Why Video Discovery Startups All Fail
Sad to see Cory Booker's startup Waywire pivoting to "Pinterest for video" after starting with much bigger ambitions. Prediction: they'll struggle because video discovery just isn't a venture scale business.
My previous role leading product at YouTube put me in position to see a lot of video startups. Additionally, most large developers hit our radar at some point via their API usage. Many of the video curation/discovery startups were based on two hypotheses:
- There's an explosion in web video content (and it's not all on YouTube)
- It's difficult on YouTube to find and manage the content you want to watch
These are both absolutely true yet it doesn't matter - video discovery startups are flawed products and even worse businesses. Why? Because they don't fit into a consumer's mental model. They're fine products - several are very well-designed - and I'm sure many user studies provide answers like "oh yes, I totally need this," but in reality there's no habit being formed. Here's why:
Verticalized content needs context not just collections. Many of these startup founders would provide the example of a particular interest and describe how an enthusiast would want to come to their site to see [fishing, cooking, fitness, travel, etc] videos. But just a collection of embedded thematic videos isn't enough - the real fan wants content, community, editorial. They already get their videos as part of the sites they visit today - along with text and images…
