On May 20th of last year, AZ Disruptors hosted a “Pitch Day” featuring 15 of the valley’s best software startups. They were all competing for a spot in the AZ Disruptors Software Incubator. It was a packed event, and the room held about 80 people ranging in vocation from investors, to VCs, to software CEOs and local businessmen. You may be asking yourself, what was all this fuss about? Well, the stakes were high. The formula for the AZ Disruptors Software Incubator is simple. If they choose to incubate a company, they will provide free office space, free furniture, free internet, free mentors, smart people, and $20,000 in cash. The company brings the idea, bootstrapping, and pairs it with the resources given by AZ Disruptors to turn the vision into a reality – fast!
One of the companies that got funded last year is called Member Desk. The site allows people to create membership websites for their own company’s initiative – instantaneously! There is no coding required, hidden fees, or any tedious setup process. Literally, in 30 seconds you can begin selling digital products. The content can be anything that’s digitally transferable. For instance: eBooks, Videos, and Audio are all perfectly acceptable.
Leon Klepfish, the founder of MemberDesk, noticed a trend behind what drove the biggest use of MemberDesk by customers. A majority of his customer base were interested in selling videos that they created. In entrepreneurial fashion, Leon decided to pivot, and develop another website completely that is optimized for hosting and selling video content. So he created Viidya.com which is solely a marketplace designed for selling videos. This format has already proven to be a better model for selling online video content.
The sustainable competitive advantage of Viidya is its simplicity. In a world filled with online video streaming, at first glance it may seem difficult to get people to buy videos. YouTube is free, right? However, there is both room and a need in the marketplace for a site that allows premium content creators to get paid for their high-quality video. That’s where Viidya excels. Simply drag-and-drop a file, set a price, and you are ready to sell! Personal trainers, nutritionists, coaches of all types, or anyone with intellectual / instructional value can instantly begin to sell online and open up their own markets. Viidya will make its money by charging a 10% transaction fee on all sales generated through the site, and skip on charging any “membership dues”.
