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  • Iโ€™m Jakob Knutzen, co-founder of Butter. Ask me anything! ๐Ÿ’ฅ

    Jakob Knutzen
    148 replies
    Hey everyone ๐Ÿ‘‹ Iโ€™m Jakob and Iโ€™m currently working on Butter, which is a video conferencing tool that lets you plan, run and recap super-engaging sessions from one place. Weโ€™ve launched on Product Hunt twice before, so super grateful to be able to do an AMA here! I previously founded StreamCrux, a game-streaming startup. It failed ๐Ÿ˜…, but itโ€™s where I learned how to run a fully remote company. Ask me anything about building remote companies, product- and community-led growth, facilitation, remote work and the future of collaboration!

    Replies

    Aaron O'Leary
    Thanks for taking the time to do this, Jakob! Butter has such a strong personality, especially for a meetings platform, how did you manage to do that so well? It's so fun and approachable!
    Jakob Knutzen
    Butter
    Launching soon!
    @aaronoleary Thanks so much for the lovely words! One of the core problems we're solving is lack of engagement in online meetings and sessions. The fun personality was actually an experiment in the early days which people reacted super well to! Since then we've just leaned into it - and gotten the right people on board that can build it out! (We have a lot of fun around it too ๐Ÿ˜‰)
    Yuliia Mamonov ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ฆ
    Hi Jakob! Thank you for taking the time for an AMA. It's always super exciting! If you don't mind me asking, how do expect to overcome the competition in a highly-competitive niche like this, with giants like Zoom holding a giant share of the market? What helps you beat the competition? Were you worried or did you ever doubt the project in the beginning for these reasons? Thanks for answering!
    Jakob Knutzen
    Butter
    Launching soon!
    @yulia_mamonova Great question! Everything comes down to focus - we're building Butter for a very specific use case: workshops and trainings. The giants are almost per definition generalist tools. That's how all Davids win against Goliaths And nope - never doubted that! Going up against giants is often easier than against a red field of startups!
    Kevin T.
    I worked with someone I thought was a friend until we had the most miniscule of disagreements and he went, as a friend said, "apeshit." How do you find trustworthy people to work with, especially if everyone is sweat equity to start?
    Jakob Knutzen
    Butter
    Launching soon!
    @kevin_t_ Good question! It's honestly always tough - my two cofounders were both people I'd worked with before, so knew them very well (and knew how it was to work with them!). That helped a lot for myself - but can't speak in general on that :-)
    Eraj Ismatulloev
    Hi Jakob, thanks for the AMA. Butter has a slick UX and UI, kudos on that! Let's say that video conferencing is a "game", do you see Butter playing this "game" or changing the "game", and how so?
    Jakob Knutzen
    Butter
    Launching soon!
    @ieraj Great question! I think video conferencing as a game is changing. Being a video conferencing tool is not enough anymore - that's just a utility. You need to solve a specific use case - and deeply so. Butter is a synchronous collaboration tool - starting with solving the most complex types of sync collab: Trainings and workshops. Video is a key component of that. But who knows where that might head in the future - one cannot be tied to a medium if one is solving such a big problem!
    Eraj Ismatulloev
    @jakob_knutzen1 great point, thanks for the insights! Agreed, on the synchronous collaboration tool part! I've done some pieces of training online in the past in which navigating between Zoom and Miro/Mural/Lucidspark was both tedious and time-consuming (new links, new tabs, etc.), hindering the training flow and causing extra confusion for people.
    Kovid Batra
    I am standing 15 days away from my PH launch what should I be doing today to make this launch a success?
    Jakob Knutzen
    Butter
    Launching soon!
    @kovid_batra Haha, we'll see if we know how to! But overall two things: A) Community and B) Content A) Rally your community around the launch and make them excited B) Make awesome content (video etc.) that make the product exciting for new users
    Jakob Knutzen
    Butter
    Launching soon!
    @kovid_batra Hope it's helpful! I actually recorded this 6 months ago for a PH event - might also contain some goodies! https://www.loom.com/share/53764...
