, yeah, saves time, and you know, especially for maybe non non training and education use cases that can save you can save a whole employee right like we have one customer that use mind stamp, a unique use case for
auto loan financing right? They They do auto loans for people to get cards, and they've created this 10 min interactive experience where they send the data in using those variables like I mentioned like the personalization. So say your payment amount is payment right? And that payment that payment gets substituted for whatever they pass in for all these customers.
(22:06):
and it just goes ahead and confirms information. Does a little education, little confirmation, and that saving, you know, a 30 40 min phone call with the person live that has to call each one of these people Instead, they just set into the video. It's all hooked up into the system. The system goes ahead and pings them when it's ready, confirms all the information and boom. So you know we're saving them
hundreds of hours per month on the phone just by creating this because they invested in an interactive video that achieves their goals.
Dhruvir Zala (22:33):
Yeah.
So so what kind of analytics feature, or I would say reporting features. Or do you guys offer for an interactive video? So let's say, if someone creates an interactive video asking about something specific, like a survey or something so like, does Does it get recorded in some kind of pie charts, or something like, how do we measure the performance of a video?
Brett Lindenberg (23:00):
Yeah, Absolutely. So. We haven't even gotten to the analytics. But mind stamp offers probably the richest, richest video analytics out there today. Every time somebody presses play on that video you're gonna get a full report showing, you know, exactly when they started. When they stopped exactly what seconds they watch to. You know. We don't just do like oh, they skip to the end. So they got 90% watch time like you'll. You'll see graphs and information that show the Yes, yes, yes, yes. And then they skip this 5 s section
(23:26):
See all the interactions you any any buttons they click hotspots, they click questions, they answer anything like that is all going to be included. And then we also, you know, go ahead and summarize that as well as you get high level insight into your content. So you'll see a a drop off graph. And you see, yeah, the 75% of people miss this portion of the video. Here's the interactions that they're missing.
and also some, you know, variant comparison as well, like, hey?
(23:49):
80% of people that answered Yes, here dropped off, whereas 20 that answered No. Kept watching like, what is that? You know? What does that mean for your business? You have to do some interpreting of that right. But we try to make all that data as highly accessible and understandable as possible. And obviously we have a bunch of integrations as well that you can send this like we have a Zapier app. We have a Hubspot integration with salesforce.
(24:12):
We have web hooks. We have an Api so you can get really. You can really kind of automate your whole workflow. if you have a goal in mind with mind stamp, and you know, like when that when that auto load company I mentioned. When somebody finishes we send them a web hook. They hit our Api. They grab the information that they need and then automate. Should they do they get another video? Did they get a phone call, whatever it is? So
(24:36):
every every time somebody presses play. We capture pretty much everything you could possibly want about them. Obviously, with with privacy concerns that data is super secure and only available to the viewer, but or to the to the owner. But we give you, you know, deep insight into your content, how it's performing, and most importantly, how to improve it.
(24:57):
Awesome.
Dhruvir Zala (24:58):
Yeah, it's wonderful.
So Brett as you said that when you started out in creating mind, stamp it wasn't really what it is today. It was quite different, and you guys started out as a collaborative platform, and it's been a long journey.
Tell the date to the date to the date, so to what it has truly become. So what are the challenges that you have encountered while developing the platform? And how did you overcome them. So what what were some of the most prominent challenges in building the video creation platform?
Brett Lindenberg (25:35):
Yeah. A couple like I mentioned, You know, when I was building my stamp. I was completely learning as I as I went. I had some basic experience with with Javascript right, but nothing like we're like nothing like we're doing today. I didn't know anything about online video. I had to learn about all these different little intricacies that come with
video delivering it. Browser compatibility. Those are the technical challenges. Obviously there's a lot of issues slash challenges that come when you're learning as you're building right as you're as you're getting customers, and you're not a 100% bulletproof on what you're doing there's gonna be some problems. You try to handle them as best you can.
(26:13):
But i'd say like more. So the big
the big challenge for me personally was just how long it took, and how long you kind of have to do that wandering in the wandering in the dark right to try to find what the value is. So Monday it started in 2,017. We didn't really start.
you know. Get going and start getting real customers until 2020 late. 2019.20. Obviously the pandemic has been has been great for mind stamp as everything goes remote. That's when people really started to come in. But you know we spent a good 2 years, and during that time. It was just just me in the beginning of the company
(26:48):
trying to build, trying to really happen to reach out and say, hey, can you? Can you use? This is this valuable, you know, really having to put yourself out there in front of people and ask them to ask them for feedback, honest feedback that's super important. A lot of people will be like, yeah, this is awesome like. Looks really cool, but they're not paying for it. They don't. They don't actually use it like. So I think the wandering in the dark aspect being so long is what was really challenging.
(27:15):
And you know there are times definitely that I thought I was like all right. It's time to move on like I just can't get. I can't get the momentum that I need to justify the time. The input here.
you know, had to go back to freelancing for a couple of months, and I I kind of thought that was. I thought that was a failure right there, right? That's the end where
i'm i'm not spending time on this. It's gonna die. I'm having to neglect these customers, but I need to. I need to eat, so I need to spend some a couple of months freelancing, and that ended up being a pretty big blessing in disguise at that time, because I was so in the weeds with
(27:47):
every single day trying to figure out. Think what what can I do, what can I do? That? Taking a step back, working on another project for for money that gave some financial security.
but also gave that head space to come back and say, okay, you know, I've stopped thinking about this primarily for for 2 to 3 months.
What is the one or 2 big things that I thought of in the meantime, that can that can actually affect change here. And that was the first the first implementation of like these, you know, per second analytics that I just mentioned. Where you get a view report like, okay, we right now, we can create these videos, and people can consume them. But you have no idea what's what's happening with them. you have no no reporting, no understanding, and when I came back from that little hiatus.
(28:30):
I went right to work because I had a clear picture in my mind of You know, this is this is gonna we're gonna create this back end to the experience where the owner can see exactly what happened, and that's been super popular. So you know a lot of technical challenges along the way.
but mostly it was a matter of persistence, and you know it's got a
keep persisting and and recognize when you do have to take a step back but but be able to get back to it as quickly as possible.
Dhruvir Zala (28:59):
So you said that you started as a solo solo premier, and you, pretty much had to figure out everything on your own. So
hello!
When you created a minimum minimal viable product, Mvp.
The Which platforms did you use to reach out to the customers? And how did you differentiate those who liked your platform and those who really wanted to pay for it? Because there are 2 categories of people. Someone may like your product, but they may not need it at that point in time, so they will not be willing to pay for it. But then there are people who really have the pain point, and the your product is solving that pain point. So which platform did you use, and
(29:43):
you recommend for
interacting with your potential prospects? Would in turn be your customers like there are forums and subreddits where you can, you know, talk with real people and pitch your product. So how did you get started with that?
Brett Lindenberg (30:01):
Yeah, the you know, the the classic, the classic ones at that time, you know, Indie Hackers. Back in the day I read a lot of Indie Hackers back in like 2,017 is something like this is I'm alone I can build software. This is what I want to do.
We got a good. We got a good lucky break with product time back in the day where we were, I think the number
we the number one for most of the day, and then somebody passed us. We ended up getting number 2 of the day, but it doesn't matter if the traffic, you know, if you're on the front page, the traffic is the same, and that just brought. If you look at our our users by time. Graph, you know you've got, you know nothing, and then product on, then back to nothing for a long time with that product on
(30:37):
launch was what you described, where people come in, and they are actually interested. But they have, you know a lot of people say it's cool. But then the people that are actually interested to be like
this is great. But can it kind of do this, and I I need this like it's so close. Can I do this? And that gave us a lot of fuel, or at least me a lot of fuel in the fire to say, okay, there is actual interest here. Here's the most common things I heard from this launch.
(31:01):
Here's where people might have tried it and dropped off because it wasn't working, and at least give you some path to go on right like You're no longer no longer in the dark of just i'm trying to find the value in this product. People are finally telling you that product or that value. So
Indie hackers is good for community back in the day. I'm sure it still is. I just don't go on there much anymore. And but product time, you know, having a an army of kind of product enthusiasts that
(31:27):
both celebrate you as well as give you real honest feedback. that was super valuable back in the day.
Dhruvir Zala (31:34):
Okay, so
I would like to talk a little bit about AI and video content creation. So if you I have seen the recent use open a, I have come up with a new technology known as Chat Tippy. So Gp
We're rocking the content writing world when it comes to generating
(31:57):
human-like AI content. So do you think.
how do you think with video creation space evolve over the next few years? Do you think AI will help to? AI will be a part of that, too.
