The episode, in writing
by Richard Lovatt · from the episode above, checked against what was said
A sign up emailed me last night and said $129? That's way overpriced for a clipper. And here is why he's correct. Being compared to a clipper hurts so bad. It doesn't really. At the end of the day, it's true what he said. Most clippers out there are much cheaper, much more cost-effective if you're utilising them as a clipper. But at the same time, Underway is much, much more than a clipper, and I don't blame him for not understanding and realising that. It was his first day or first evening on Underway.
He mentioned a few things about what he does. He did say some great bits of feedback that I would say to anyone out there building a bit of software, you must take advice like this and take it on board because it does help the experience. He said, firstly, there is no option on the shorts to just have me talking without graphics or B-roll. I need to just have my face and captions. The reality is he saw an ad, landed on the landing page, signed up on the highest level membership, and what that meant was he received the whole shebang, the professional thumbnails, the clip in with the motion graphics and animation. It helped me understand that not everyone signing up like that is going to want the whole shebang. I actually changed the code for him. I added the ability to remove all of that stuff even if you are on that top level membership. That's a really great bit of feedback.
He then also said, how do I get Cedar to interview me about specific content using this example xyz. That's one of the voices, by the way. Again, a great bit of feedback. It says to me that I need to improve the ability for people starting on the app to just grasp these kinds of things, so again I made some changes on the code base to make these kinds of things understandable. I build apps, I work in marketing and sales every day, and what I coach and tell people is you've got to assume everyone you're speaking to is stupid. They're not all stupid, but if you assume so it means you simplify your language and simplify everything you're doing, which means better communication, which helps in all areas of life. So two bits of feedback he gave me that I used to improve the experience for my people.
Now here's the feedback where he went in with the kill. He said, on the higher meta level your system is built like many others. Oh, it hurts. Built like many others for the UDC people, clippers and sellers. Many of these are great programs, like yours, which took the dagger out, and I was like, thank God, great compliment. He said many of these great programs don't work well for programs that are more informational, like mine. And I thought, Underway is actually built for someone like him. It is built for programs that are more informational, absolutely, but he hasn't experienced Underway enough and stayed on the program and connected everything for it to gain that context. It does that over time. It does it the more you use it. It genuinely becomes like having a producer, director, copywriter, bookkeeper just next to you all the time.
I do want to help this person, because people like him, creative people, he writes books, he needs to document his stuff, I want to help these kinds of people. That's really what this was created for, so these kinds of people can utilise their craft and document what they're doing without thinking too much. He said, I'll try it for a bit more and see what happens, which is good. The long form eight minute clip wasn't too bad, but we're missing the mark on the shorts. He created episode zero, which was him speaking with the AI back and forth for a while. It created an eight minute clip, took away all the pieces of him speaking and crafted it into an eight minute long form piece of content, and he liked that. But the shorts were missing the mark, not in terms of factual content and editing, just the fact that they were professional ones, with animation and everything happening, and he wanted them plain. So I rendered all of his videos again for him, made them in the first basic title font from his brand, took away all the animation, and did it for him. I'm waiting on him to let me know how it looks.
Here's where the kicker comes. $129 per month is way overpriced for what you're offering, in my honest opinion. I like that. I can do Riverside, $29 a month, paired with nearly any AI at another $29, $21 a month to create questions, I can interview myself, even Opus Clip could do much of this too for much less. This is where I disagree, and this is where I want to educate you guys, and also this lovely gentleman as well, because yes, you don't have to use the $129 a month membership, I have many others before that. The reason why it's $129 is because it does higher level things for businesses, such as meta ads, creating statics for you, creating videos for you, creating video scripts, working them into the ads, creating an AI clone that will sell for you, creating AI influencers, a director in your pocket that you can speak to and tell it what you want, it will plan content for you. The list goes on. It's incredibly worth it. But if you're there for clipping, not worth it.
So I said to him: Hey, thanks for giving it a pop and for being straight with me. Having Cedar interview you on a topic, number one, hit Record, then record an episode. Number two, click On Camera, then Interview. Number three, with the AI co-host. Number four, type your topic, click Next. Under how your episode comes out, pick Just You, then Next. Open the conversation, and off you go.
Then I said: so why isn't this just another clipping tool? You're right, most of these tools are built for clippers and resellers. Riverside and Opus Clip start from a recording and cut it up. Underway starts from you. It's built on context, and it gets cleverer the more you use it. Riverside and all these other places, you have to give it the footage you've already done. This starts from ideation, from you, from your workplace, from your life, what you've done, what you've achieved. It gives you the ideas, what would be good content in your niche, what would get views, what would be good to document. It helps you from the ground level. We're not just a clipper. It's built on context, it gets cleverer the more you use it. It already knows your context, all the things about you and your business.
I said to him, connect what you use, your email, calendar, website, Instagram, and it knows what's actually happening in your week, so you're never staring at a camera wondering what to say. There's a lot in your head as a business owner, but you just remember some things, this has it all laid out, crafted into titles. It keeps track of what you're working towards, so the questions push the story forward rather than starting from scratch each time. Once you've had a few episodes in, it researches what's getting views in your niche and helps you plan videos built on it, the title, the opening, and what to cover.
I'm also building a director, or chief of staff, that you just talk to on the screen, in your phone. You just talk to it and it will do it all for you. If you said to it, plan my content for the next week, it will plan a video a day if you want, what happens in those videos, how you open, what the hook is, the body of each one, and it will post it all for you. You can even say to it, hey, find me ten podcast guests, and it'll go and do it. I told him all of this, which is why $129, I promise you all, is hella cheap.
None of the clip tools know anything about you or your business, that's the difference. Even if you connect them with other AIs and Opus or whatever, it's like a patching job, you're putting a plaster over the wound. None of these tools know anything about you or your business, that's the difference, and that's why it suits what he does better than they do.
On price, if what you want is the interview, your episode edited with just your face and captions, shorts playing, posting it on Instagram and the other socials, and maybe your podcast on Apple and Spotify, our Founder plan does all of that for $29 a month. Riverside's plan with scheduling is $39, and there you'd still be asking yourself the questions. Of course I built Underway, but we knock it out the park.
So I said, do you want me to move you to Founder? Let's talk, I'm happy to jump on a call, and I gave him my booking link to speak it through so I can give him a tour of Underway. The same goes for any of you guys signing up. I'll send you an email if you sign up and we can jump on a call and I can show you around.