    Kovid Batra
    @jakob_knutzen1 this helps. Also, do you have access to PH support groups like these. https://docs.google.com/spreadsh... If you would like to use this you can use this and share if you have access to any.
    Paul VanZandt
    Hey Jakob, I'm the founder of a new online collaboration tool, and we're still figuring out who is the best target to sell to. Who do you think has the most applicable use case for online whiteboards and task management tools? Thanks for connecting with the PH community!
    Jakob Knutzen
    Butter
    Launching soon!
    @paul_vanzandt Super interesting question! I think whiteboards is becoming a very crowded market, so I'd probably look at some VERY specific use case. Some part of the market that likes Miro/Mural or any of the other "generalist" whiteboards but feel frustrated that they don't do X. Haha, that's the best I can do for recommendations! Just be SUPER specific on TA and use case!
    Paul VanZandt
    @jakob_knutzen1 Thanks for the advice, Jakob! At Fresco, we're trying to take inspiration from how you handle usability and engagement to make whiteboarding less of a slog. Good luck on the launch tomorrow!
    Jakob Knutzen
    Butter
    Launching soon!
    @paul_vanzandt Appreciate it, Paul! And best of luck with Fresco - sounds exciting! Counting on your support tomorrow too ๐Ÿ˜‰
    Valerie Krรคmer
    Thanks for taking the time, Jakob! ๐Ÿ’œ I love Butter! Especially the waiting room experience, haha. What's your biggest challenge at Butter atm and how do you plan to overcome it?
    Varun Varma
    What is your core channel of acquiring customers?
    Jakob Knutzen
    Butter
    Launching soon!
    @varunvarma91 Great question! As mentioned to @richard_gao2 : Social media (organic), community building - and launches (like PH) + relying heavily on word-of-mouth plus product growth loops!
    Edward Cederlund
    Hey Jakob, Butter is nice. I built a a product focused on crowd technology which generated authentic crowd noise and crowd visualization, which got acquired by Bizzabo a little over a year ago. Two questions if you donโ€™t mind: 1. Whatโ€™s the current state of the video conferencing market? 2. What are your thoughts on hiring talent overseas to manage any manual, time-consuming tasks to help your core team focus on strategy and results? Asking 1 just out of curiosity as I havenโ€™t touched the space for a few months. And 2 because thatโ€™s what we did to do a lot more, with less, when building our business. Thanks ๐Ÿ™
    Jakob Knutzen
    Butter
    Launching soon!
    @cederlund Haha thanks for the nice words - glad to hear you like Butter (and butter too?). 1. Hmm, I'd say we're seeing a consolidation for sure. The hype of the covid era is for sure gone. We're seeing two types of companies now: A) The incumbents (Zoom, Meet, Teams) B) The vertical challengers (e.g. Butter) Many of the unfocused companies in terms of use cases didn't survive. We've also seen quite a few acquisitions (e.g. mmhmm acquiring Macro, Miro acquiring Around). 2. Overseas is a broad definition :D But I'd definitely say that hiring low-cost labour to help with manual tasks make a ton of sense. Have done that in the past too! Love the questions! Jakob
    Edward Cederlund
    @jakob_knutzen1 yes, I do like butter too ;) interesting! thanks for the answers. did not know Around was acquired by Miro. a follow-up question :) what are your plans for Butter moving forward given the consolidation you are talking about?
    Edward Cederlund
    @jakob_knutzen1 just saw Butter 2.0 launching soon. I guess we'll know tomorrow, then?
    Jakob Knutzen
    Butter
    Launching soon!
    @cederlund Make it the next big thing - we're building Butter specifically for synchronous collaborative sessions. I think video is just the first step there!
    Kyle Tummonds
    How did you come up with the idea? Also, what have been your biggest struggles so far?
    Jakob Knutzen
    Butter
    Launching soon!
