[srikieonline]

Hi Jared & Trevor, Thank you for giving us this opportunity to discuss our ideas with you.

I am the founder of http://www.pnyxter.com - a video (only) based debate and discussion app.

My question is about product-market fit.

A user can create topic and upload a video selfie talking on the topic or respond to other topics via video selfie. The app does not have provision of text comments at all - only video responses.

I've invited several friends and family for private beta, and its been 10 days now and only 1 of my friend dared to create a video.

I also shared the link on FB and linked in and got several views, but no one created a topic. I also did a FB ad for 2 days - no luck here too. Is this a clear indication of product - market misfit? Or is it too early to conclude?

Or should I shift my focus only on professional and amateur debaters of various debate clubs in cities, universities, schools etc.

I do understand the privacy issues of showing video selfie - but I've given provision of a good privacy control (or at least I think its good).

Video based opinions are already being posted by users in Facebook and youtube - but do not have this consolidated grouping of all video discussions on a topic in one place. Youtube tried video response feature and closed it in 2013 due to low engagement - but of course youtube is a very generic video site - not all videos needs video responses/discusisons/debates.

Thanks!!

[huac]

Your product makes me think immediately towards high school/college debate (https://youtu.be/HGyFBRu5F8o?t=1461). Policy debate in particular has the added benefit of being untranscrible (listen for a couple minutes).

Couple ideas: (1) Analysis tool like Krossover, by cutting out prep time from videos like the above, segmenting by speech, and allowing people to annotate, search by annotation, etc. (2) a response platform for people to practice debates outside of tournaments. Right now, if you want to practice, you either debate with a teammember, or email speech docs to others, which doesn't really capture the energy or spirit of a debate. I could see this being useful esp for debaters at small schools without large teams, or rural areas without nearby partner schools, etc...

[srikieonline]

Thank you for your advice! I've started reaching out to debate clubs in schools and colleges already on FB. Will keep working towards that. However, I have still not given up on general user segment.

One advantage of video is (hopefully) reduce abuse. Twitter is plagued with the problem of anonymous abuse. However, its not easy to show your face in video and abuse!

[tlb]

You definitely need to seed it with more content. Currently I see just 2 videos, both of them old, neither of which are topics that interest me.

One approach would be to set a topic every day, and persuade 3-4 of your friends to record something on the topic. Once you get a debate going, more people will join in.

You're competing with posting vlogs on Youtube. So you need to figure out what will make people much happier posting on your site, even though the audience is smaller at first.

[srikieonline]

Thank you!! Would approaching debate clubs help?

Also, would you or Jared like to speak on some topic that interests you ?

I've also given an option of creating a private topic - which only selected invitees can view and participate - so that one can discuss and debate with only close friends/co-workers. Could this be a feature appealing for video bloggers who are concerned of privacy too?

[tlb]

It's worth a try. But video is a different medium from live debates, so it could be that debate club style doesn't work in video. You might get better results from YouTube personalities.

[srikieonline]

I do have future plans to introduce live debates - but I was hoping to do that once the offline debates gets some traction and acceptance.