To website or not to website?

An update on this... I've finally gone the route of working with a professional designer (https://stn1978.com/ if anyone is interested. Great guy, awesome work and passion for design) to get my website redone.

I am still using the ReelCrafter player on it and the integration is seamless.

Here's the result: https://nicolas-schuele.com

Soundbed said:

You might have a good solution for your needs with Reelcrafter.

For balance, in case others read this and are looking for different options ...

I think there are services that let you manage and track links for audio to clients and prospects that can be separate from a website (or together).

Personally, I didn't love Reelcrafter's limitations. So I never got on board with their deal. Maybe it's better today? It was a couple years ago that I explored them.

~

For sharing audio files and tracking who listened, I prefer https://disco.ac/

You can make quick custom private (or public) "themes" for each client. For a recent game trailer pitch, I put their graphics on it (not all mine) and sent them the link. It helped to make it feel "personal" to them.

There's tons of features under the hood.

Here's an example using your background and a VSL logo that I whipped up: https://s.disco.ac/lzqoedsshnep

As for a website, I already pay for web hosting for my LLC and manage several sites including my and my business partners' dance music record labels (digital and vinyl).

Click to expand...

I had not heard of Disco before, but this certainly looks interesting!

Nico Schuele said:

An update on this... I've finally gone the route of working with a professional designer (https://stn1978.com/ if anyone is interested. Great guy, awesome work and passion for design) to get my website redone.

I am still using the ReelCrafter player on it and the integration is seamless.

Here's the result: https://nicolas-schuele.com

Click to expand...

Hey Nico!

We (ReelCrafter) are lucky to have you with us for such a long time. Appreciate you!

You posed an interesting question a couple of years back: how long would it take a web developer to build a ReelCrafter clone? The answer is probably a year, give or take. To build it well, make sure the design is polished, set up a whole automated marketing flow, be buttoned up legally, ensure proper security, and turn it into a real business: make that maybe 2-3 years if it's just one person doing it all. I would've lost my mind were it not for my co-founder!

The entire application is hand-coded by me and a contractor who pitched in on a few features. Very few parts are third-party services/libraries: the snippet editor, the video player, and the authentication system (you never wanna roll your own—this is a huge security no-no). We're hosted on Amazon Web Services like the rest of the Internet.

It's been the hardest endeavor I've ever embarked on, but incredibly rewarding! It was always my dream for RC to become the industry standard for sending demo reels, and now thousands of people are happily using us to send pitches to major studios and land incredible gigs. We've got plans for some killer features in 2024—keep an eye out!