If you are a content creator then this free text based video editor developed by 4 German students is worth considering.

Michael Sieb: 0:00

I see that brands start to have people in their companies who really create this kind of content where they have like personality behind, not just like a stock images of footage or like animated stuff they really want to have the personal feel.

Jim James: 0:14

Michael, welcome to this episode of the unnoticed show. I'm delighted to have Michael Sieb joined me today from Berlin, Michael. Thanks for joining me on the UnNoticed show

Michael Sieb: 0:24

Thanks for having me.

Jim James: 0:26

now, Michael, you're the founder, one of four founders of a company called Type Studio. Tell us how do you help business owners to get noticed?

Michael Sieb: 0:35

Yeah, absolutely. So we started with TypeStudio because we struggled ourselves to create really video content. And we noticed that there's like a very, of. like the functionality for this advanced video editors out there, and we wanted to make it much easier and actually built a software where we do people can get access to video editing and lower the entry barrier so that everybody is possible to create great, outstanding content.

Jim James: 1:07

Yeah, and it's amazing. Cause you've actually been going only four years and you and your co-founders are still at university. As I understand.

Michael Sieb: 1:14

Yeah, absolutely. we are still all studying in different areas, but yeah, we now, nowadays we are mostly concentrated on building TypeStudio rather than finishing our studies, but we will do that in the future as model.

Jim James: 1:29

not surprising though, because you've got 20,000 users already. Michael. us about how TypeStudio works and the problem that it's solving because more and more people are having to create content. And yet, as you rightly say, a lot of these applications and desktop programs are getting more and more complicated and harder for people to use. So just walk us through how TypeStudio works.

Michael Sieb: 1:52

Yeah, sure. So it all starts with your content. It doesn't matter if it's video content or audio content. We like support both both files and you just upload it into TypeStudio so just go to TypeStudio and sign up and make an account just drag and drop your file into our editor where it will then get automatically uploaded and also transcribed. So what we are doing is. Transcribe your spoken words, your audio into text, and then make the text editable. So you can, for example, if you have any bloopers or mistakes in your recordings, you can just go into the text highlighted, click delete, and you just delete the words in the text and the video audio will adapt to changes and cut automatically. And yeah, that, that is how TypeStudio basically. And then they're like features around since we all already transcribed your whole video, you can easily add subtitles was one click or translated into different languages, stuff like that.

Jim James: 2:57

so Michael, it sounds both elegant, simple, and yet doing quite a lot of heavy lifting. Have you built the transcription software yourself? Because there are some, Rev, like Otter. I like Temi out there already. Are you, have you built a whole new engine or are you using somebody else's because transcription quality is a key element. Isn't it? In usability?

Michael Sieb: 3:19

Yeah. It does definitely ended. It's the car product of ours, like getting the video, the audio transcribed, and to be honest it would be like, Almost impossible to, to build that by ourselves. all the AI stuff we have to do. we use like Google speech to text transcription API, which yeah. helps us to transcribing the spoken words into text. Yeah.

Jim James: 3:45

okay. So leveraging an existing, huge company with AI, that sounds a really smart idea in terms of some of the practicalities of like video editing. For many of us, me included, I have two people on one podcast. How easy is it to. If edit the two people together because editing one narrative is one task, but joining and mixing two guests, for example, can be more complicated. Can TypeStudio do that also.

Michael Sieb: 4:15

That is unfortunately one feature that is on our roadmap, which is also pretty large. We still have to. To implement a bunch of cool features in the near future. in let's say one or two months, and we will definitely have to implement it because I can tell that it's very valuable to have this speaker detection, especially when we record like podcasts like these, or like other than recordings or whatever. it's very helpful when you have more than one speaker to actually see who's talking.

Jim James: 4:45

Michael let's then just talk about the 20,000 people that are making video and some of the lessons that you've been learning as a result watching, all the data pass through TypeStudio. Can you give us some clues what's making good video, for example, are there some tips and tricks that you've seen content creators using that you can share?

Michael Sieb: 5:07

Yeah. So we basically have like content creators from all kinds of industries. So it's more like a vertical, like a horizontal business model, I would say rather than like we specific target a very niche-y vertical. but in general what all have in common is that they create like content focused videos or audio, our podcasts in general. Yeah. What I can observe is that we have most people that are from the marketing space being influencers and publishing their content on all the social media channels on YouTube. And what I noticed is that what Tiny tweaks. You can really leverage your output your quality of the video you want to post. For example when you just put like subtitles on your video, it definitely performs much better on all the social media channels, because most people are listening without turning on the. that really helps give it a nice frame, a proper headline that stands out, that people get the attention from the people who are scrolling new to the newsfeed. So yeah, that, that really helps, like with kind tiny tweaks cause you can leverage really your output.