Brett Lindenberg (32:13):
Absolutely. Absolutely. I think it's gonna completely rock it like you said you know, there's we're we're we're exploring some a our projects ourselves right now. Everybody says that. But I think video
video is just so time consuming and costly to create at any edge that people can get is going to be really welcomed. there's a really cool company.
(32:33):
multiple. The one that's really prominent is called synthesia. That AI, I don't know if you've seen them, but they make synthetic AI like very, very realistic avatar videos, You know I could be. I could be an avatar right now, and I could have programmed myself to say this. I'm not. But I could have been and that's
that's a challenge that we get a lot of people with at my stamp like I mentioned. They come in, and they're like man. I got to rethink about how I do this? How do I film in order to create interactivity? and being able to leapfrog that they probably that physical requirement, the time and money requirement and go ahead and just
(33:07):
generate the script and then program in AI avatar or program. The the cinematic experience is going to be a game changer, you know. Right you can just.
You can go from hours and hours and revisions to just. I have my script, especially something like training right like you don't. You generally don't need a You don't need somebody from your company standing up there trying to film training, trying to learn how to speak that audio right?
(33:32):
You've got the content you want them to learn. Drop that script and something like synthesia. You'll get a video in a few minutes. You can drop that into my stamp, add your questions and boom. You're done, you know the only work there is creating the script, and then placing the questions. And You've got a an evergreen training asset that can that took, you know, an hour, and can now be used for forever. It ever.
(33:53):
So I think you know. That's the the basic version, the whole, you know, like I I think it's Dolly some some version of that for video where you know it's creating these actual actual videos with landscapes and objects moving and stuff like that's just gonna be
that's gonna wrap a lot more than the content marketing industry. But you know Hollywood movies content creation itself, like when you can just say say what you want the video to be that's gonna be that's gonna be absolutely insane. So we have a we have a close eye on that.
(34:27):
you know, an interactive video. The objects in screen are are important, right. so as we move more and more towards this AI AI generated model.
there's definitely synergy where we can say, oh, we're creating this, and we know that that that product is in the screen at this point right here, so we can automatically put a hot spot on it rather than having you go, and you know, place it, which is fine and easy now. But there's definitely going to be synergy between the 2 as as AI comes to even more prominence.
Dhruvir Zala (34:57):
Yeah. So
is it possible to think that in you know, in few years there will be a time where we will be able to give command
or a prompt to AI, and it will automatically generate video for us. So do you see that coming
pretty sooner or
in in at least a few years.
Brett Lindenberg (35:19):
Yeah, yeah, Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that. unfortunately, a lot of a lot of video producers and editors. They're gonna go out of business, as you know, you can just tell the computer what to make, and it makes it. And you can say, oh, no! At that 30 s change that to green, and it immediately does that right? As
as the cost of you know, compute power continues to go down like that's just going to become more and more of a real thing.
(35:43):
Even I'm I'm really excited about other other areas of AI to there's another cool company called Adapt AI that I saw the other day, and they are basically a browser based AI, where you tell, you know, you have a little chat box, your personal chat box
and you tell it what to do. You can just say, add, add Brett Lindenberg as a as a contact in salesforce, and set his company to this
(36:08):
and it, you know interprets that, and then takes all those actions for you in the browser. Right? So you're saving these clips where you're navigating and doing this you know, create a spreadsheet with 10 columns, and make the eighth column a combination of 3 and 4 right that that, saving it, it shows you kind of how
early we are on with technology and our interface with it. to the point. It's like, oh, that makes that makes total sense. I shouldn't have to go click, you know, file new. Find the box type in their name. I can just tell the if we can bridge that gap between what i'm thinking and what we want the computer to do. Same thing with video. that's
(36:45):
you know. That's a new paradigm that we're we're definitely going to see in the next in the next 5 years.
Dhruvir Zala (36:51):
That will be awesome to see, and you know the jobs for virtual assistant may
Brett Lindenberg (36:57):
certainly be in danger danger after that. So yeah, yeah, I mean, Chat Gbt
(37:17):
The cake you'll get a nice list of, you know, exactly the steps to take. And if you ask Google. That same question you're going to get, you know, 15 SEO optimize list list articles that you have to grow and scroll and find like
we're moving. We're moving way closer to the I ask you what I want, and you tell me what i'm asking you rather than you're giving me. You know, an indication of where I might find what I'm asking for.
