Pre-seed startup that is meant to kill all the current AI browsers and much more

The video turned out amazing. Got 1M+ views within 24h. Brought us 20+ clients asking for a similar style. Brought thousands of signups for the client

But what about ROI? The client got 10K users and about 40% of users chose Aside as the default browser

But how did we do it?

Here's a full behind-the-scenes process:

Pre-design phase

Before going into the process of creating the launch video itself, we first need to identify the ICP, what the product actually does, and play with it. We need to identify the angle from which we wanna tell the story

You don't want your story to be written with Claude. It's a much more creative and brainstorm-intensive process that involves both teams

Every good story consists of:

• hook (most important)

• big problem in the market

• how we solve it

• CTA

It may seem simple, but you'll be surprised by how little people actually think about it. Many launch videos just tell you about their product, but they never answer the question - why should anyone care?/where's the benefit for me?

Coming back to the structure of the video, the most crucial part is the HOOK

And it's gonna decide 70% of the success

There are 2 different types of hooks that perform the best:

• We raised a bunch of millions from X, Y, Z

• We just killed Designers, Project Managers, AI Agents, etc.

In the first scenario, people think that if you guys raised $5m+, $10m+, $20m+ you gotta be cool (and you probably are, as it's still rare for the majority of people to raise millions)

People will open and watch your video regardless of what you're saying, the moment they see the amount of money. Especially if you raised them from Tier 1 VCs

But making people click on the video is one thing. The next step is to make them actually watch it and sign up for a product

That's where the second scenario comes in (btw you can combine both of these hooks and get all the benefits). Whenever you make a bold statement, whether you just replaced all the designers, or that you're gonna solve poverty - people get triggered immediately

People love to agree or to disagree

The problem is that the majority of the content you see online doesn't rise any emotions. They just don't make statements brave & bold enough

I can give you an example from my experience

We've been working with Work Louder on a couple of videos and when I decided to share it on X, I came up with a genius statement - "not a single prompt has been used"

It provokes that in the era where everyone uses AI to write, design, think and live. We're the ones who're still using our hands & minds to create the art

Some people get pissed and write comments such as "why would you not use AI", "Claude will be able to one-shot this in a few months", "it would be faster with AI"

But the majority of the comments are people actually expressing how much they like it. Expressing that they're also tired of seeing AI art and glad to finally see smth of this level made by a studio

And I can relate to that as well. I rarely leave comments (usually just supporting my friends & clients). And the reason why is that I just don't see enough of content on my feed that provokes me to engage with it. People forgot how to actually make bold statements and how important that is

Actually, maybe they didn't forget it. They're just scared to do it

Not everyone can handle the pressure of people disagreeing with you. But the ones who do will win

Anyway, going back to the hooks. You should always include the money you raised in the first sentence of the copy (as it shows people that you're cool and worth listening to). And it's always a risky but winning strategy to add controversy in the hook of the video

Let's get to the next stage

Storyboarding

We recently hired @dchernyshuk who's a great friend of mine and now a head of storyboarding in our agency

And he's the one who fully handled the storyboard for Aside

Honestly, one of the best storyboards, and happily giving credits to Andrey

For those who don't know, storyboarding is the process of creating how the video is gonna look frame by frame. We make all of them in Figma

The best way to make your storyboard as engaging as possible is to make it high contrast

You can use Size & Color contrast between the scenes

Size contrast is when you have a high-detailed close-up of the project that then changes to a big picture in less than a second

Color contrast is when you can go from dark to light along the video, or the opposite

The idea is to add dynamics to the storyboard and make every scene different from the others. So that when someone is watching it, then don't feel bored

Considering the rise of ADHD it's especially important to make your storyboard high contrast

And obviously, it's important to have a design vision

You can make everything by the rules. Make it as high contrast as imaginable. But if you're just a bad designer, it won't turn out well

Animation

The scripting is done, storyboarding is done, and now we actually get to the process of animating

It's pretty straightforward and takes no more than a week, considering all the potential revisions and stuff

There're only 2 parts of the animation process that you need to think about: consistency & speed

Whenever we start the process, we identify the type of transitions right away and understand if they should be smooth, slow, fast, jump cuts, and so on

If you choose to use jump cuts, then it should be consistent all over the video so that the user stays with the flow of the story

You should also identify the right BPM from the start and align the music & SFX with it later on

Extremely detailed SFX

SFX & Music are extremely important

You may not notice it, but it can dramatically improve the overall experience and increase the engagement rate (and lower the bounce rate proportionally)

It's the same as the border radius on iPhones. We almost never think about it, but we always have a feeling that iPhone is perfect cuz of the attention to the smallest details such as the border radius. Every detail crafts the experience

Aside was one of the toughest projects in terms of the SFX but we're happy it turned out great

Conclusion

It's not our biggest launch, but it's definitely one of our favorite ones

The style, the pace, the SFX, the story. Everything keeps you engaged as you watch the video. The exact goal we were trying to achieve and succeeded

We've made a bunch of other viral launches, just to name a few: Taste AI, Poke, Replit, and other

I'm gonna write more articles about our clients, success stories, failures, and so on, so keep updated

And in case you need a launch video, you can book a call here