Jim James: 6:19

And with TypeStudio. Can you add images into the video and make those sort of frames that you just mentioned or do you need to make them somewhere else? How do you support that requirement?

Michael Sieb: 6:31

Yeah, sure. You can do that with TypeStudio. We so it's not all about just cutting the text and cropping the video, but you can also. I put images or like headlines, whatever you want on the canvas itself and create like a very nice looking video or change the background, color, stuff like that. So you can really like interact and design your video.

Jim James: 6:53

Okay, that's fantastic. Are you enabling people to export to multiple formats? Because Instagram is always my bugbear because it's a square, YouTube, LinkedIn. Do people have to spend time on that Michael or does types to you also? How would that.

Michael Sieb: 7:10

Oh, yeah that's one another great feature we offer the people that they easily can create. Like from one single video, they can repurpose their content for all the different social media channels. They have different requirements, like in kind of the aspect ratio, for example. So you can easily take your one video that you uploaded and duplicated and have it. Multiple versions of, out of it and not only cut different parts out of it, or like tiny snippets that you want to post, but also change the aspect ratio.

Jim James: 7:39

are you connecting to any of the sort of distribution or amplification platforms like Hootsuite or buffer or Zoho? Because otherwise one would have to download the video or picture and re-upload it. So tell us about your integration, Michael.

Michael Sieb: 7:55

Yeah. So in, from like the beginning, we already implement that you can like just upload your video by dropping in a YouTube link or your Dropbox or Google drive link. So you can upload your video from there. but like on the other end, when you are done with the editing and want to share it on your social media channels or whatever. On your YouTube or somewhere else, we're still working on that. And also another feature that's coming in the future that you can easily share it immediately and schedule it even for being posted on yeah. on your channels. And, but other than that, we have the ability to you can share your video already. with our sharing page after the rendering, you get to our sharing page, but you also can embed into your website or your blog. And you have then like this interactive transcript down below you are your media file and you can share with the links or nobody has really actually to drill, to download it.

Jim James: 8:49

Oh, I see. Okay. That's a smart move. So rather than moving files around, you're really building links and back links across the internet, which saves time and bandwidth. Doesn't it. So really a full on internet play from editing through to distribution.

Michael Sieb: 9:04

exactly. We want to build up like the whole process and everything should be online so that you don't have to deal with downloading uploading and stuff like that. That it's living all in the browser.

Jim James: 9:14

Yeah. Yeah. And are there some trends that you've noticed you've gone from zero to 20,000 users in 12 months, which is astonishing by any accounts, any particular industries or. Or trends that you've noticed that would provide some insight to, to the unnoticed audience,

Michael Sieb: 9:33

We have a very vertical approach, like people from all kinds of areas or industries are using TypeStudio, but what I really observed is that, like this kind of influencers or I guess you, you like to call them

Jim James: 9:46

the subject matter experts.

Michael Sieb: 9:48

Exactly. that I like people who are like experts it's in their field and publishing content as well. And these people really like to use TypeStudio. Be able to create content like big companies on your, on the frequent term. And yeah, that, that's really one thing I can see. And then there's also another industry that is coming up, which I also observed during the pandemic. Obviously the whole education sector changing or switching even more into the digital world and therefore also teachers and all the online quizzes. creating even more video content online and therefore they are also happy to use a very lean and easy to use video editor that gives them the power to actually create that content.

Jim James: 10:35

And Michael, are you finding. Customers subscribers are coming mainly from Europe, or is it global these trends that you're noticing, or do you think they're national regional, or global?

Michael Sieb: 10:46

yeah we started in the beginning. we only supported like English as a language that we can transcribe, but nowadays we have. I guess almost 30 different languages implemented. So there are people all around the world with all kinds of languages using TypeStudio, but the main other target group started just in the U S and they're like amazing. Most users are based in the US

Jim James: 11:10

And what sort of trends do you see Michael for business owners and entrepreneurs? When it comes to content creation, you've mentioned about, for example the need for putting subtitles and the nice graphics. That's you know, some of the packaging, but what about the content itself? Have you noticed any trends about what kinds of content people are producing? I know you're saying about education, but any sort of guidance at all, on what people are creating that's different.

Michael Sieb: 11:39

Yeah. since we definitely concentrate on this kind of content focus, we just all for example, talking head videos where you actually have like personality and I see that brands start to have people in their companies who really create this kind of content where they have like personality behind, not just like a stock images of footage or like animated stuff they really want to have the personal feel. And therefore like TypeStudio is a great fit because we definitely have an advantage for adding these kind of videos. And then I also see that you have to really put content on a frequent I don't know, high on a higher frequency out there so that you get noticeable. And so that's very important that you post your content frequently. And therefore as I already said, you can like easily create like multiple snippets or like different kinds of contents from your one video. So you don't have to hire a big agency who creates all this content for you. But yeah, that's a trend I observe.

