- Video is the best way to show the face behind a product or a project.
- With the LAMA app, users can upload interviews and ask questions.
- The interview questions are prepared by professional journalists.
The internet as a medium has always been dominated by text. Videos only gained relevance through the expansion of bandwidth and the implementation of necessary server capacities. Due to the limitations, many platforms have to rely heavily on textual expression.
However, people often find it difficult to understand content that lacks important forms of social interaction, such as facial expressions and gestures. Emojis were the first attempt to remedy this deficiency. But emojis can often lead to misunderstandings.
Now that the Federal Government has also recognised the importance of broadband expansion for the economy and future of the Federal Republic, it should soon be possible to watch videos on the internet without delay even in the most remote places.
But will the internet become primarily a visual medium? The popularity of platforms like YouTube or the success stories offered by Netflix indicate this trend. The Startup Lama has also dedicated itself to video as a form of communication.
Thanks to the possibilities offered by modern smartphone technology, it is now possible for anyone to record a simple video with a decent sound and good picture quality and upload it on the internet.
Interview Platform for Founders and Creatives
A good idea alone is usually not enough. In order to implement it into practice, not only capital, but also expertise in various areas is needed. Lama’s app allows founders to present their ideas to a wider audience.
Founded in 2017 by Mario Arabov, Alexander Lachinger and Paul Resch, the company focuses on founders and people who have developed innovative ideas or business models.
Professional journalists prepare the interview questions and the filmed answers are presented both in video and in text on a separate page. Afterwards, users can ask founders their own questions, to which they can answer also via video. Mario Arabov, the co-founder of Lama, explained the concept of the app: “We basically help entrepreneurs, creators and people with cool products to promote their products in a video interview format and we also help media companies or platforms to create video interviews with our software as a service platform.”
Mario Arabov further explains why LAMA is primarily addressing founders: “There are two main problems. First it’s really hard to produce video interviews, it’s time consuming, it’s hard to coordinate with the people that have to be interviewed and it’s also really expensive. From the other side, the second problem is, that for small projects or like people that are not really famous or they haven’t closed rounds, it’s really hard to get attention from the media.”
How Was the Idea Born
The three founders developed the idea for LAMA when they worked on a project called Greetzly in 2016. Greetzly is a “video shoutout” app to connect celebrities and their fans. The founders saw the advantage of creating a similar platform for startup founders. People want to share knowledge and discuss in an informal way with people they wouldn’t otherwise have access to.
Mario Arabov also explained in an interview, why their focus lies on videos: “Video is the most direct way to present a person and it is also the best way to show the face behind the product or the project. Video is also the best way to present projects and, moreover, you know the topic of the conversion rates – if you have video on your website, you definitely increased conversion rates. Videos also get shared up to 10 times more on social media platforms than normal posts.”