Wouldn't it be awesome if your website visitors could record their screen and send you a video message instantly? Showing you exactly what they're seeing for support or just sending you some love.
Well I've been working on a new video messaging product and have just launched the website widget so your visitors can record their screen & send a video message to you directly on your site. This can be used for product feedback, customer support, authentic video reviews & more.
All you need is one line of code and to register your domain name & email so we know who & where to send your messages.
Instructions:
Step 1: Go to the link to copy & paste the js code above the closing </body> tag.
Step 2: Login to Zessage and add your domain & email address to ensure you receive your messages.
Step 3: Design your own trigger button and set the ID to 'zessage'. This will overwrite our default button.
Technical: The code for the widget is very lightweight and simply listens for a click of the record button. Once clicked, the rest of the code is added and allows your visitors to record the screen with their own video & audio. There is no user tracking or over bloated non-sense to slow your site down.
I built something like this that was $mcdonalds and worked as a variable that would remember your instructions for your McDonalds order. You could schedule them on repeat or text your order anytime. A simple text based CLI for ordering. Interesting idea, but probably not as consumer friendly as just a button.
Sending a link to a slide deck or PDF doesn't allow you to communicate your message very well. So, I recently added the ability to embed a Google Slide Show into a video message in order to record a presentation and communicate what you're building.
All it takes is to copy & paste your published Google slide link into the video creator and you'll be ready to start your recording.
You can save it to send later or create a more personalized recording and send it as a message as well.
I'd love everyone's feedback and thoughts. Hopefully, this will help you communicate your mission & raise money for your startup.
Word of Caution: The Dot-Com & Real Estate bubbles happened slowly and then all at once. When a bubble slows down, everyone says we're just going through a correction. The possibility of a complete crash is still there in the next year or so. Especially, since a mega-hit ($10b+ val) hasn't been created in SV in over 5 years. Investors need these mega-hits in order to justify the risks they take and there hasn't been a break-out started since 2010.
Every lawyer in Silicon Valley knows the biggest threat to your startup is your co-founder. Not VC's. Not competitors. Not Copy Cats. Not Google or FB. It's your co-founder! If you don't want to believe that, read the countless stories and lawsuits in SV about co-founder disputes.
Stories like this should give you the confidence you need to be a solo founder. Start solo & hire your co-founders after you get your paperwork done. It's not about equity or greed. It's about starting smart & protecting your investment.
When I moved to Palo Alto in 2011, I had this weird sense that their was a hidden secret behind every term used. I've learned since that it's just a BS game built by lawyers & VC's in the name of "protecting the company & investment". In reality, it's a power game won somewhere in the knowledge gap. The more you know and understand the less likely you are to lose the game.
If I remember correctly, Airbnb struggled to raise after YC as well. Sequoia came in and gave them $600k quietly after Greg McAdoo synthesized and reframed the Airbnb vision (See Nathan's Startup school speech from 2013). Why didn't Paige participate in funding after demo day?
This is actually a great assessment of many industries. I watched this exact thing happen in the lead generation business from 2000 and continue to today. It's grown impossible to be honest, as no one trusts you anyways and it becomes difficult to compete on price. Even when you give them everything they ask for, they still don't buy because they have learned not to trust lead generators, Bitcoin marketplaces, etc.
Lots of great changes that make a world of difference for marketplace builders. From someone who used to use Authorize.net and spent a lot of money building tools around it... I love Stripe. So simple, so smart. Best YC company yet.
You can build a lean website on CPC advertising...but it's hard to build a real business based on that. Advertising should be viewed as supplemental revenue, rather than the main business model. I assume that's why GigaOm began to shift over to the subscription model.
It could also be one of the reasons Google just came out with the "Contributors" beta last week. They may have realized the CPC ad model does not pay enough and content creators need better business models to make it worth their time.
It's more likely that this will end up being a new tax on resources, instead of ending labor taxes. The true purpose of the tax is to create a new tax on resources. Ending labor taxes just seems to be a sales pitch to get support. From a cynics point of view, it's just a new way to sell a carbon/environmental tax. More taxes!=More Rainbows.
I commend you for helping your friend. When I was a child, my fathers friend lost his left arm and all but two fingers on his right hand in a train accident. My dad hired him to work around our yard and help out. He eventually taught the guy how to tie his shoes with only two fingers. I'm still impressed by my fathers patience and inventiveness in helping his friend get back on his feet. I'm sure you'll find a way to make it happen for your friend as well.
My initial thought is there has got to be some kind of foot pedals for the left handed controls. If you can't find one, take an old keyboard and eliminate all the keys except the ones needed for gaming. Then attach foot pads to the gaming keys he needs. It will probably take some time, but he'll eventually get used to it.
Congrats to CF on this. The day has come where all domains & subdomains should automatically be SSL encrypted for free. CF is building the Internet as it should have been built in the first place. I love that they are doing this.
Well I've been working on a new video messaging product and have just launched the website widget so your visitors can record their screen & send a video message to you directly on your site. This can be used for product feedback, customer support, authentic video reviews & more.
All you need is one line of code and to register your domain name & email so we know who & where to send your messages.
You can try it here: https://zessage.com/widget - Click the "Try it Now!" button to see it in action.
Instructions: Step 1: Go to the link to copy & paste the js code above the closing </body> tag. Step 2: Login to Zessage and add your domain & email address to ensure you receive your messages. Step 3: Design your own trigger button and set the ID to 'zessage'. This will overwrite our default button.
Technical: The code for the widget is very lightweight and simply listens for a click of the record button. Once clicked, the rest of the code is added and allows your visitors to record the screen with their own video & audio. There is no user tracking or over bloated non-sense to slow your site down.
I've also just posted it to Product Hunt: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/zessage-website-video-mess...
I'd love your votes, feedback and thoughts.