u/builder_for_better

Which one is the absolute best? Which do you prefer? Help! I need to choose one. Please and thank you in advance!

Vyond Videoscribe Powtoon Animaker

I've attached the proof in comments.

I'm the builder behind Framenet AI - a motion graphics tool for video editors and designers.

About a year ago, I posted a demo on X. It went viral. with 300K+ views.

YC founders started reaching out, to praise.. investors retweeted.. I thought I was about to get rich.
That was just a demo. The product wasn't ready.

I moved people into Discord and Took me 3 weeks. Finally launched the actual product, posted again…

It didn't even cross 3K views.

I went back and personally messaged every single person who responded to the original viral tweet.

Not one conversion. Zero.

300K views to 0 paid users.

I had no idea what to do next. Posted demos on Reddit
got views, got visitors, still 0 paid users.

Two months of nothing.

Then one random Reddit user DM'd me: 
"I love this, can I get a discount?"

They paid yearly .  after two full months.

Understood, These platforms are not where my users are.

So I switched to TikTok and Instagram.

I genuinely hate those platforms. But every playbook, every podcast, said the same thing: post there.

I started uploading. 30 videos. 40 videos. Nothing.

Then one video hit. Got a conversion or two. Fine
I went all in. US TikTok, Reels, my own Instagram page.

Slowly, my Instagram started pulling real views.
I hit a streak: 1 payment a day. $10/day.

Then I raised the minimum subscription to $20. Income doubled .
Subscriptions started flowing. Multiple videos crossed 1M+ views.

I did all the content myself - the revenue didn't justify the creators yet.
Once content became consistent and I had automations in place, ( same insta vidoes reuploading)

in mean time .. I built a second SaaS.

This time, I understood distribution before I launch...
$1.2K+ in the first month.

(btw, I was thinking of selling my current FrameNet to focus on my new SaaS. Let's see how it goes.)

What's new SaaS:  Distilbook

It converts your documents into actual animated explainer videos.

People are using it for:

• Product walkthroughs
• Onboarding & training material
• Technical documentation
• Internal communication

Proofs are in the comment

If you're interested: distilbook(dot)com

Happy to answer anything ...

( attached trustmrr proof in the comments )

I still remember refreshing the dashboard again and again for my first saas for 3 months

Today Distilbook (2nd one) has 13 paying users and crossed $800 revenue in just 22 days.

Not huge numbers yet.
But for us, this means everything.

Because behind those numbers were months of uncertainty, overthinking, rebuilding, and shipping while constantly questioning ourselves.

There were days where the product felt amazing at 2 AM…
and completely useless the next morning

I kept thinking:
“Are we too late?”

after launch it started happening.

they stayed,started sending feedback, feature requests. payments.
( 2nd payment is yearly payment )

That feeling is hard to explain.

Seeing strangers trust something that existed only inside your head a few months ago feels unreal.

What I built: DistilBook

It takes your documents and turns them into actual animated explainer videos . It works exceptionally well with technical material.

So far, people are using it for:

• Product walkthroughs
• Onboarding material
• Technical documentation
• Religious educational content in multiple languages

What I’m doing now: cold emails, Twitter posting, and Reddit marketing. Let’s see how it goes.

If you’re interested: distilbook(.)com

TrustMRR link is in the comments. AMA ..

I lead a small engineering team, and knowledge transfer used to be the part of the job I dreaded most. Meetings nobody remembers, Slack threads that disappear, docs that get shared and never opened. The usual mess.

About two months ago, I started routing everything through NotebookLM and suddenly the whole process started working. Sharing the workflow that clicked for us.

The setup:
Whenever the team needs to learn a new technology or process, I dump every relevant resource into a notebook YouTube videos, docs, blog posts, internal wikis, whatever I can find.

I keep one long-term notebook per major topic so it keeps improving over time instead of rebuilding everything from scratch whenever someone new joins.

The indexing step:
Before generating anything, I first ask NotebookLM to organize all sources into topic titles. Then I feed that structure back into the workflow and go topic by topic:

“Explain topic 3 using all available sources,” etc.

This gives me a clean breakdown that’s actually usable instead of one giant wall of information.

(Shoutout to whoever shared this trick in this sub
it completely changed how I use it.)

Creating content for the team:
This is where it becomes genuinely useful.

For lightweight concepts that are mostly text-heavy, I generate audio overviews and tailor the prompts for mid-level engineers. I keep each one focused on a single topic so people can listen on their own schedule without sitting through another meeting.