Dhruvir Zala (37:42):
Yeah, right right. It will be a pretty hard time for search engines to figure out what content is written by, you know, human. And what content is written by an AI, because, as you said Chat Chip, it is pretty awesome at what it does right now.
and it is still evolving day after day. So
Brett Lindenberg (38:01):
yes, we do want human content, but also it also doesn't really matter, you know, like if you look at if you look at a recipe article, it's basically written by an AI today, and the way it's SEO optimized right? They They fill you up with a bunch of blabber about some dish. Blah! Blah blah! They try to get you to scroll, and then eventually show you the steps, and you know. Is there any? Is there any real human element to that? That would be different than if an AI wrote it?
(38:26):
I I don't. I don't know. I I think, that 80% of the time people are looking for information, and the human editorial aspect is just imposed upon them, because that's what we know how to create and share. So you know.
I I don't think people necessarily care as long as you're giving them the information that they want.
Dhruvir Zala (38:47):
Yeah, you are right. As far as we get the solution. It does not matter whether it comes from an AI or a human being. So that's that's
so. I I also glen through your blog where you write content about. You know a multimedia so there is this blog post.
Name the power of multimedia and interactive video. And you write articles related to those. So do you think creating block content helps you drive traffic and potential customers?
Brett Lindenberg (39:19):
Yeah, absolutely. SEO is a is a super long game, right like we've been blogging for a long time, and you don't really get too many hits on specific blogs, but you just have to. It's a long game, and eventually over over years, Google starts to recognize that you are providing value, and they're going to surface. You right like we I wrote a
(39:39):
There's a lot of ways you can spend money trying to get customers. and if you're spending money, usually the synergy isn't there, you know. Obviously paid ads are important, especially if someone's looking for a solution. But I wrote an article back in like 2018 or 2019. Maybe that was how to add a button to a video.
right? And I think I think we just got unseeded. I think we're number 2. But that was the number one to Google. Search result for for a long time, right? So any anybody ever asked add button to video. They see mind stamp right there. We've got a nice little step by step, Guide. So I, if you are.
(40:13):
you know, starting something and planning a work done it for a long, long time. I would try to be cracking out one a blog post every week or one every 2 weeks, and just build up that Content Library. Show these search engines that you are. You've been around, and you're here to stay.
You can't fill with garbage.
thankfully the AI writing tools. Make that. Make that easier now to to generate content quickly without filming it with garbage.
(40:38):
But yeah, a SEO is the
you. You pay the price over a long period of time, but the price ends up, being relatively free, right. It's just evergreen evergreen leads for you. if you can, if you can get on the app there.
Dhruvir Zala (40:52):
Yeah. And and it also helps create awareness about your product organically, without being a penny. So that's pretty organic awareness, organic trust to like if they, If you come to our blog and see that we've written, You know, a 100 articles on interactive video.
Brett Lindenberg (41:08):
Say, oh, these guys have thought about this. They've been. They've been thinking about this for 2 years, right? They've you know. I can. It's just a little semblance of trust when you can see that somebody actually actually cares. And it's been putting in the time.
Dhruvir Zala (41:21):
Yeah. And and when you keep writing about a single topic or a single niche
Brett Lindenberg (41:26):
people start believing you to be an authority around that niche, and then they'll eventually end up investing in your product or service. You know you're at least in that you're at least in their mind. if they don't have a need. Now then, the second they do. Maybe their job says we should do interactive video and say, oh, I know, I know mindset because I read this article, You know I I've been reading their information so
(41:49):
definitely definitely an investment, but I think a a very worthy one, and one that can be paste out too right? You don't have to be creating a blog every single day. Doesn't have to be back. Phone just a little bit of consistency, a little bit of keyword research. And you're gonna you're gonna see some results.
Dhruvir Zala (42:05):
Yeah, right? So my next question for you is Brett. what are your thoughts on email marketing? I would say, how do you implement implement email marketing as a medium of communication or promotion for mind stamp.