Jim James: 12:39

whether also the content is moving from purely promotional, as you say to educational, and then maybe now we'll also start to see organizations using video for internal training.

Michael Sieb: 12:52

Oh, yeah, they're definitely like customer success is a, it's a huge thing. also nice through video and then also internal like presentations, or even if it's just like a zoom recording, what you have with your team and you want to share with like your whole company or like with anybody in inside your company. that's yeah. Massive

Jim James: 13:13

Yeah. So I guess if people aren't going to go back to the office, But they still need to retain, as you say, their personality within the company, PowerPoint doesn't do it. Does it, really anymore?

Michael Sieb: 13:23

I'm not sure. if do you mean if they can transferred the personality through like a PowerPoint presentation

Jim James: 13:29

yeah, I think that the old idea that you'd be in a meeting room and you'd present with your PowerPoint and you're in the room. So your personality. But now, if you're not in the room and you just send a PowerPoint to somebody, I'm finding this in sales, that if I'm doing a video of me presenting the PowerPoint, and editing that and providing a document alongside it, and that's proving remarkably successful for people. In fact, it's amazing how many people say they haven't seen it before, and yet it must be the trend to be there with video.

Michael Sieb: 13:55

Yeah. A hundred percent. that's definitely also great way to do presentations or like explainer videos for internal use cases. yeah. that's pretty neat.

Jim James: 14:05

Yeah. And do you think that we're going to see in health care, for example, the impact of COVID changing, how video is used? What's your view on the impact of COVID.

Michael Sieb: 14:17

Like for the health sector industry, I don't really know. Or I don't really see that any I don't see myself, maybe it's already trend going on. but I'm not sure about that. I don't have any insights

Jim James: 14:31

I guess what we're seeing in England is more sort of public information, videos that.

Michael Sieb: 14:36

I would say that definitely happens. it would also happen without COVID, but I guess that's, it's a nice, it's an like accelerate accelerator of this situation or like growing the, this kind of.

Jim James: 14:49

Yeah. Yeah. So w with TypeStudio there, Michael, if people are interested in having a easy to use functional editor for their video and their audio, what sort of costs are we looking at? Because. More and more software is sold on subscription. Adobe is now doing the Adobe creative cloud on subscription. Tell us about the the type of studio business model.

Michael Sieb: 15:13

yeah, we are also like a subscription model. we start with the free plan where you can upload up to 10 minutes. Everything a month can use it for free forever with all that. All major functionalities except like the translation feature. But rather than that, you can do everything. You have to hold power of TypeStudio. And then we have a basic plan, which start at 12 USD per month. And then. Pro plan with which starts at $28 per month. And then both of these plans have had a discount when you subscribe for entire year. Yeah. And then also we already released an enterprise plan where we adjust about to onboard our first enterprise customers, like companies who want to use it with their entire team and you need many licenses and that starts at 45. bucks

Jim James: 16:04

Okay. So really giving people a, an on-ramp into the TypeStudio that makes life a lot easier for people. And in terms of the kind of clients that you're looking for, are you really aiming at that? Influencers subject matter expert as a business and building the software for business owners or really heading towards those enterprises. that then demand much more. Just give us some guidance on the future path TypeStudio.

Michael Sieb: 16:34

Yeah, so far we just build like TypeStudio for the B2C case like really this kind of creators single users. And yeah since two weeks, we rolled out the enterprise plan where we onboard Yeah. Companies, because like they reached out to us and asked for do we have can we get an enterprise plan? We have like many people who need license. and honestly it definitely helps, like when you onboard a company with 20 licenses because you have to. Yeah, do really hard work to get like 20 single creators for for the, like the same, like bringing the same amount of money. And yeah but what we really love and we are always focusing on the end consumer level, because there we get like the user feedback, the direct user feedback, and we can implement new features that people really want to see in TypeStudio. So we really like to interact with our users and being close to them rather than just building. software would what some companies are using or may not, and you don't never know. so yeah that, that's definitely the plan to stick to our consumers.

Jim James: 17:39

Nice Michael if people want to find out more about TypeStudio and to get in touch with you. Where can they find you?

Michael Sieb: 17:45

Yeah you can just our website it's TypeStudio.co and you can find me on my LinkedIn it's Michael Sieb I guess you will link it in this down below. and also you can just shoot me an email whenever you like. It's michael@typestudio.co.

Jim James: 18:04

Michael Sieb joining us all the way from Berlin. I should say our feed is that.

Michael Sieb: 18:08

I'll feed us in Tonka interview.

Jim James: 18:11

Thank you so much. Dunke shün for on the show. All right. Thank you so much to Michael Sieb all the Berlin, one of the four co-founders young entrepreneurs changing the way that entrepreneurs can become content creators, by using accessible technology. Wonderful. It's lovely to see how technology is democratizing content creation for us all.