

Ask HN: Please Review My Startup -- a SaaS for Local TV Stations - badmash69

Hi Everyone,<p>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.<p>This is the problem I am solving :<p>(My target customers are  Web-admins &#38; Marketing folks at  Television Stations with Local News and Programming. )<p>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.<p>This is how I solve it:<p>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.<p>Sales:
I am currently using LinkedIN InMail to reach out to sales prospects. No luck yet ;-(<p>I would appreciate any help  I could get  with sales and business development.<p>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.<p>I can be reached at founder@newspvr.tv.
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bigohms
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
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
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.

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mjs00
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
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
Understand your desire around consumer experience, but you really need to
engage now with a few stations to vet your assumptions.

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skyle
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
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 ?

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soho33
i really like the idea. how are you getting around the copyright issues of
parsing out their shows and displaying it online?

~~~
badmash69
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.

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badmash69
Clickable Link: <http://www.newspvr.tv>