Brett Lindenberg (42:20):
Yeah, I I think email marketing has been king for a while, and it's still mostly King SMS marketing is Park popping up a lot more. But I think that the email in box it's still the best way to reach people, but it's just gotten so much more crowded. Right? I think cold email effectiveness has gone down a lot.
I think people do just getting inundated, especially if you don't manage your inbox. I managed mine pretty well, you know subscribing folders, whatnot, and even then there's too much stuff for me to consume. So I think that you have to, you know. Communicate with your customers via email. It's a direct marketing channel.
(42:55):
But I don't think that you can
rely on it like you used to, and we've tried it. We've tried some cold, cold email campaigns before, and just generally has had lackluster results in that. People like I mentioned. There's a big educational aspect to interactive video. So unless they've taken the initiative to seek you out and learn.
(43:18):
you'll get. They'll get this email, and they'll be like that's cool like I I want a demo, but I have no idea what i'm. I'm gonna i'm gonna do. I don't you know, Have any plans for this?
what even is this? I don't. I don't understand this.
So you know, we use email to communicate with our customers. We don't do too much. We we communicate important feature updates. We try not to abuse their inbox. We send maybe one to one to 3 emails a month depending on what we've shipped that month. We have a newsletter. but we try to keep that line of communication open, but we know that it's not. You know
(43:52):
the the the liver die that it used to be in terms of marketing.
Dhruvir Zala (43:56):
Right? Right? Right?
So yeah, this is the last question that I have for you. so what are the top pieces of advice you would like to give to people who are looking to become entrepreneurs or starting their own business specifically.
those who set out on a path to create something online, maybe a product or a service.
Brett Lindenberg (44:19):
Yeah, it's it's tough to it's tough to give that advice, especially because I can remember like
getting that advice back of the day, and you just kind of discount it because you like. Oh, they've already made something like that's just generic advice. But i'd say the the first thing is to get started. Get started on some project, whatever it is, I think way too many people spend too much time thinking about. You know. What can I? What can I build, or what? What's my company gonna be?
(44:45):
Nope, you should. You should run a bunch of little experiments right? A little experiments with those goals like we talked about of oh, this, you know.
Maybe there's something here with this email. Add on, or something. What's the what's the smallest thing I can make and make that work and then test it to works. so get started. you have to.
(45:05):
There's a balance between staying committed while also not spending too much time right like, or
you can't. You can't start something. And then 3 days later it'd be like, you know i'm i'm sick of this. I'm bored. I I don't. I don't believe in it anymore, because there's gonna be times you don't believe in it. You know it was a brilliant. You had a brilliant idea. And you like, this is the future. And then 3 days in the challenges Here.
(45:28):
you've come down from that high of thinking about it. And then you're like, okay on to the next thing. So I think there's a lot of people that hop from thing to thing never go deep enough. I think you need to go deep enough.
but also, you know, know, when it's time to time to move on.
You have to get things out in public right like you, can I? I have certainly guilty of building for too long in private and thinking, you know, when I don't deal this, it's gonna be. It's gonna be awesome that people are gonna love it like you need to.
(45:55):
You know the all the advice that Yc gives is is super important that you need to be iterating rapidly, getting real feedback from your customers.
and most importantly in the Macro picture. Just be, you know, persist, persist, persist every day resist the temptation to follow the shiny new object. and don't give up and don't don't give up in.
(46:16):
You know you can put individual projects aside or move on to different things. But if your goal is to be an entrepreneur, you should be attacking a problem at all times, and always looking for a solution to that, you know. it could be the the first, second or twentieth thing that you take on over a a week, or it could be years.
But you know your goal. Your job as an entrepreneur is to show up every day and attack attack a problem. and and just try to choose better problems over time.
Dhruvir Zala (46:46):
That's a great advice for it. Thank you.
Brett Lindenberg (46:48):
Oh, okay.
Dhruvir Zala (46:51):
please forgive me. But I suddenly had one more question in my mind. So sure it goes. It goes like that. So do you guys? I Are you guys planning to raise capital from a venture capitalist or from Yc. Combinator from anyone? Or are you guys planning to go bootstrap what do you prefer As of now?