    @kyle_tummonds We were doing workshops ourselves and a massively tool overload from Zoom+Miro+Mentimeter+Polls+Breakouts+A LOT OF STUFF And thought there must be a better way to do things :-) Biggest struggles would be identifying exactly which target audience gets THE MOST value from Butter
    Mark Lamb
    Good on you for challenging the goliaths! So will butter have a free version like all the incumbents? How do you intend to gain traction against systems like teams and google meet when they are used by those organisations who are fully immersed in that providers tech stack?
    Jakob Knutzen
    Butter
    Launching soon!
    @highgroundio Great questions! And we already do have a free version :-) Again - the only way a David can win against a Goliath is by being hyper focused. Which we are with Butter on use cases like Workshops and trainings!
    Mark Lamb
    @jakob_knutzen1 so you're going to try go with a land and expand approach? Just a thought - is there anyway you can implement the unique parts of butter into the existing goliath tools using their extensions/apps functionality? Or are the changes too core to the product functionality to be able to achieve that? Even if it were a cutdown experience, it could bridge the gap and work in your favour.
    Jakob Knutzen
    Butter
    Launching soon!
    @highgroundio Great question, Mark! Yeah - you can say that. We for sure target a beachhead market/use case. And we discussed simple integrations, but we believe the core experience is broken and just latching extra stuff on it is not going to help. So yeah, changes are too core - it's about re-doing the central experience (btw, we're launching as we speak - so any support here would be LOVELY: https://www.producthunt.com/post...)
    Maria Yermolenko
    Hi Jakob! How do you motivate a fully remote team? Do you add any informal activities? Thanks!
    Jakob Knutzen
    Butter
    Launching soon!
    @maria_yermolenko Great question! I don't think remote vs. in person motivation is that different: Give them a challenging and amazing mission and then freedom in how to achieve it. And then we of course do loads of social activities on Butter ๐Ÿ˜‰ (which we incidentally is launching today: https://www.producthunt.com/post...)
    Ajay Yadav
    As a founder how do you manage personal finance when the product is not generating revenue?
    Jakob Knutzen
    Butter
    Launching soon!
    @ajay_yadav13 We are generating revenue :-) But otherwise, we also have investors and I draw an ok (but not impressive) salary
    Vijay Singh Khatri
    Superb, Can you please help me with finding the best way to achieve your goals without losing concentration?
    Syed Muhammad Shoaib Iqbal Shah
    Hey Jakob, How you define success? What are the key traits to become successful?
    Jakob Knutzen
    Butter
    Launching soon!
    @shoaib_iqbal3 Hah! Different questions ๐Ÿ˜‰ Personally, success for me is whatever drives happiness for myself and those that I care about. In terms of which traits drive this, I'd truly say it depends! For me, it's being a hyper-optimist ๐Ÿ˜Š
    Tehrynn
    Are you smooth like butter? Like a criminal undercover?
    Tehrynn
    This is a song reference, but a better question would probably be how important do you value onboarding with a new product?
    Jacky Kapadia
    Hey Jakob , Integration of Miro, MURAL, Google Docs, YouTube, and more. This help streamer to use all in one.
    Dipak Sisodiya
    Hey Jakob, thanks for taking the time. I was curious about what media server you guys are using to run your video conferencing solution?
    Angeli Zhao
    Flamme AI - The Couples App
    How do you cope with lack of motivation to work on somedays?
    Jakob Knutzen
    Butter
    Launching soon!
    @angeli_ SO DIFFICULT! Honestly, I think this all boils down to three things: 1) Love what you do overall 2) Have a ton of self-discipline 3) Make sure to recharge outside of work
    Indra Kusuma
    Love butter since the first sight, game changer in video collaboration and give spices for facilitator to properly engage with online audience. I'm curious how you start the ideation process and innovate in such competitive spaces to find your value proposition compare to other platform? any hint what could be surprise launch for us butter lover ๐Ÿ˜
    Jakob Knutzen
    Butter
    Launching soon!
    @indrakusumasp Thanks so much for following and supporting for such a long time, Indra! Ideation: Always start with the problem you're solving for the user! That's what we did to begin with and still do to this day. That's also why we do tonnes of user interviews Launch: Haha, you'll have to wait and see today - launch soooooooooooooon!