@spenceryang great question! I actually think that the $ is just icing on the cake. I think some folks just really want to share their stories. We have this user, Abdulkhafi; he's an English teacher in Aleppo. He's definitely not doing it for $ (in fact currently we have no way of transferring money to him). But he really wants to answer questions, like this: https://api.letsyam.com/answers/...
Thanks for hunting us @bramk!
This is actually our 3rd attempt with a Video Q&A app. The first two apps didn’t go anywhere but we kept iterating and really poured our heart and soul into YAM.
Things really got started when I tried giving my first Reddit AMA (about surviving my plane crash). I thoroughly enjoyed that experience but thought some of the questions are better answered with videos.
Along the way while we experimented with our prototype, we heard about this app called Fenda (an audio Q&A app) that went viral in China. It pioneered a very interesting incentive scheme where users not only get paid for answering questions, but also for asking them.
We really liked their model. So we adopted it, added our own spin on it and we’re super stoked to share our “baby” with the PH community today! (read our backstory on Medium here).
As makers, I guess we all know how tough it can be to build stuff that people will love. And yet we all keep going at it cos of some “true north”. In our case, we kept trying because through YAM we allow stories like this (from an English teacher in Aleppo, Syria) to be told.
Look forward to all your comments/feedback! Stay hungry, stay foolish!
I had the pleasure of trying YAM a few weeks ago and was blown away with the UX, concept, and execution. Michael has built a great product and I'm really excited to see where he takes it. Great work!
@mattmayberry Thanks for the shoutout dude! Really appreciate it! I dig what you guys are doing at Dopamine too! So Dope! Definitely looking to plug into the power of Dopamine into our next version release!
I look forward to trying this alongside Whale (which to me feels a bit more focused in terms of topics). These are great platforms for knowledge sharing and as long as you can continue procuring experts in relevant fields there's a ton of potential. Congrats @michael_cho! PS. Your plane crash story is a great read!
@davidsfeng yes the plane crash story is a pretty crazy :)
Thanks for checking out our app! Whale has certainly done a great job, especially with gathering a critical mass of influencers in the startup space
We'll definitely try hard to bring on more experts/influencers onto the platform. Having said that, we also value the occasional "ordinary stories with extraordinary stories". To me personally, the most powerful content on YAM now are those from that teacher in Aleppo or the campaign manager in the recent election. They're certainly not influencers but their stories are super compelling!
@michael_cho Agreed. I actually take that back. Sometimes experiences are just as important as expert knowledge. There are things money and tenure can't buy.
@davidsfeng true that :) I guess the platform is capable of delivering both. If u look at Reddit AMA, I'd say you see a good mix of influencers/celebs as well as ordinary folks with interesting stories to share. We definitely still need the celebs cos they drive eyeballs, but at the same time we also want to help curate and highlight fascinating stories from common folks.
Active in the same space as Justin Kan’s Whale, YAM is an app that gets you paid to answer questions by video.
Unlike Whale where the Answerer sets the asking price, in YAM it’s the Asker who offers a price (could be free as well) along with the question. Then it’s up to the Answerer whether to answer the particular question.
Every video answer has a free preview for the 1st half of the video; and it costs only $0.05 to unlock the rest of the video. @michael_cho can tell you more!
Report
Hi Michael I think a swipe option to quickly dismiss videos/answerers you are not interested in would be a good option. (Perhaps in combination with a curation algorithm 😄 )
@beuk got it! definitely an enhancement we need to work on to make the main feed more personalized...
in the meantime, did you come across any video answers that you thought is compelling content for you?
@orliesaurus I'd say it's more a "Reddit AMA + Video + micropayment" app :) r/explainlikeimfive/ is more about asking question to a big group of people, whereas on YAM now you're asking a specific user a question :)
@michael_cho interesting, so this would be a platform for paid mentors to engage with mentorees - I can see someone like Gary V, but maybe not him as he loves giving it all out for free, wanting to be on this :D
@orliesaurus we think influencers/experts/Youtubers will definitely find this useful. Having said that, we also want to help uncover "ordinary folks with extraordinary stories". Like this English teacher in Aleppo: https://api.letsyam.com/answers/...
@orliesaurus we don't really differentiate between users ("expert" is very subjective...plenty of experts predicted a Hillary victory, look at where we are now).
Our philosophy is if the user has fascinating stories/skills/experience to share, we'll feature them :)
No web client at the moment. We wanna nail the iOS experience first :)
Do you see any content on the app that you find compelling so far?
Collection.xyz
MoMo
Collection.xyz
MoMo
Digital Behavioral Design
MoMo
Jasmine Energy
MoMo
Re:amaze
MoMo
Re:amaze
MoMo
Startup Stash
MoMo
Toolhouse
MoMo
Toolhouse
MoMo
Toolhouse
MoMo