Brett Lindenberg (47:11):
right now we're we're bootstrapped and self-funded. we've taken some small angel investment but
generally
i'm not religious about venture capital one way or another. I think that you need to understand what you're signing up for when you take venture. Capital, right? These venture capitalists are looking for a 100 X return and and nothing less
(47:32):
and so you need to understand if your company can
tolerate that that level of of growth and and risk. And you know, innovation.
tolerate can mean many things there it's whether you want to do it or not, whether your your team wants to do it, whether you think that the market is there.
and so far, you know, we're comfortable with where we're at, and Don't necessarily think that the market is ready for a venture. Capitalist funded, you know, super high growth, interactive video company.
(48:03):
you know, they've certainly had success with interact the video in the past. But right now, like I said that we're still so early.
but we are certainly not opposed that if if somebody
if we find the the the spot that needs gas port on the fire. We'll for that gas, right? We'll we'll get money if we're like. Oh, this is what this is working 100% repeatedly, and we can scale this up, you know we can put. We could put money in, and more money comes out. then let's go ahead for that, for that money and for the gas. But right now we're at a little bit more of a phase where we're, you know.
(48:36):
working, refining, getting people the results that they need, and trying to conceptualize. What is that? What is that spot that we can pour the gas where we know it's going to go go gonna go up and to the right.
I was definitely, you know, trying to get into those accelerators in the very beginning, I I think i'm reject. I've been rejected from y combinator like 7 times now, which is a personal, a personal point of of pride. Now, because didn't didn't end up needing it, you know. Who knows? Maybe it would have been quicker or better faster if we did.
(49:08):
I have a lot of respect for those guys, but they
they also didn't. you know just kind of what I said. They don't they don't think that it's ready the business or the the market itself for that that level investment.
But some businesses need venture capital, others don't others kind of exist in an area where they where they can take it. They have it available to them. But don't necessarily
(49:30):
have the, you know need for it right now, and I think we're in that middle spot right now. So as soon as we see an opportunity not opposed to taking capital. But until then we're not getting on that on that rocket ship, you know if we don't have the the moon insight kind of thing.
Dhruvir Zala (49:45):
Yeah. I I would also like to point out that when we, when you guys, or when when a business take some kind of funding from someone the expectations
of that product or service may change. So, as you said that some venture capitalists are looking for high returns, so they may demand you to alter your promotional techniques or go against what you do not believe in. So yeah, sometimes it can lead to changes in expectation. So it it it may have happened for the better. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, 100%. I mean you. You give up control of your business, and that's really important to me and my team, You know we have a we have a really good team really good culture.
Brett Lindenberg (50:25):
We have a a good life that we've we've created here. and
again, if we see an opportunity, we're ready to pounce. But Until then we're not, you know. I think I think there's definitely a trap of thinking that you need venture capital in order to to create a business.
A lot of people try to put that as their first their first step, you know. Okay, i'm gonna i'm gonna to form an Llc. And then i'm gonna go out and raise capital. It's like you need to.
(50:51):
You need to get a product. You need to understand the the product. The market space before you can, even one probably raise capital, and to understand whether your business needs it or not, and whether that's going to be a a net positive or net negative. and unfortunately, I think a lot of people
some people
don't find that out until too late. Right? They've they've over capitalized a business that doesn't have that potential that
(51:15):
the expectations would would need right. And then you've got bad energy between the founders and investors. The the founder regrets
selling. They've hired too much, and so they have too many capital obligations now. because they had these big plans earlier when they raise capital, so
it can be. You know it's a drug it can be. It can be good for you, or it can or it can kill you. So that's really up to the individuals to understand and make themselves
Dhruvir Zala (51:43):
right. Right? Right?
So yeah, thank you so much for joining us today, Brad. It was a real pleasure hearing your insights and experiences, and most importantly learning from you. So do you have any final thoughts or comments?
Brett Lindenberg (51:58):
no, I appreciate you having me on. You guys can find us at, you know. Mind stamp, I/O, or use mind stamp on all socials.
I think we'll have a little discount code for squeeze growth listeners, maybe 20% off for the first 3 months or so. we can link that down in the show notes. I imagined.
or we can add it. After this i'll get you the actual code. But yeah, I appreciate you having me on it's been a great chat, and everybody out there, just you know. Get started and keep going.
(52:25):
You You got it.
Dhruvir Zala (52:27):
Thank you again for joining us, Brett. We wish you all the best with mind stamp and your future endeavors until next time. Yeah, goodbye.
Brett Lindenberg (52:35):
Thank you very much. Cheers.
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