Re:How I rolled my own explainer video for my Saas in a weekend
by ryannevius on Monday March 07, 2016 @08:44AM
(#11238780)
Correct me if I'm wrong...but shouldn't you also include the time you spent in your "final cost"? For example, if my time is worth $100 per hour and I spend 10 hours, sure, my debit card shows that I spent $100...but add in my time and now it's around $1100. I could have used that time to work on other things, to generate even more value for my startup, and effectively break even when the company I hired to create an explainer video delivers.
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Re:How I rolled my own explainer video for my Saas in a weekend
by cyberferret on Monday March 07, 2016 @08:50AM
(#11238805)
You are right. If I added in my normal consulting rate, the cost would have been the same as the original quotes I got. But for me, I valued the learning experience of doing something I had never done before. To be honest, it was a good change from the core development work on the app, or the social media marketing I had been doing.
I am pretty much a one man show here, so am used to doing everything myself now. In a sense, I still think that the added skills I am learning adds value to my startup. Once I started earning serious income and hire others, then I will have to strive to become better at delegating work that is not my core speciality, but until then, I just have fun learning. :)
Re:How I rolled my own explainer video for my Saas in a weekend
by TrevorJ on Monday March 07, 2016 @09:15PM
(#11243167)
I admire your philosophy on this. It's impressive work for 48 hours starting from scratch. I'm also glad you recognise that 2,000 for a video like this is a reasonable rate. A lot of times people don't realize just how much goes into that sort of work.
Re:How I rolled my own explainer video for my Saas in a weekend
by brudgers on Monday March 07, 2016 @09:35AM
(#11239068)
It takes time to select, communicate with, and manage an outside company. It creates a dependency on that company's schedule and the schedules of all the other companys that the outside company also works for. Those costs tend to be non-trivial even in cases where there is a long term established relationship.
To put it in perspective, it may take a couple of weeks of calendar time just to get to a signed agreement. Never mind a few more weeks to get a final product [if it all]. That's a big break in cognitive flow for a small project that can be knocked out in a few hours.