Founder stories · portrait
How to make a startup story video
A startup story video holds attention by dramatising a struggle and a breakthrough, not by listing milestones. Find the moment it nearly did not work, build to it, and pay it off. With baz, the Startup Story skill renders this as a narration-led pop reel: word-by-word kinetic typography, logo carousels, founder photo cutouts, entity diagrams, money counters and full-bleed accent takeovers — all governed by a pacing law of one visual change every 0.3 to 0.8 seconds, which is what stops a viewer scrolling past.
The shortcut: run a skill instead of starting from scratch
A skill is a context file that teaches an AI agent one specific video style — its structure, pacing, typography, motion grammar and sound design. Hand an agent the skill plus your product, and it rebuilds that video for you. The steps below are what the Startup Story skill already encodes, so you can follow them by hand or let the skill carry them.
baz is a library of video skills: context files that teach an AI agent a specific motion-graphics style, so it can rebuild that video for your product, with your brand, from your inputs. Run a skill inside your own coding agent — Claude Code, Codex — or directly in the baz editor.
What you need before you start
Required
- The company facts — founded when, by whom, what it does now
- The founding story, including the part that went badly
Makes it materially better
- Founder names and photos, for the cutout beats
- Key metrics — funding raised, users, revenue — for the counter beats
- Press clippings and logo assets
- The company URL, so brand colours and marks come out right
How to make a startup story video: step by step
Find the moment it nearly failed
This is the whole video. A story with no jeopardy is a timeline, and nobody watches a timeline. The rejection, the churn, the month of runway left — that is the beat everything else is arranged around.
Hook on the contradiction in the first two seconds
Open on the tension: the thing that sounds impossible or absurd. "Rejected by twelve publishers." "Turned down $100 million." The viewer needs a reason to stay before they have any reason to care about the company.
Write narration for the ear, not the eye
Short sentences. One idea each. Read the script out loud and cut anything you stumble over — if you cannot say it cleanly, the voiceover will not either, and the word-by-word typography will expose every awkward clause.
Respect the pacing law
Something on screen must change every 0.3 to 0.8 seconds. Not a cut every time — a word landing, a counter ticking, a logo entering, a colour taking over. This density is the difference between a reel that retains and one that gets scrolled past at second three.
Put the numbers on counters
A funding figure typed as static text is inert. The same figure counting up holds the eye for the full two seconds it needs. Use this for money, users, and time — and only for numbers you can source.
Land the breakthrough with a full-bleed takeover
Save one full-screen accent takeover for the turn. If you use the loudest visual move three times, it stops meaning anything; used once at the right moment, it makes the payoff feel earned.
What the finished video actually contains
Approximate timings for a 45–75 seconds cut. Treat them as a shape to hit, not a spec — the exact durations shift with your script and your music.
| Time | Beat | What is on screen |
|---|---|---|
| 0:00–0:03 | Hook | The contradiction, in kinetic type, before any context is given. |
| 0:03–0:15 | Setup | Who, when, what they were trying to do — founder cutouts and entity diagrams. |
| 0:15–0:35 | The struggle | The near-failure, paced tight. Money counters and press clippings as evidence. |
| 0:35–0:50 | The turn | Full-bleed accent takeover on the breakthrough moment. |
| 0:50–0:75 | Where it is now | Logo carousel, current metrics, and the line that makes the point. |
Mistakes that cost you the view
Telling the story as a timeline
Do this instead: Structure it as struggle then breakthrough. "Founded in 2019, raised a seed in 2020" is a CV, not a story.
Sanding off the failure
Do this instead: Keep the bad part in. A founder story with no jeopardy has nothing for the viewer to hold on to, and it reads as marketing.
Long, written-to-be-read sentences
Do this instead: Write for the ear. Subordinate clauses die in narration and look terrible as word-by-word type.
Letting the frame go quiet
Do this instead: Keep to the 0.3–0.8 second change law. Two static seconds in a portrait feed is where you lose half the audience.
Inventing detail for drama
Do this instead: Use sourced facts. If the story is about a real company — especially one that is not yours — an invented quote or figure is a real problem.
Run it from your own agent
Skills are designed to run inside a terminal agent like Claude Code or Codex, against a project you control. The same skill produces the same style whether it runs in your agent or in the baz editor.
npm install -g bazaar.it@latest
# Install this skill into your agent (Claude Code, Codex or Cursor)
baz skill add startup-story-pop-reel
baz project create --name "Startup Story for my product"
baz prompt "make a startup story video" --stream-json
baz review --summary --json
baz export start --wait --format mp4 --jsonOperations draw from a prepaid balance. See the CLI reference for the full command set.
Common questions
Can I make these about companies other than my own?
Yes, and that is a common use for the format as a content channel. Keep every claim sourced to public reporting, attribute where appropriate, and be careful with founder photos and logos, which have their own usage rules.
How long should it be?
45 to 75 seconds. Long enough for a real arc, short enough to finish. If your story genuinely needs more, it is probably two videos.
Does it need a voiceover?
This format is narration-led by design — the typography is synced word by word to the voice track. Without narration you lose the mechanism that drives the pacing, so use one of the music-cut skills instead if you want a silent piece.
Do I need video editing experience?
No. The skill carries the editing decisions — shot order, pacing, type treatment, transitions, sound design. You supply the raw material and the facts about your product; the agent assembles the cut. You review it and ask for changes in plain language.
Can I run this in my own coding agent instead of the baz editor?
Yes. Skills are designed to be run from a terminal agent like Claude Code, Codex or Cursor. Install the CLI with `npm install -g bazaar.it@latest`, then `baz skill add <slug>` to pull the skill into your agent. The same skill produces the same style whether it runs in your agent or in the baz editor.
What does it cost?
baz bills against a prepaid dollar balance rather than a seat subscription — you top the balance up and each operation (generation, voiceover, render, export) draws a listed amount from it. There is no per-seat fee to make a video, and the price of each operation is published.
Can I change the video after it renders?
Yes, and this is the point of doing it as code rather than as a flat render. Every scene is a real component you can edit — ask the agent to re-time a beat, swap a screenshot, rewrite a line, or change the accent colour, and only that part rebuilds. You are not re-rendering from scratch each time.
Will every video from this skill look the same?
The grammar is the same — that is what makes it a skill and not a template. The content is not: your brand colours, typography, screenshots, copy and data all come from your inputs. Reusing one skill across a series is a feature, because episode three lands in the same visual language as episode one instead of being rebuilt from scratch.
Related guides
Pick a skill. Get the video.
Run the Startup Story skill in your own coding agent, or in the baz editor. Usage comes out of a balance you top up, with a listed price per operation — no seat subscription to make a video.