Our interview series has featured a lot of industry leaders and we continue today by talking with Surya Prakash, Founder of DemoTiger, which produces video tutorials for hosting companies. Long-time vets of the industry may remember DemoWolf, which closed in 2019. DemoTiger has picked up where they left off, providing provider-branded tutorials you can offer your customers. Read on to learn about this business, its market, and how it’s grown.
Where in the world are you headquartered?
Delhi. F-3/22, Sector-16, Rohini, Delhi, India
Are you related to Dewlance or part of that enterprise?
We wanted to create a product that meets the requirements of web hosting users and remains within the reach of every size web hosting company. Technically our product should be flexible enough to adjust itself with different video hosting platforms, electronic devices, and integrate with as the number of billing software as possible. To achieve all these features we needed people, who have been in the web hosting industry for at least a decade. We needed them for new ideas, valuable suggestions, and cross-check of the finished product. We made a small group of advisors comprising web-hosting providers, support employees of web hosting companies, designers, and programmers. Dewlance has been one of those proactive members who help us a lot and yes now they are a stakeholder in DemoTiger.
DemoWolf closed in 2019. Did you just see a hole in the marketplace and decided to jump in or was there another reason you decided to start this offering?
I have created explainer videos, advertisements, and support videos for big web hosting companies for a long time. They pay a hefty amount and hire the best people in the industry. It gives them an undue advantage over small and medium companies. These big giants not only have an almost unlimited budget for everything to promote their product and acquire a lion’s share of the hosting market but also access to all the latest add-ons as a Web hosting provider. They have almost forced small/medium-sized companies to confine themselves to few good hosting-related forums if they want clients. Whether it is social media, video platforms, or any other popular place every hosting provider needs good quality videos to attract viewers. Videos are the most preferred content by most viewers.
I remember my colleagues used to reject offers to create tutorial videos for small/medium size companies as their order size was small or not as large as of a big company. When a small/medium hosting company was denied access to such resources even if they are ready to pay I felt guilty. My videos reduce support tickets and are designed in a way that advertises the brand logo of my clients. I have used music and style that leave a long-lasting impression on the mind of the viewers. I have purposely created a product that can be hosted on free video platforms like YouTube and can be integrated with support websites. Videos open on the support website without redirecting the viewers to YouTube or any other video hosting platform. It clearly shows my intention to keep the expenses of my clients as low as possible and advertise their brand like a big hosting company’s brand is advertised. Just compare the features and the cost of videos of DemoTiger and earlier video providers. I leave this on you and your readers to decide whether I have jumped in the marketplace leaving a high-paid job or I want to help small/medium web hosting providers in their struggle to maintain their existing clients and fetch new clients from the world’s second-largest search engine YouTube.
So if DemoWolf struggled and couldn’t make a go of it, what are you doing differently that makes this a profitable enterprise for you?
I do not know about their struggle but it’s a very good question that we ask ourselves daily that what the different things we can do that improves our product and keep it relevant. The web hosting industry is very dynamic and demanding. You have to be flexible and ready to embrace the new changes. Our videos are available in different formats and are multipurpose. They can reduce support tickets as well as advertise the brand logo of a client on different platforms. Also, we designed them, keeping in mind, the predictable changes in formats of Videos in coming times. Today it is MP4 but tomorrow it can be ‘4K’ or something else. Not only this, few clients returned after 3 months asking again for a new set of videos as their server provider had lost all their data due to some technical issue. We had their logos in our database with the same settings that we had used while producing videos for them 3 months back. Our staff also, sometimes, upload videos on YouTube channels of our clients. We try to provide the most reliable product with the best services to give our clients a world-class experience.
By giving multiple video hosting options both free and chargeable we have tried to make our product affordable for almost every type of Web Hosting Company. Whether you have a small size company with limited revenue or you are a medium-size company that can afford video hosting and streaming expenses, our product is affordable and useful for everyone.
What topics are you prioritizing in your videos?
First, we try to include those topics that are mostly searched by web hosting clients on Knowledgebase websites, YouTube, and that generate maximum tickets. Second, we raise our level to include those technical answers that are asked intermittently but consume lots of time in replying. In this way, we reduce tickets in number as well as save more time for hosting providers and their support staff while keeping the number of tutorials as low as possible. Another benefit of this strategy is that our videos try to keep the hosting clients away from a human intervention that ultimately brings harassment to clients.
