Imagine if every video you create with your phone could look like it was taken by a professional. Different angles, different perspectives, audio synchronization…all the “pro” stuff you’d typically need to finish a course for. Wouldn’t you download that app immediately? Lucky for you, that app finally exists! GroupClip is on their way to make history and we’ve managed to interview their co-founder Jelle to find out more about it!

Interview with Co-Founder of GroupClip

1. Hi Jelle, congratulations on launching your Leapfunder funding round! Tell us about GroupClip, the idea that got it all started and the amazing team behind it.

The idea of being able to record a multi-angle video with your mobile phone was born out of sheer frustration. A few years back, while attending a wedding ceremony of a good friend of mine, I courteously offered to create a video of the ceremony. After receiving the footage from my friends I purchased a video editing program and gave it a try. A few hours into figuring out the video editor the scale of stupidity dawned on me – how could I create a multi-camera video with so little editing experience? Luckily, I knew that Cristian, my long time friend, had some video editing experience and together we managed to create a somewhat decent looking video. It was then when it occurred to us that how cool, but especially how practical, it would be to be able to record from different angles and automatically stitch all the footage together! An app that would automatically synchronize all footage and an easy-to-use editing tool to select parts of the footage you would like to use in the final video.

Our team: Cristian and I have years of entrepreneurial experience and vast knowledge and experience in the gaming industry, online marketing, SEO and online video market. Kasper is a serial entrepreneur and has over 15 years of experience in starting and growing digital businesses. He has a broad experience in leading teams to create innovative digital initiatives and strategies. Arjan, Joost and Bart make up our tech team and currently work on a freelance basis. All have over 15 years of experience developing a wide range of high-end web based applications and apps for iOS and Android.

2. With so many video apps out there, what would you say makes GroupClip stand out? Who is your target audience?

No matter how good the camera on your mobile phone is or what fancy video app you are using, all will only allow you to capture video from just one angle. GroupClip distinguishes itself by offering the possibility of recording video with multiple cameras at the same time. This enables users to tell more with video compared to video recorded from just one camera angle. Online video will change how we share information, experiences, and how we learn. Therefore, we expect GroupClip to be used by a wide variety of people: youngsters to create fun and crazy videos, vloggers, reporters, athletes, doctors, people shooting instruction videos, etc. Offering a tool that enables people to create richer and more intriguing video content is something that will appeal to anyone who wants to tell their story using online video.

3. What type of investors are you hoping to attract? How much growth potential do you see for GroupClip and when do you predict it will start generating income?

The type of investor we hope to attract is an investor who understands that user growth is key in creating value in the app market. We aim to keep investing in user growth by keeping the main features of the app free as long as possible before starting to capitalize on users through in-app purchases (IAP). After this seed funding round with Leapfunder, we will try to attract strategic partners/ investors that will help us stay on course. First contact has been made with several industry tech giants, that have all expressed interest in funding a series A/ Growth capital. In case this growth strategy does not work out as planned, we will start activating IAP sooner. Our vision is to become one of the leading companies in the multi-user video recording and streaming market. At this moment, more online video is created every month than all major US TV companies created in the past 30 years. Therefore, the growth potential for a unique video app is big. How big exactly? Time will tell. However, if you would compare market validations of somewhat comparable “successful” video apps over the past 2 years you could be looking at values between $10MM and $60MM.

4. What made you choose Leapfunder as your online funding platform? What would you say are the greatest benefits of raising funding via Leapfunder?

Main benefits are: very little time and money wasted on paperwork. Also, the ease of accessing and mobilizing the “crowd” to invest smaller amounts that combined make up for a valuable seed round.

5. What’s next for GroupClip? Tell us about your go-to-market strategy; what is your plan to acquire customers?

Our go-to-market strategy on paper looks like this:

• Soft-launch the iOS version before the start of summer holidays 2016 (done)
• After the iOS soft-launch, optimize the app and user experience based on analytics and customer feedback
• Build the Android version of the app
• Create multi-lingual versions
• Until the full-launch date, focus on content marketing and attracting brand ambassadors in several niche user markets
• Full launch of both the iOS and Android apps before December holiday season 2016

However, it appears that we will have to skip puberty and grow up faster! Last week (24th of May), we launched the iOS version of GroupClip. In order to validate the GroupClip concept we needed to attract traffic/ installs to start our validated learning period. We managed to get an article on the The Next Web website and expected to attract some Dutch and maybe some international attention. But before we knew it, the birth of GroupClip attracted journalists from all over. Within a few days, GroupClip had been covered in over 10 countries on several high ranking website like adweek.com, macrumors.com, chip.de, Brit+co and many more (see some of the press articles).

The way we plan to attract users is with a very strong focus on content and influencer marketing. We have selected several niche markets (e.g. music, fashion and sports) where we will work together with brand ambassadors/ influencers to help position and activate GroupClip. We are currently in contact with several international and local artists and vloggers to become our brand ambassadors and use their network and influence our position and activate GroupClip. I am excited to announce that in few weeks the first video clip of a new song by a famous Dutch artist will be released in which the artist uses GroupClip app. Next to this, we will invest in activating GroupClip users to enter our ‘video of the month’ contest where every month, the most creative video will win.

Sounds interesting? You can get introduced to their team here: