Vidsaga A Start Up Founded by a 36-year-old IIT Kharagpur alumnus Nikhilesh Tayal is a Global Video Marketplace for creating awesome visual contents, He knew he wanted to create something to help out organisations in today’s digital times. In 2015 he came up with a blog to feature prominent filmmakers and then converted it into a marketplace called Stagephpd.com. He ran this Video marketplace for three years and that’s when he realised that this is a global opportunity that needs a more specific approach. Let’s meet Nikhilesh Tayal and know more about his initiative.
Nikhilesh Tayal Give us A Brief Note on Vidsaga.com and its growth story?
Vidsaga is a global marketplace for Organizations to create videos. Consider it as a Upwork/ Fiverr for videos with additional Script writing and project management services. The idea is to help Organizations across globe to create videos easily and cost effectively by enabling them with decision making tools & video specific technical tools. At the same time, help video creators (like animators, editors, production houses etc.) across globe to get global work opportunities. Video Creation is highly un organised B2B service industry across globe.
Our intention is to disrupt typical Agency model with Technology and Transparency.
Tell us everything about your company, what does it do? What were the challenges of setting up and scale? How did you overcome them?
I always wanted to combine Technology, Entrepreneurship and Video Creation but did not know how? After failure of my first startup – I started doing theatre (which I used to do in school and college).
This was circa 2014 and Youtube was picking up and many people were making content for Youtube. I also thought of making a short film. While making that film, what I realized is that – filmmaking is very much like an entrepreneurial activity.
So, I decided to start a blog to feature prominent filmmakers. While interviewed 200+ of them, one thing which came across common was – they all needed work opportunities so that they can monetize their talent.
At the same time some of my startup fiends approached me that they were looking for video creators to create videos. That time I realised that I have unknowingly built the supply side of the marketplace.
So, I converted that blog into a marketplace – Stagephod.com. We ran this marketplace for about 3 years and realized that this is a global opportunity and needs more specific approach. We then revisited the problem and revamped it to Vidsaga – a global video marketplace with more technical features/ tools. The main challenge here is to get global video requirements. For this we started a first of its kind ‘Global Video Marketers’ Community’ in August’ 2019 and In just 3 months, we have 1800+ members.
Check out the community articles – https://www.vidsaga.com/category/video-marketers-community/
Give us a background of your core team along with the total strength of Vidsaga.com?
I am single founder Nikhilesh Tayal 9+ years of Entrepreneurial Experience.
First startup – CvBhejo.com (Nov’10 – Sep’13). Investor – The Morpheus
We have 3 key people in our core team
Prachi Jain – She is a Digital Marketing Specialist and takes care of Business and account management
Himanshu Arora – He has grown the Global Video Marketers’ Community to 1800+ members
Ankit Kothari – He is responsible for the great content we create and the lead generation
Advisors & Mentors
Sameer Guglani from Morpheus Gang is our Advisor and Mentor
What is the business model of your start up Vidsaga.com and how does it work?
Organization submit their video requirement on the website. Our domain expert then help them in finalizing the project scope based on their business requirement. Organization can choose from the packages whether to opt for Creative script writing or Professional Project Management. Organizations can use video specific project management tool to drive efficiency and create the videos easily.
Some of our milestones are:
1200+ Leads Generated from 8 countries (USA, Singapore, UAE, Kuwait, UK, Australia, India and Indonesia)
120+ Videos Campaigns Created
Prominent Clients
-
- Shell
- Cisco
- Hindustan Times
- Carlton Luggage
- BookMyShow
240+ – Video Creators from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Srilanka, Cambodia, USA
Recognitions & Awards:
Recognised as prominent startup by iStartup Rajasthan
What is the one thing that sets you apart from your competitors and what’s your revenue model?
The major insight which we have is that we cannot treat “Video” as just another freelance service. Video is a creative entity and requires script writing and proper project management. Generic Marketplaces like Fiverr and Upwork do not provide both these 2 services and hence not that effective when it comes to video production
Revenue Model
- Subscription Plans For Lead Buying.
- Premium Subscription for Online Technical Tools
- Script writing and Project management packages
Nikhilesh Tayal what were the challenges your start up faced during your journey and how did you overcome them?
The major challenge we faced is how to gain bring video requirements from global audience. We rely on digital marketing for this and needed quality content. We did lots of content experiments – wrote articles on video marketing and its importance but most of these content pieces failed to generate any engagement.
Then we decided to shift our focus from technical content to useful, informative and relatable content. This made us create content like
- Community Interviews – https://www.vidsaga.com/category/video-marketers-community/
- Video Marketing News – https://www.vidsaga.com/top-video-marketing-news-in-2019/
- News Things in Video Marketing – https://www.vidsaga.com/14-new-things-in-video-marketing-in-november-2019/
- Video Marketing Quiz – https://www.vidsaga.com/are-you-a-video-marketing-expert-take-this-quiz/
This gave a major boost to our traffic and hence the video requirement
How are you funded?
We are bootstrapped
What are the services offered to the customers?
Video Production Services
- Explainer Videos
- Corporate Videos
- Ad films
- Social Media videos
- Testimonial Videos
- Product demo videos
- How to Videos
- Screencast videos
What is your Future plan? And how do you see your Startup in the coming years?
The future plan is to become end to end online video platform with video creation, video analytics, video marketing, video hosting etc.
Finally your advice for Budding Entrepreneurs?
Life as an entrepreneur is never easy no matter at what stage out startup is. But the moment we realize and accept this fact, this journey becomes more enjoyable. Also, to start with, pick a niche segment of a very big/ complex problem and create value for that segment without thinking of scale.
Nikhilesh Tayal Any Additional Information’s that you feel that are relevant to describe about your work / Company etc…
I do not know if this is relevant or not but still sharing it
“One interesting insight we got is that ‘Video buying’ is very much similar like ‘car buying’. Car – a complex identity with multiple complex elements. Buyer doesn’t have any idea about these elements and at last he / she buys based on some insignificant feature.
Similarly video has multiple technical/ creative elements about which buyer doesn’t have much idea and he / she ends up selecting a video creator based on some reference or insignificant element. This insight actually helping us to draw parallels from Car-tech industry and solving the problem for Video industry”
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