What kind of response have you got in the marketplace?
The customer support has been very much enthusiastic so far. We have received very good comments from our customers at the beginning of our journey as tutorial makers on various Web hosting forums, emails, and messages that boosted our confidence and motivated us to keep increasing the quality and quantity of our videos. But till now we have not been supported much by web hosting-related forums and promoters. The content of forums is mostly contributed by small and medium-sized web hosting providers and my product is made for helping these small providers by saving their time and money on the support system and brand advertisement. Although we expect that with time passing on we will be recognized by web hosting forums and other stakeholders.
I imagine the video production is very labor- and time-intensive. What is that process like?
Yes, while making a video you need to be focused. You have to take care of multiple things at the same time. Even a minor defect in videos is clearly visible so sometimes you need to edit or delete all the work you have done so far because of a common error in several videos of a series. It takes an excruciating amount of time and effort to design and produce error-free video series. After that starts the testing work on different digital platforms with different integration files. While designing you have to keep the possible changes in the future in your mind and make the product that can adopt those changes. Sometimes it is frustrating when you are forced to delete all your work because you found an error or change at a later stage of production.
I would think that your service would appeal to all kinds of hosting providers, because hopefully your videos reduce support calls which is something everyone wants. What kind of providers have been most responsive to your videos?
We haven’t started advertisement of our product as we are still busy creating videos on different web hosting-related software tools. Therefore very limited people in the industry are aware of our products. Although we have received orders, requests from almost all sizes of web hosting companies because of the multipurpose use of the videos. Some servers providing data centers have also shown interest in our product. Whether it is for support or advertisement on YouTube, Facebook or email marketing our product is useful. It convinces me and my team that we will attract almost 100% web hosting providers and few other hosting-related businesses also.
Are you considering videos in other languages?
Yes definitely first our focus is on English language users and then we will consider other languages also. We have a list of software tools that we will complete first in the English language and then we will start our work in different languages. We have started receiving requests from hosting companies of different languages but still, it will be too early to tell exactly which language we will include but looking at the level of interest I am sure our videos will be in multiple languages.
Tell us about your reseller program.
We offer 3 reseller levels to choose from Bronze, Silver, and Gold. We have kept the initial deposit amount low to attract more resellers. With a deposit of a small amount in your reseller account, you can start selling our videos to your customers. The resellers will be provided with demo videos and all types of content that they can have on their website and start taking orders. One just has to sign up with a few personal and company details on our reseller page and deposit the requisite amount as per the reseller level he chooses and then starts selling. The deposited amount remains in the reseller account that is used by him for purchasing our videos for their clients. Bronze level is the beginner’s level that requires the least deposit amount and Gold is the highest reseller level. One can upgrade and downgrade as per will at any time after purchasing our plan.
Where do you see DemoTiger going in the future?
Well, we plan to create more and more useful videos on different software tools and include as many features in our product as makes it a valuable asset for our clients. Videos are mostly preferred content and various search engines including Google, YouTube, etc. give relevance to the content on a website while indexing or ranking a particular website/webpage. With the rise of free video hosting platforms such as YouTube as the second largest search engine and lowering the cost of video hosting and streaming options available in the market the demand for videos has increased. We hope that the future of the video tutorial-making business is bright and our Company, DemoTiger will also grow with time.
Anything else you’d like to tell us about DemoTiger?
Our next release is video series on the DirectAdmin control panel and much more is in the pipeline. Soon it will be available for everyone on our website. I would close this interview by asking all my small/medium web hosting providers and people related to them for their support that we need to keep making videos for them. These videos will be proven a multipurpose tool in hands of web hosting providers. Thank you so much for your patience.
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I also enjoy using LEBs! I have an empire of little guys for VPNs, larger guys for apps, and big guys for databases and storage. When I'm not in front a screen I'm into German Shepherd dogs, quality knives, target shooting, theology, tabletop roleplaying games, and forest hiking.
I enjoy writing technical articles here on LowEndBox to help people get more out of their systems. You can find me on LowEndTalk @raindog308
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