How I Made an Explanatory Video for my SaaS in 16 Hours

7 Jan 2021 · 7 min read

tl;dr: Use DaVinci Resolve 16 with templates. Here’s my final video.

Being a solopreneur means you have to wear all the hats by yourself — from System Architecture & Software Developer to the Marketing guy.

And that’s why I love building SaaS. Being a full-time backend engineer, there was no chance of me attempting to make a state-of-the-art animated video synced to the beats. Ever!

Now coming to the “How” part in the title, here’s how I did it (and hopefully it can help you too):

Explanatory video formats

For an explanatory video there are multiple options. Easiest is to sit in front of your camera and speak, or record your screen with a voiceover. No fancy editors are required for it.

Another widely used template is that of hand-drawn animations. There are many free/paid tools available for this.

What I did: Even though the time crunch is real for solopreneurs, I wanted my video to come out as cool (according to the taste developed after hundreds of hours spent on YouTube). So I decided not to go with either of these two options & do everything from scratch, as simple as possible; but the result should look as if it’s been made by a team of professional video editors. 😎

Which video editor to pick?

A few Google/Reddit searches will tell you that Adobe After Effects is the way to go if you need a video editor that makes your video a function of your imagination. All those Android/iOS apps out there are only good for vlog editing & basic effects. Not here.

I’d used After Effects once in college (for basic voiceover syncing) & remember it was free for students. Currently they offer just a one-week trial with mandatory billing information on signup. I tried with my college email too, but alas, freebies have been revoked.

I didn’t want to pay for something I’ll rarely use, so I started looking for free alternatives and came across DaVinci Resolve. It offers the same features as After Effects, but for free. God bless these people!

Just visit their site, hit download for your OS version & you’re good to go for the next part.

Edit & animate like a pro (when you’re a noob)

Making videos like this is making PPTs, only cooler. The easiest way to save time is to use the templates in DaVinci. There are generous sites (like motionarray.com) & YouTubers giving away free templates for text effects, transitions & more. Download them and paste them inside your DaVinci directory (varies per OS).

Now we need a script. I just jotted down the “WHAT, WHY & HOW” of my SaaS in bullet points. Just 10–12 frames are good enough for a short explanatory video.

Next up was playtime. Turn your bullet points into screens & go wild with your imagination while knitting them together. I played with everything: transitions, eye-popping texts, sliding text & whatnot.

If you’ve got a demo to attract people to your product, add it to the video with some context. I put mine inside the “Use Cases” section & put text boxes over it to highlight each case. Even though it took me a full night to crank out a 1.5-minute video, once you’re into it — no caffeine required.

Artwork needs to marinate 🎨

After you’re done with the first cut, put it away for some time. I opened my laptop the next morning to find that some of my (earlier) favourite effects were not good. This was the time to switch hats from VideoMaker to Editor. Cut out the unnecessary & weird parts to give your video its final cut.

Once you’re happy with it, the last step is to add some background music.

Adding music in sync

There are many free trendy audio tracks available online (without a watermark). Download the ones which go with your video’s flow & mood.

Note: using someone’s audio may lead to a copyright strike on YouTube (but since it’s easier to download than to learn piano & I’m not planning to earn from my video either, it’s fine).

Load your tracks into DaVinci Resolve & inspect the waveforms to cut out the parts you want to use. Syncing video & audio can be a little tricky, but there’s no parameter to call this job good or bad — as long as you’re happy with it, it’s good. Cheers.

When done, hit that render button & voilà! You’re ready to showcase your video to the world. You can see mine on my SaaS’s site (Eurekea) and YouTube.

Let me know if you’re on the same track & I’d love to help. Happy hustling!