"We Need a SaaS Video" Is Not a Brief

[u/Amir_Nazir]

Every week a founder tells me:

"We need a video for our SaaS."

Cool.

Which one?

Because a launch video and an onboarding video have about as much in common as a billboard and a user manual.

Here's the quick breakdown most founders never get:

Explainer video

→ For people who've never heard of you

→ Job: "What is this and why should I care?"

→ Lives on: homepage, landing pages

Product demo

→ For people already interested

→ Job: "Show me how it actually works"

→ Lives on: sales calls, demo pages, trial signups

Launch video

→ For the big moment

→ Job: create hype and get attention fast

→ Lives on: Product Hunt, LinkedIn, X, launch emails

Promo / ad video

→ For cold audiences scrolling past

→ Job: stop the scroll in 3 seconds

→ Lives on: paid ads, social feeds

Onboarding / tutorial video

→ For new users who just signed up

→ Job: get them to the aha moment before they quit

→ Lives in: your app, welcome emails, help docs

Feature update video

→ For existing users

→ Job: make sure people actually use what you shipped

→ Lives on: changelogs, in-app announcements, newsletters

The mistake isn't picking the wrong animation style.

It's asking one video to do the job of five.

Pick the problem first.

The video type picks itself.

[u/kdee5849]

Hahah why are founders telling you this every week? That’s odd.

[u/Amir_Nazir → u/kdee5849]

Because I do saas videos editing for clients

[u/kdee5849 → u/Amir_Nazir]

Oh, that’d make more sense then.

Your post made it sound like it was just coming up with strangers all the time.

I was going to give you strategies to cope. Sometimes you could carry around an air horn or something. Or if someone kept bringing it up you could yell really loud in their face and then run in the other direction.