The Anti-Product Video Framework: How Stimuler’s Funding Announcement Video Built Trust + Attracted Talent (Founders, Not Features)

When you're announcing funding, or any kind of big milestone, you're usually trying to accomplish two things at once: create a PR moment that people actually share, and attract top talent without sounding like a desperate job posting.

The thing is, your audience, especially Gen Z, has a reflex against "startup videos" that are slick and overly produced. The more you try to persuade them with benefit statements and feature lists, the more your announcement sounds like a pitch, not a milestone.

The solution is to shift from "marketing the product" to "documentation of vision." This post introduces the Anti-Product Video (APV) Framework, a repeatable process we use at Bombay Locale to position early stage startups. It pairs a simple narrative structure with a behind the scenes creator style to remove the marketing sheen and make the announcement feel authentic.

The Promise of This Post

We will take a deep dive into positioning and the creation of the announcement video of Stimuler, a voice first AI English fluency app that just raised $3.75M (Pre Series A) to scale fast, and to go deeper on their biggest advantage: owning the AI stack in house.

You'll take away:

• The APV Framework: What the video must do to build trust.
• The Creator Playbook: How we created the video, and how good stories are formed on the edit table (technical and tactical).
• The Metrics: How to measure success beyond "views."
• The Positioning Context: Trust Transfer.

The Positioning Context: Trust Transfer

Most of our clients come to us with a standard list of requirements: "announce the funding," "build hype," and "make it feel authentic." If we fulfilled those literally, we would deliver a decent, forgettable video.

However, our actual task is not simply to record and cut footage. It is to position the story. We take those requirements and turn them into a story that the viewer trusts. The key to everything we do is simple:

A good announcement video isn’t a product video. It’s a trust transfer.

The end game isn’t to convince viewers to buy the product right now. That happens later. The end game is to show ambitious people having fun, building something global and difficult.

Founder led announcement videos succeed when the viewer’s takeaway is: “These people are having all the fun building something big, I want to be associated with them.”

The Anti-Product Video Framework (APV): 5 Layers

When people talk about "anti product," they often think it means "ignore the product." It doesn’t. It means: don’t make the product your story. Make belief your story. Use product facts as trust markers.

Layer 1: Belief over Benefits (Why it exists)

This is the paradigm shift. When you start with benefits, you make a marketing video. When you start with belief, you make a story people trust.

“To understand the product, you really need to understand the belief behind creating it.”

Layer 2: Set the Index (Fun + Ambitious)

Most teams put goals into checkboxes, which creates stiff films. Instead, put goals into audience emotions. A good index tells you what tone to maintain, what to cut, and what not to over explain.

If the story is global and technically complex, don’t state it directly. Show it through the world, the pace, and how the founders talk about what they’re building.

Layer 3: Solvers over Problem

This is the toughest and most critical decision. A lot of first drafts begin with the problem: "Here’s why the problem is big, here’s how many people have it."

But since the problem is already understood, talking about it is dull. As we learned early in the process: "People already know it. As soon as you say English… people know it."

So the story needs to shift:

“This story has to be about these people who are solving a problem, not this problem that is being solved.”

When that happens, you get golden moments like:

"English is not a language, it's a currency."

Now the approach to the problem changes entirely. You’re no longer selling an app. You’re selling a perspective.

Layer 4: Outsider POV + Edit forward Authenticity

When the company is "talking about itself," the audience tunes out. We apply the Outsider POV so it feels like something was found, not announced by a brand.

To do this, we strip away a typical marketing approach:

“I did not want to give a lot of voice to the interviewer.”

When the interviewer voice is removed, the founders feel like they’re speaking directly to the viewer. Then you preserve the tone through edit decisions: internet native energy, humor as a humanizer, and allowing a little awkwardness if it increases authenticity.

Layer 5: Trust Markers + Emotion led CTA

In anti product videos, facts are not the plot. Facts are punctuation. You use them to anchor reality, not to convince.

Instead of a CTA led structure, you run an emotion arc:

• Start: “They’re good friends.”
• End: “They’re fun to work with and true to people around them.”

The CTA either lives for 3 seconds in a 2 minute film, or it sits outside the film entirely (often in the comments). The film builds belief. The comments capture it.

The Creator Method: How We Pulled It Off

Frameworks are easy to talk about, but execution is where most teams fail. The real challenge is making founders look natural, finding the narrative spine without a script, and turning documentary footage into a high paced internet film.

Here is the "crazy how they pulled it off" section, the playbook most teams miss.

1) The First Call is a "Reading Call"

We don't do standard "briefing calls." Our experience is consistent:

“There are only two types of clients… those who don’t know what they want and those who know exactly what they want.”

