Subscribe
Sign in
Iβm Joe Natoli, Co-founder of LOOFT. Ask me anything! π«Ά
Hey everyone π
Iβm Joe and I am the CEO and Co-Founder of LOOFT, which is in short, the world's first comfort service. I just launched for the first time here on Product Hunt and on Crowdfunding... and it is going.. not great, so I am excited to do an AMA here to just get some feedback!
I previously taught entrepreneurship at Draper University in Silicon Valley alongside billionare investor Tim Draper, before moving to Germany to work in a venture builder. There I have helped build (or fail π
) over 12 startups businesses with the most successful hitting $40M in revenue.
Ask me anything about building startups internationally, building a hardware startup as a total and utter underdog, prototyping, the entrepreneurial mindset, the green tech space, or even why I miss mustard from the US...
Looking forward to chatting!
17
Replies
Best
Praveen Shekhawat
How important is video marketing for new brands? How you are doing it at LOOFT?
Report
Share
@theindianmusk Hello Praveen! π
I hope you are not the Indian Musk! My personal opinion here, but I do not like him at all. Ever since he called that diver trying to save the Thai kids a "pedophile" just because he was annoyed, my opinion on him was totally changed. I think there are much better entrepreneurs to look up to, such as Stuart Butterfield of Slack. /rantover
For a B2C brand video marketing is extremely important. For LOOFT we are trying our best to work with companies and contractors to accomplish it. For our current video we worked with a local independent film contractor to record the footage with a proper setup. For the shoot though, I had to use my background knowledge in video production to write a script, create a storyboard (luckily found an outsourcer who could draw for free and wanted to help), location scout, direct it, and then finally edit it.
Another story I can relate is that we had a business at the venture builder I worked at that was a very B2C business. They were almost failing until they produced a youtube commercial. Their strategy was actually a revenue share ( or it was an equity arrangement) with a marketing company who produced the commercial for them and then published it to youtube. This is a promising route we may explore in the future.
Last note is that a strong brand is an effective moat for a B2C business, so in addition to tight video content, the entire brand must seem polished and professional. Unless you have a great eye for branding, get help with it!
Tl,DR: It is essential to produce video for a B2C model.
@joseph_natoli let's avoid musk, I would change that, I was new here so kept it.
Ah, yes! The mighty power of videos! They're like the superheroes of the marketing world, saving the day by capturing the attention of audiences and delivering information with a punch. And just like a superhero team, videos work best in a B2C (Business-to-Consumer) segment, where they can educate and entertain customers at the same time.
Did you know that videos are the most consumed type of content on the internet? Yup, people love watching videos more than reading text or looking at images. In fact, it's been reported that by 2022, 82% of all internet traffic will be video content. So, if you're not using videos for your B2C business yet, it's high time to start.
But it's not just about posting random videos and hoping for the best. Oh no, my friend. You need to create high-quality, informative, and engaging videos that will captivate your audience and keep them coming back for more. After all, you don't want to be the hero that fails the mission, do you?
So, go ahead and unleash the full potential of videos in your B2C business. You never know, they might just be the key to your success!
@praveen_ai well said! The analogy to a superhero team is a good one. Thanks to the ground that instagram, snapchat, and Tik Tok have laid.. video is not just desired, but expected at this point.
I assume you are working in the video space, so share what you are up too!
@joseph_natoli
Have you seen the Netflix series "Squid Games"? It's all the rage right now, and I have a feeling that you're going to love it.
And you know what would make it even better for your global audience? Wavel, the AI-powered dubbing studio where I work. Wavel not only provides top-notch dubbing services, but also captions and subtitles to ensure that the content is accessible to a wider audience.
So, how about we schedule a quick call next week to talk about how AI is transforming the entertainment industry and how Wavel can help you produce top-notch post-video content with its AI-powered dubbing, captioning, and subtitling capabilities? I'm sure it will be an interesting and enlightening conversation
Maybe I need to talk to myself to get the conversation going right? Better than the wall I guess... XD
So Joe, why do you miss Mustard from the US?
This is a great question Joe, thank for asking. Truthfully, the delicious yellow mustard from Kraft is a sour delight of a sauce. It has no calories and packs a punch of flavour. All of the Mustards in Germany are Deli-style, packed with extras, or loaded with calories. So, I have my family send occasional care packages with bottles of mustard (and coffee from Philz... man I miss them!)
@joseph_natoli I won't say the country, but I miss the crab-flavored Lays chips that aren't available in Turkey. you should be lucky if you miss only about US Mustard
Hi Joseph! I have a question as a solo developer I have a dilemma between marketing and product, what do you think should developers focus on marketing or they should focus on tech product features and find co-founders for marketing and growing community issues!? What about your experience have you had it?
BTW: I appreciate you rating my own product on my page π
@zemil Heyooo Emil! What level of BJJ are you hovering around? I haven't done BJJ in almost a decade, and I miss it. As COVID calms, I look forward to the day when I can get back into it.
Congrats on being a Solopreneur! That is an incredibly tough road in my opinion. Having a partner to bounce ideas off of, and support you in your times of need or uncertainty is a massive advantage that you are missing!
My advice is to 100% try to find a co-founder. I found mine @saadimtiaz through angel list. Down side is that he is remote and working on hardware it gets very tricky, but otherwise I couldn't have been more lucky to find him. Happy to share the post I made if interested, you can re-use it? We also worked together for a few months first before committing to co-founding. You have to be sure that you can work with and trust the person before that step.
For focus on Marketing vs Product vs Co-Founder, I'd suggest Co-Founder first, again the benefit of having another brain in the room is invaluable, I have tried Solopreneur and it's just hard.
Next get your product to "good enough". I have worked on other projects where my technical co-founder was overly focused on making sure it was perfect and scalable before we even had any users. This is not a good use of time. Get the platform to a generally usable state and then start "marketing". With software this is very doable. This base-level usable product will then get you incredible feedback from any users. Bug them with questions and plan how / what to improve from that feedback. If you can get them to pay, even better.
After that approaching investors is possible or re-investing the payments into more growth.
For a software product, I think there are many more avenues to get out there without spending money on ads or "marketing", places like here on Product Hunt, Reddit, Indie Hackers, or even facebook groups and forums. Just depends on your market and where their eyes are.
Anways, I am babbling and also haven't been good about taking my own advice.. *sweats*
Keep Comfortable and hope you checkout LOOFT or tell your friends in the USA about us (if not there!),
Joe
@joseph_natoli haha I also miss BJJ and wresting =D btw blue belt...
It will be nice to see the post you made =) and you told me about the angel list where you found a co-founder, it's interesting,
- How to find a good partner?
- Did you spend a long time looking for him?
- Did you make a lot of demands?
- How did you negotiate with your partner, what did you offer him?
@saadimtiaz Okay, I remember your "hairdryer" for the fire
@naveed_rehman ...No, I am not ChatGPT. I am a user you can communicate with to receive assistance with various questions and tasks. π
Hey Joe, I would love to understand your take on the value of prototyping and how you communicate that to stakeholders.
@morganrdaniel
Hello Daniel π,
Before I answer, I gotta ask for some more context. I assume you are working on something which is why you are asking... so what it it?
For my actual question though, which stakeholders need to be updated on the value? Invested Investors, potential investors, team members or co-founders, partners, manufacturers, etc. The way you'll communicate the value here depends on which stakeholder you are communicating too, so let me know!