The Power of Coworking

We wanted to use the power of video to explain one of our Use Cases better to our clients.

Naturally we started shopping around to look at our options and ended up with price quotes in the several thousand USD range. As a startup that was well beyond our means and we decided to table the idea for now.

But the more we started talking to clients, the more we realized how important it would be to have a short video which explains what we do. In the ImpactHubZurich space we’re working in a conversation started with one of the other startups. Their CTO showed me a great little “splainer” (apparently this is the real word) video they did. And the tools used were nothing else than Microsoft Powerpoint and some movie editing software.

The little video looked absolutely great and it explained their product nicely.

This got me thinking – why don’t we use the same approach ? Substitute Mac Keynote for Powerpoint and use iMovie to do voiceovers and cut the video appropriately. We started writing a script to convey our message and to make sure we keep it on the lighthearted side. Creativity was at an all time low, but I guess Saturday afternoon in 36°C/98°F weather does make things a bit harder. Once it got dark and cooled off (and we opened a beer) things got better.

The next day we got up and sat down at our makeshift video editing workstation.

By using animations in Keynote, exporting them as a movie and re-importing them into iMovie we were able to create the scenes we wanted. Voice-over and getting the timing right proved to be more challenging but with a lot of patience and even more fiddling round we were able to finish the movie.

But unfortunately the sound quality just wasn’t good enough.

After listening to the finished movie a few times plus after getting some feedback from friends, we had to agree that the sound quality wasn’t good enough. We had used the built-in microphone of our laptop. Off we went to buy a proper microphone including a very professional looking swivel stand. We redid all the voiceovers and after some more fiddling the movie was almost done. The final touch was adding some background music.

The movie was only possible due to the power of coworking.

Without the conversation that arose by chance sitting at the Impact Hub Zurich, we would have never been inspired to try to make our own video. In the end we used inexpensive icons and background music which we both licensed properly, standard tools and a professional microphone to pull it off. Key thing was the intense 3 days we spent on working hard to make it all come together. The finished video is now available on Youtube