When a client knows what they want, the creative job becomes understanding the emotion behind that want, then testing boundaries so you know your playground.

“You as a creative should know what your playground is, what is acceptable and what is not.”

The Prompt Set (Use these to surface taste):

• What do you find inspiring?
• What is the vision for your company?
• What do you really want this video to do?
• How far are you willing to experiment?

2) Anti Pitch Interviewing

Most founders can answer questions, but their answers are structured like a pitch. You need to disrupt this. The secret is opinion first conversation:

“Most people… find it easier to express opinions than to answer questions one by one.”

So instead of interrogating, you engage. You share your belief first to invite theirs.

“An easier way to understand these beliefs is by expressing your beliefs around the topic.”

Toolbox: Prompts that unlock belief (not benefits):

• “What’s your earliest memory of this problem?”
• “When did you first feel this personally?”
• “What do you hate about how people talk about this space?”
• “What would make you proud of this film 2 years later?”

3) The 2 Hour Warm Up (Engineering Authenticity)

Authenticity is not an editing effect. It’s a pre production step. Most teams skip this, but we treat it as necessary:

“The first step is to get them comfortable with the idea of a camera… the lights… the fluff around shooting. When they’re conscious, real things don’t come out.”

Also the first two hours of shoot day are not for "content." They are for calibration.

“The first two hours are really necessary because it gets all of the marketing fluff out of your system. You’re not formatting the best answer in your mind… That’s the rawness that was needed.”

Micro Framework: Pitch Exhaustion

Don’t fight pitch mode. Let it happen. Then go deeper until the rehearsed lines run out.

“Preventing pitchy delivery is not exactly possible. You don’t avoid it, you roll with it, till it's over”

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4) Two Day Documentary Capture

This is how you shoot fast without scripting a fake story.

• Day 1 Morning: Comfort + conversation. Backgrounds, childhoods, beliefs.
• Day 1 Afternoon: Grounding reality with facts.

“Next we started shooting just their workday… asking them to explain what they are doing… What is this table for? What is this tracker for? When you’re answering hard facts, there isn’t much to sugarcoat.”

• Day 2: Targeted interviews and planned B roll that supports the belief.
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5) The Spine Detector

While filming, we don't listen for soundbites. We listen for a specific psychological chain.

“Our actions are driven by our insecurities most of the time.”

You listen for: insecurities, then beliefs, then actions.

You are looking for admissions, not performances. Often, the shortest lines carry the most meaning.

“These are often the easiest, shortest sentences that can sum up the most difficult things… You draw clear lines between the product and the creator.”

That is your spine.
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6) The Edit Table is the Script

The edit table is where the actual writing happens. Because the shoot is documentary style, unscripted and unplanned, you don't go in with the final story locked.

“I did not want to manipulate it a lot… it’s not scripted, it’s not planned. Going in there knowing nothing and coming out of there with everything…”

The pacing is a choice. The spine is discovered.
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7) The Feeling Based QA

Most editing advice is mathematical: "cut every 3 seconds" or "change the angle every 5 seconds." We reject that.

“I don’t believe in calculations in edit. If it is making me feel something, it’s good. If it’s not, it needs to be changed.”

This feeling based editing is exactly what gives "authentic" its punch.
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Distribution Design + Success Metrics

A film can be great and still not travel. Distribution design makes it travel.

The pattern:

• Hook with story: While posting write a little about story, make people curious and then use the video to build belief.
• Conversion in comments: Put the hiring CTA and direct apply links in the comments, if video does it's job people will check that section.

The scorecard (Did it work?):

• Distribution: Did people share? (Stimuler saw ~4,447 reactions and 65 reposts on linkedin itsef).
• Investor validation: Did investors share it? (Lightspeed called and told Akshay(Co-founder, Stimuler) "one of the best funding announcement videos we've seen").
• Conversion: Did hiring happen? (The pipeline became overwhelmingly full).
• Durability:  Is it still working? (The asset was still a functional top of funnel magnet, funny part is they run it as ad to gain customers aswell).
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What Most Advice Gets Wrong

The default advice:

Traditional marketing says to follow this strict formula for the funding announcement as well: show the problem and agitate the pain, introduce your solutions(Features), show off the team.

Why it fails for announcements:

In a low trust market, this formula comes off as manipulative. Your audience (especially seniors, builders and Gen Z) already understand the problem exists. When you spend 60 seconds talking about a problem they deal with every day, you're not establishing credibility; you're wasting their time. Moreover, slick "benefit statements" set off their "sales pitch" alarms.

The better rule:

Trust first; features later.

Stop trying to "sell" people in the video. The announcement video is where you establish trust, vision and curiosity about the people building the company. Leave the feature lists for your landing pages and performance marketing.

Ready to make your next milestone a trust transfer?

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