Some say advertising is a tax on having an unremarkable product. Can the opposite be true?

May 21, 2020
Automatic video editor

During my work for an ad agency my account director said 'Advertising is a tax on having an unremarkable product.' After starting TimeBolt and reading the stories customers email I realize the opposite is also true. Payback can be so uncommon you keep the advantage to yourself. 

To know about TimeBolt you have to first imagine a solution actually exists to look for it, or someone tells you. The need it be inventive and curious is why early adopters get the reward. Some just aren't so quick to share it.  

Producers are in the business of attention. Editors must be ruthless with time to keep information snappy. But it's hard work. Hours upon hours spent on weekends, work days, and family nights to simply delete the slow pace of reality out of video. 

Look at the audio on a timeline --> find silence gaps --> Cut dead air --> speed-up purposeful silence --> repeat 300x per one hour of video. This grunt work takes 50% of edit time and severely limit how quickly you can release new content. 

If you fix it, they will come. 

Since taking beta live in December TimeBolt's has grown to 14 downloads a day. Customers email their thanks. They express disbelief. They share metrics of time-saved that must be entirely unique in software. 

The closest parallel I can draw is to beat your clothes on a rock vs washer / dryer combo. Stove vs microwave. Excel vs a written ledger. Reviews with 'lifesaver' and 'best investment ever' are commonly left on our website.

To us it's no secrete why. Feedback from known self-broadcasters and gamers is how TimeBolt has evolved from a single source video-audio editor to a tool to export cuts to Premier/FCXP/Resolve, multi-track audio support, and fast-forward action in purposeful silence. Customers tell you what to build. 

But there is a secrete. The vast majority of these customer will only talk about TimeBolt in private--even as they help us build it. 

Fix the edit chokepoint and take life back.  

The ability to produce more frequent video at high-quality without hiring an editor is a major competitive advantage. Winning back hours a week is enough to hit the gym every day, purposeful time to think of your next big idea, or even save a relationship!

This is a collection of emails from customers I cannot name, but who we are honored to be their accelerant to success. 

Customer 1: YouTube Gamer with over a million subscribers. 

"TimeBolt is sort of our secret editing weapon right now that helps us get videos our first, so if we end up promoting it to our competitors (potentially opening them up to a tool that gives them the ability to upload videos on trending topics before us and miss out on a lot of revenue as a result of them being first), I would hope the cut would at least be a long term thing. Either way it's a little risky for us because right now it's honestly helping us get an edge at getting our videos out much quicker, but with that said I'm willing to hear what you have to say!" 

 Customer #2: Manager of an editing studio with a team of 9. Who can save a customer a month of time?!?!

"We love it. Admittedly we've only used it on one project thus far but it has done everything you guys have promised and easily with a lot of flexibility and ultimately it is going to end up saving us a month of time over the course of this year across our various projects in my estimation. It is a tool that gives our editors more time to focus on being creative and getting the grunt work out of the way."