Verified purchaser
Another half-baked beta test
I've bought a lot of deals and I've seen a lot of software of the years.
Recently, I had the chance to give Potion a try and I have to say, it left me feeling pretty underwhelmed. It felt like the product wasn't quite finished, and there were some rough edges that really stood out to me - the lip syncing in particular was pretty bad. I understand that software is never truly finished and there's always room for improvement, but in my opinion, this one just wasn't ready for prime time.
I tried using this with TidyCal, which is an app from Appsumo, in conjunction with Potion. Unfortunately, the two didn't really mesh well together.
Also the teleprompter is just garbage compared to BigVu (another appsumo) and I even tried recording with BigVu and bringing it in as a dynamic video but Potion wouldn't allow it, as it only allows webcam videos to be used as dynamic videos (to automatically generate videos with personalized greetings) this prevented me from using my 8K Samsung to film and instead had to rely on my MacBook Pro web camera, good but just not the best quality.
The lip syncing was off and it just didn't look professional. I was suggested to use Hubspot as a solution, but it would have added extra steps and didn't really address the core issue.
There is no way to upload a CSV to the dynamic video and even cutting and pasting an entire column from a CSV file gave me errors, as it copied extra spaces for the first name, and had no column for the email address.
I also had a tough time trying to make it work with Lemlist, it's not clear but I guess you have to export the videos as a CSV file into whatever email system you are using? How am I supposed to sync up these two list after I am done, one CSV list containing emails and one CSV containing the video links and the clients first names from Potion. This is just not well thought out.
The only good thing I can say about the app is that it saves a bit of time by being able to cut and paste client names at the beginning of the video, but that alone is not enough to make up for all the other issues I encountered. All in all, I was pretty disappointed with my experience using Potion and I wouldn't recommend them to others.
My suggestions to the team are:
1. Provide chat support at all hours, I tried writing today and the chat bubble was missing entirely from your site.
2. Be generous to Sumolings who support you early on, 250 videos per month is not enough to be beta testing your software.
3. Integrate with other companies to make sending these videos seamless, with email, linkedin, messenger.
4. Add Zapier integration.
5. Allow full CSV file imports with emails and exports with emails.
Kanad_Potion
May 16, 2024Hey Josh! Thank you so much for a well thought out review. Even though it is brutally honest, I can see that you've been constructively critical. I appreciate you for that.
All your questions and concerns are valid. So, let me take a moment to address them…
Re calendar widget - I’d love to hear your feedback on this! Anything specific with TidyCal besides the responsive window size you’d like us to address?
Re teleprompter - I’m surprised to hear that you didn’t like it, our users love this feature. I’ll definitely review BigVu’s teleprompter and find UX improvements for us to work on. :)
Re only allowing webcam - The AI currently supports 720p videos. It is good enough for most people doing outreach, but I understand why a pro user like yourself might not be happy with it. In this particular case, the AI is definitely not there yet, I apologize for that. You can still record frontcam videos in hi-res.
Re lip-sync - I’m aware that the AI has room for improvement. For best results, it requires you to position your face correctly inside the “face oval”. We also share specific instructions on how to record AI-videos and we’re also transparent about its limitations - https://help.sendpotion.com/create-dynamic-screen-recording
One other thing - It is natural for you to notice lip-sync strangeness in your own video. But when you send the same video to someone else, they rarely notice it. Having said that, we are working really hard to make it more palatable. The reality is that the more you use it, the better it gets. :)
Re CSV upload - You can do that for Dynamic Screen Recordings but not for Dynamic Videos. The reason Dynamic Videos don’t require an email is because they only need names to process the videos and you can simply drop in app.sendpotion.com/videoID/{{first_name}} right in your email sequence. I do acknowledge that the “extra spaces” issue is a bug. Please give us a day to fix it up! :)
Re adding videos in Lemlist - All you have to do is copy-paste the Lemlist snippet in an email sequence. No CSV export-import is necessary. Here is the step-by-step tutorial - https://help.sendpotion.com/embed-your-video-template-in-lemlist
Re time saving - We only auto-generate name greetings currenly, but soon we’ll allow users to add multiple variables (company names, job titles etc). Obviously, all Sumo-lings will receive all future updates to our AI. :)
Re chat support - Unfortunately it is not possible to provide 24x7 support since we are a small team. But we do respond to ALL support requests as quickly as we can. :)
Re 250 vids/mo - I understand it might not feel generous but we’ve been fair with video credits. For comparison, Yepic charges $80/mo for 100 videos. We also give all users the frontcam and screen recording videos like Loom for free.
I really really hope that you change your mind and update your review! It would mean a lot to us, we’re just a small startup family trying to make it. :) - https://tacochange.paperform.co