Ask HN: Please Review My Startup -- a SaaS for Local TV Stations

7 points by badmash69 14 years ago | 11 comments

Hi Everyone,

I am a solo founder . I have bootstrapped my start-up NewsPVR.TV and now I am launching. I will appreciate any feedback you may have.

This is the problem I am solving :

(My target customers are Web-admins & Marketing folks at Television Stations with Local News and Programming. )

Local TV stations promote their content by Tweets, Email alerts and Facebook posts . These posts/links are driven by their content as opposed to viewers’ interest. A One Hour news show might cover more 15 than topics -- but if a viewer is interested in 4 things --e.g. Price of Gas,Military , Football , schools -- she or he is unlikely to sit through the whole video to get to the bits she or he is interested in.

This is how I solve it:

My product, NewsPVR.TV, will figure out which exact segments of the news video corresponds to the topics each member of audience is interested in ; it creates a play-list with only these items extracted from the news video and posts it to the viewer’s wall as a video clip or emails to it the viewer. This way each viewer gets his or her own personalized new videos. We let the viewer define exactly what they want to watch and we deliver just that along with targeted video advertising. By delivering personalized video news to subscribers, we can improve open rate and click through rates -- thereby increasing revenues.

Sales: I am currently using LinkedIN InMail to reach out to sales prospects. No luck yet ;-(

I would appreciate any help I could get with sales and business development.

I believe in this product so much that I have decided not to charge any money from my clients until my product starts generating marginal revenues for them.

I can be reached at founder@newspvr.tv.

bigohms 14 years ago |

Most stations in the US are now posting content transcribed directly to their own websites with clips of the appropriate story already. Promotion is the then directed to twitter/fb on an automatic or selective basis. Is this basically what you are talking about? In the scenario above, people find out about the content through search or directed discovery or one of the aforementioned social streams.

If so, then please understand that I don't think you've thought through your hypothesis and gauged demand enough. News shows purposefully put the best content at the end of a show because they want people to slog through the 15 or so commercials in the 3 breaks before consuming it. Notice this whenever there is a juicy story or big weather prediction.

Enmass show viewership pays more than selectively pulling out the good bits. AftEr the fact, the value of the content would be zero anyway, so it's repurposed for web use.

I would validate your hypothesis with both the consumer and customers. If you can't see it working, pivot. Perhaps a subscribable video playlist based on topics (like good alerts) not channels (like YouTube).

if you use this idea and it generates revenue, I want 2 percent.

badmash69 14 years ago | |

Hi bigohms I totally agree with what you said ; I suck at getting my message across.

I am doing exactly what you said I should be doing "Perhaps a subscribable video playlist based on topics (like good alerts) not channels (like YouTube)". Could you be so kind as to just check my website and help me tweak my message.

bigohms 14 years ago | | |

Sure. Checked the site and yes, message and presentation is a bit off for B2B. Email me and I'll reply with my thoughts omid at Rennzer dot com

Also your sales process will need to be a little more expansive than just linkedin in mail messages. Download or buy "Selling to Big Companies" by Jill Konrath. B2B is a slow slog but there is some potential. Be advised that what you're proposing isn't really defensible from being replicated. There is no secret sauce. Broadcasters news feeds are already running through packaging scripts for the web, this would be the Facebook component. Companies may want to just put their own ads on a HTML5 player and keep 100% of the revenues. And they have the resources to get it done.

mjs00 14 years ago |

You should very quickly talk to a local station and validate that your idea makes sense with regard to business objectives and content restrictions.

Specifically, I think you may find that stations will not let you copy content or ads to clips on your Amazon CDN account as it is not in line with how they manage content rights and restrictions, nor does it allow to them to manage ads and tracking.

I believe you can access segment clips on a local stations website - why not do your alerts/preferences as a marketing feature/service that alerts then direct folks to the clips on the stations' site?

badmash69 14 years ago | |

I want to make the user experience seamless " if a user is interested in 3 items -- I don't want him jump from clip to clip; instead I want a seamless newscast with just his/her items , while giving him or her the option of going deeper.

The second reason is controlling the exposure to ad. The idea is that we not to force the viewer to view an ad unless we know that he or she has consumed more than X second of news videos.

As far as the CDN bucket goes -- the broadcaster owns the bucket. I have them set up their buckets ( for which Amazon bills them). My application just needs access rights to that bucket.

Also, I expect TV stations would be flexible in content management as news is a fungible and highly perishable commodity ( 5 pm news is stale by the time is 11 pm ). Also, unlike entertainment content ( sitcoms etc.) , Local TV stations produce their own news content; so they less encumbered by third party copyright issues.

mjs00 14 years ago | | |

Understand your desire around consumer experience, but you really need to engage now with a few stations to vet your assumptions.

skyle 14 years ago |

I think this idea is potentially useful and having a news/tv background, I can see the value both the the broadcaster and to the audience. Have you tried offering this to a large broadcaster, such as NBC, as a test pilot, working together to refine the product and use as a case study? NBC is interested and actively integrating emerging digital tech. Local news is a very tough sell as they don't have much money and take limited risk.

badmash69 14 years ago | |

Thanks , your feedback was encouraging.

Quick question : when I talk to a news broadcaster e.g. NBC -- who are the right people e.g. should I approach marketing or web team or the producers ?

_ud4a 14 years ago |

i really like the idea. how are you getting around the copyright issues of parsing out their shows and displaying it online?

badmash69 14 years ago | |

Thanks for liking it! I am building this as SaaS for TV stations ; the TV stations would continue to own the copyright of their content. My solution will just provide a value-add service for their content.

badmash69 14 years ago |

Clickable Link: http://www.newspvr.tv