Knowlify

What do they actually do

Knowlify is a web app and API that turns written material—plain text, PDFs, slides, and documents—into short narrated explainer videos with animated visuals (including whiteboard‑style motion graphics). The company positions output times in seconds and frames itself as “convert textual content into explainer videos in < 15s” [YC listing; LinkedIn launch; Crunchbase; homepage] (YC, LinkedIn, Crunchbase, homepage).

Users can upload a document or paste text, or call Knowlify programmatically via API/SDK. The system extracts key points, drafts a short script/storyboard, selects visual treatments, and renders a finished, narrated video the user can preview, download, embed, or receive via API. Public docs show video‑generation endpoints, a Python SDK, and a fast generation path, indicating both UI and developer workflows (API docs, homepage, LinkedIn).

Initial customer targets include corporate L&D, research/finance teams, educators/course creators, and individual creators. For sensitive content, the company highlights secure integrations and options for local/on‑prem processing. The site, API docs, demo booking, and YC listing suggest an active product with a mix of self‑serve and sales‑assisted adoption (homepage, API docs, demo booking, YC).

Who are their target customer(s)

• Corporate L&D and training managers: They must convert long policies, onboarding, and compliance materials into consistent, branded training quickly but lack the bandwidth and video-production resources to do it manually.
• Research and finance teams: They need to summarize lengthy reports and brief stakeholders fast without risking data leakage when creating shareable explainer content.
• Educators and course creators: They struggle to turn textbooks, lesson plans, and slides into engaging videos at scale because production and editing are time-consuming and require skills they may not have.
• Individual creators and micro‑instructors: They need frequent, polished explainer clips to grow audiences, but recording, editing, and animating each video takes too much time.
• Platform/engineering teams at SaaS or LMS companies: They want low‑latency, programmatic video generation and bulk workflows to embed in products, but integrating slow or unreliable media pipelines creates maintenance overhead.

How would they acquire their first 10, 50, and 100 customers

• First 10: Founder-led outreach to YC, investor, and personal networks to set up demos and run free or discounted pilots for L&D and finance teams, delivering finished videos to show immediate value.
• First 50: Targeted outbound to mid‑market L&D/finance and course creators using short case studies and ready‑to‑run templates, paired with a 30‑day pilot; open a low‑friction self‑serve API path with keys, example scripts, and demos for developers.
• First 100: Formalize enterprise features (e.g., SSO, audit logs, private processing) to win larger contracts; add LMS/course‑platform partnerships and a light channel program for agencies/integrators; use pilot successes as reference case studies and run targeted webinars/conferences.

What is the rough total addressable market

Top-down context:

Corporate training spend is about $397B globally (2024), with corporate e‑learning around $104B and digital content‑creation tools about $32.3B; LMS/platform budgets are roughly $20B, indicating integration potential (Training Industry, GVR e‑learning, GVR content creation, Bersin/LMS context).

Bottom-up calculation:

Assuming ~29% of the $397B training market is outsourced (~$115B) and 5–20% of that outsourced spend is content/video production, the relevant corporate slice is ~$5.7B–$23B; adding conservative creator/tool and platform-integration upside yields a practical TAM of roughly $6B–$30B+ (Training Industry, GVR e‑learning, GVR content creation, Bersin).

Assumptions:

• ~29% of corporate training budgets are spent on external suppliers.
• 5–20% of outsourced training spend goes to content/video production that can shift to automation.
• A modest share of digital content‑creation and platform/LMS budgets is addressable via creator tools and embedded API integrations.

Who are some of their notable competitors

• Synthesia: Enterprise text‑to‑video platform focused on AI presenters/avatars with SSO and API; overlaps on L&D use cases but differs in visual style and presenter emphasis.
• Pictory: Converts articles and scripts into short narrated videos with automated scene selection; popular with creators and educators, more marketing/social oriented than secure enterprise workflows.
• Lumen5: Article‑to‑video tool for marketing teams to create templated, branded videos from text; overlaps on fast document‑to‑video but is marketing‑first rather than explainer‑education focused.
• Elai: Text‑to‑video with AI presenters and API support; targets training and courses with presenter‑led output versus whiteboard/animated explainer styles.
• HeyGen: AI video generator for internal comms and training with avatars and voice narration; competes on speed and enterprise features, while document‑first, stepwise explainers are Knowlify’s focus.