Fancy Footage Club

Our small design firm wanted to build an in-house product that met an industry need. The growing popularity of video in web banners and app screens aligned well with our film background. Fancy Footage Club provided top-quality, ready-to-use video for use in the next-generation of websites, apps, and software.

or if you’re in for the long read, simply scroll.

Membership Opportunities

a side hustle designed to scale.

The website focused design agency founded by my business partner Andrew Nater and I was always meant to both serve clients, and to support the incubation of in-house projects and products. We had learned from pursuing earlier product ideas that we needed an idea that could scale slowly. We didn’t have time for outside investment and needed to leave space for the client work that paid the bills.

Meanwhile, video was a white-hot design trend, appearing in web banners, advertising, and on app home screens to add visual interest to otherwise stagnant designs. Quality video content, however, was hard to come by - videography is a difficult skill to master and the masters are expensive to hire. There were few reliable, affordable, video resources available and none in the marketplace that were purpose built for interface design.

Additionally, videographers have a large barrier to showcasing their talents. Vimeo and YouTube demand more structured storytelling and drawing attention to work online is always a challenge when focusing on improving your craft.

Membership Obstacles

Confirming the hypothesis, and testing viability

To move confidently from the spark of an idea into roadmapping a product, we:

1. Laid out a business model Canvas

2. Assessed market interest

3. Preformed a competitive analysis

4. Ensured we had the resources to regularly acquire footage

5. Developed a roadmap that wouldn’t require more than 40 hours a month from each of us

We first beat up the idea by creating a business model canvas. Using this lean startup template we identified our customer segments, Value Propositions, Channels, Customer Relationships, Revenue Streams, Key Resources, Key Activities, Key Partnerships, and Cost Structure.

Our market analysis revealed a robust and competitive space in stock footage, but that new sites were regularly finding success so the demand existed for more players. What’s more, we found that boutique, purpose-made, stock websites existed in photo, audio, and design assets, but few existed in stock video, and no current video site was addressing the specific needs of interface designers.

Next, I combed through my own collection of footage for potential clips, and reached out to dozens of videographers I knew from working in film. I found 20+ clips in my library and created an email list of 8+ videographers interested the project.

Finally, we developed a roadmap that would allow us to dedicate enough time to client work to keep the lights on while moving this video website towards an MVP and eventually profitability:

1. Email newsletter with ready-to-upload looping video

2. Subscription footage website with full archive of video from newsletter

3. Facilitate connections between artists and products with video needs and take commission

Membership Stakeholders

Our vision for a friendly, bespoke stock-footage resource

We were confident enough to move forward, but the best way to really test the appetite for our service was to get in into user’s hands. Since our MVP was an email and a landing page, we just needed a simple identity to get started:

1. a well articulated purpose

2. a brand voice/personality

3. a name

4. a color scheme

5. a logo

Purpose:
The world would be a better place if any video you can dream up can be brought to life.

Personality:
FFC is Bryce:
This person is clearly aware of trends and is put together, but they’re more focused on the cool stuff their friends are doing than how they look or what they’re current hobby is. They always know the perfect person to connect you with and have great advice/tools to make your work better.

Adjectives:
friendly, approachable, helpful, cool, attractive, attentive, sexy, present, dapper, stylish, smart, aware, artistic, perisian, doesn’t look like they just got off set

Brand Voice:

Name:
Fancy Footage Club: Fun, memorable, alliterative, domains and social handles available

Logo and Color:
The look is meant to evoke a darkroom or cinema, with the footage reel as the burst of light from the projector, or the lightbulb of a fresh idea.

Membership Groundwork

Our vision for a friendly, bespoke stock-footage resource

We were confident enough to move forward, but the best way to really test the appetite for our service was to get in into user’s hands. Since our MVP was an email and a landing page, we just needed a simple identity to get started:

1. a well articulated purpose

2. a brand voice/personality

3. a name

4. a color scheme

5. a logo

Purpose:
The world would be a better place if any video you can dream up can be brought to life.

Personality:
FFC is Bryce:
This person is clearly aware of trends and is put together, but they’re more focused on the cool stuff their friends are doing than how they look or what they’re current hobby is. They always know the perfect person to connect you with and have great advice/tools to make your work better.

Adjectives:
friendly, approachable, helpful, cool, attractive, attentive, sexy, present, dapper, stylish, smart, aware, artistic, perisian, doesn’t look like they just got off set

Brand Voice:

Name:
Fancy Footage Club: Fun, memorable, alliterative, domains and social handles available

Logo and Color:
The look is meant to evoke a darkroom or cinema, with the footage reel as the burst of light from the projector, or the lightbulb of a fresh idea.

Membership Streamline

Our vision for a friendly, bespoke stock-footage resource

We were confident enough to move forward, but the best way to really test the appetite for our service was to get in into user’s hands. Since our MVP was an email and a landing page, we just needed a simple identity to get started:

1. a well articulated purpose

2. a brand voice/personality

3. a name

4. a color scheme

5. a logo

Purpose:
The world would be a better place if any video you can dream up can be brought to life.

Personality:
FFC is Bryce:
This person is clearly aware of trends and is put together, but they’re more focused on the cool stuff their friends are doing than how they look or what they’re current hobby is. They always know the perfect person to connect you with and have great advice/tools to make your work better.

Adjectives:
friendly, approachable, helpful, cool, attractive, attentive, sexy, present, dapper, stylish, smart, aware, artistic, perisian, doesn’t look like they just got off set

Brand Voice:

Name:
Fancy Footage Club: Fun, memorable, alliterative, domains and social handles available

Logo and Color:
The look is meant to evoke a darkroom or cinema, with the footage reel as the burst of light from the projector, or the lightbulb of a fresh idea.

Membership Results

Our vision for a friendly, bespoke stock-footage resource

We were confident enough to move forward, but the best way to really test the appetite for our service was to get in into user’s hands. Since our MVP was an email and a landing page, we just needed a simple identity to get started:

1. a well articulated purpose

2. a brand voice/personality

3. a name

4. a color scheme

5. a logo

Purpose:
The world would be a better place if any video you can dream up can be brought to life.

Personality:
FFC is Bryce:
This person is clearly aware of trends and is put together, but they’re more focused on the cool stuff their friends are doing than how they look or what they’re current hobby is. They always know the perfect person to connect you with and have great advice/tools to make your work better.

Adjectives:
friendly, approachable, helpful, cool, attractive, attentive, sexy, present, dapper, stylish, smart, aware, artistic, perisian, doesn’t look like they just got off set

Brand Voice:

Name:
Fancy Footage Club: Fun, memorable, alliterative, domains and social handles available

Logo and Color:
The look is meant to evoke a darkroom or cinema, with the footage reel as the burst of light from the projector, or the lightbulb of a fresh idea.

 so what’s next?