Why YAM?
Yes, the world needs another Video Q&A app.
But first, what’s YAM?
YAM (aka “You Ask Me”) is a Video Q&A app that pays you to ask or answer questions in short videos (App Store link here).
How our team got here?
It all started earlier this year.
Our team’s previous app (PIF) wasn’t going anywhere. Then around the same time, I tried giving my first Reddit AMA about my near-death experience in a plane crash.
I thoroughly enjoyed my AMA (my own form of post-trauma therapy I guess), but I realized that I’d rather reply in videos (eg. showing video of the actual crash) for some of the questions. Sometimes, text alone just ain’t enough.
So after some discussion with the team, we decided to give this Video AMA idea a try.
As we went about working on our prototype, we learned about this other app called Fenda (an audio Q&A app) which went viral in China. They’ve come up an ingenious micropayment scheme that rewards users not only in answering questions, but also in asking great ones.
Encouraged by their success in China, we decided to learn from their model, and added our own spin. And YAM was born.
What can you do on YAM?
Ask a paid or free Q
Say I’ve got a dog-related question for Cesar Millan (the “Dog Whisperer” guy; check out his profile on YAM).
As opposed to having Cesar set his own public “asking price” (as done in Fenda or Whale, a video Q&A app founded by Justin Kan), I, as the Asker, get to offer him a tip (only known between me and Cesar) along with my question.
We intentionally designed it this way for 2 reasons.
First, by allowing Askers like me to offer our own tip, Cesar (the Answerer) get to see the full “demand curve” of questions, including some great ones that’d otherwise not be asked had he set some arbitrary high price point.
Second, which is a more important point, we just didn’t like the idea of attaching some “public price tags” to individual users. Yes, there’s micropayment involved, but we weren’t comfortable with making it the central focal point of the app. For instance, I take questions about my plane crash not because of money, but if someone wants to offer me some tips for answering their questions, I won’t mind taking it.
Unlock a video answer for $0.05
Suppose Cesar comes back with a video answer to my question. You, as another user on YAM, get to watch the first half of each video for free. This free preview is crucial as we want to minimize any “buyer remorse”.
If you wish to unlock and finish watching the rest of the video, you only need to pay $0.05. What gets really interesting here is that this $0.05 is split between me (the Asker) and Cesar (the Answerer). As such, I can potentially make some money by asking a great question!
Create your own Qs & answer them
Sometimes, instead of being a passive user waiting for others to send you questions, you may wish to create your own questions and answer them. Think of FAQs or questions that you wish more people would ask you; we’ve got this “Q&A self-publishing” tool baked right into the app too!
Why do we work on YAM?
We struggled for a long time with the tagline of the app. We finally decided to go with “Video Q&A with Fascinating People”.
We debated on whether to focus on a niche vertical or just targeting influencers/experts. But in the end, we decided to leave it completely open, because fascinating people with extraordinary experience/stories/expertise can come from all walks of life.
We are fortunate to have a list of really fascinating influencers (eg. Cesar Millan, Tay Zonday, etc) on YAM at launch, but the user who resonated with us the most is Mr Abdulkhafi Alhamdo, an English teacher residing in Aleppo, Syria.
We hope that YAM will grow to become a place where people like Abdulkhafi feel comfortable sharing their stories/ideas/experiences.
Perhaps we can build the best features in the world for answering questions in video, but being able to create a place where the community are kind and supportive of each other as we share own ideas/experiences matters even more to us.
We feel super privileged to be able to work on this idea and we hope you’ll join us on this journey. Let’s YAM!
PS: Want to give a quick shoutout to the team (Kenneth, Jason, Louis, Vy). We did it!
If you like what’ve read so far, do check out our iOS app here!