For more visual or technical concepts architecture diagrams, system flows, walkthroughs
I use Distill Book to turn the docs into animated explainer videos.

The output feels like something our company intentionally produced instead of another PDF someone forwards around and nobody reads. I don’t use it for everything, only when the material actually benefits from visual explanation.

Testing understanding:
After the team goes through the material, I generate quizzes and flashcards from the same notebook.

I usually prompt for scenario-based questions instead of simple definitions, which makes it much easier to spot where someone still has gaps.

The result:
The notebook becomes a permanent knowledge hub.

New hire? Send them the notebook.
Process changed? Add the updated docs and regenerate.
Question comes up three months later? People can just chat with the notebook directly.

I went from spending 3+ hours doing repeated live onboarding walkthroughs for every new hire to maybe an hour of reusable setup work.

Curious if anyone else here is using NotebookLM for team workflows. Most discussions I see are focused on personal learning, but this has honestly been one of the most practical uses I’ve found for it.

I lead a small engineering team and knowledge transfer used to be my least favorite part of the job. Meetings nobody remembers, Slack threads that get buried, docs that get sent and never opened. Typical.

About two months ago I started routing everything through NotebookLM and the whole thing just clicked. Sharing what I landed on.

The setup: Whenever there's a new technology or process the team needs to learn, I dump everything I can find into a notebook like YouTube videos, docs, blog posts, internal wikis, whatever.
I keep one permanent notebook per major topic area so it grows over time instead of starting from scratch every time someone new joins.

The indexing step: Before generating anything, I ask NotebookLM to index all sources into topic titles first, then feed that index back. From there I go topic by topic
"explain topic 3 from all sources" etc. This gives me a clean breakdown I can actually work with.
(Got this trick from this sub whoever posted it, it changed everything for me.)

Creating content for the team: This is where it gets useful. For quick concepts that are mostly text-based, I generate audio overviews and customize the prompt to target mid-level engineers, keep it focused on one topic at a time. Short, easy, team listens on their own time.

For the more visual/technical stuff architecture diagrams, system flows, walkthrough. For those I use DistilBook, which takes the docs and turns them into animated explainer videos. The output looks like something our company actually produced, not a forwarded PDF nobody opens. I don't use it for everything, just when the content genuinely needs to be seen.

Testing understanding: After the team goes through everything, I generate quizzes and flashcards from the same notebook.
I prompt it to create scenario-based questions, not just definitions. Makes it easy to spot who needs to revisit what.

The result: The notebook becomes a permanent resource. New hire? Point them to the notebook. Something changed? Add the new docs, regenerate. Someone has a question 3 months later? They chat with the notebook directly.

I went from spending 3+ hours per new hire doing live walkthroughs to maybe an hour of setup that's reusable for everyone after.

Anyone else using NotebookLM for team stuff? Most posts I see here are about personal learning - curious if others have pushed it into team workflows

I've been using NotebookLM heavily since the Audio Overview days. Love it for quick conversational summaries of my sources. But I kept running into the same wall: I'd upload a dense PDF with diagrams, flowcharts, code architecture ( i'm dev btw) and the audio overview would just... talk around the visuals.

So I stopped trying to make one tool do everything. I built a stack of 4 tools, each doing one thing really well. Sharing in case it helps someone else who's been trying to squeeze NotebookLM into use cases it wasn't designed for.

1. NotebookLM - still my "first pass" tool

I'm not leaving NotebookLM. It's genuinely the best thing for dumping multiple sources and getting a quick conversational overview. I use the Index trick from this sub (upload → ask it to index into topics → feed index back → explain each topic one by one).
That workflow alone changed how I process research. ( i found this from this community )

Where I still use it:

• Getting the "vibe" of a new topic from multiple sources
• Finding contradictions between papers
• Quick audio summaries for topics that are mostly text-based

Where I stopped using it:

• Anything with heavy visuals (diagrams, architecture, charts, hardware specs)
• When I need to share the output with someone else as actual content
• When I need something longer than 20 minutes or deeper than a surface summary

The Video Overview feature (Ultra ) is... fine? It's basically a narrated slide deck. Better than nothing, but if your document has complex visuals and you actually need them explained properly, it's still a pretty shallow treatment.

2. DistilBook - for when the visuals ARE the content

This is the one I've been most surprised by. It's a tool that takes your document (PDF, docs) and converts it into an actual animated explainer video - not a slide deck, not a podcast, an actual explainer with motion graphics and visuals extracted from your document.

I found it because I was trying to create a walkthrough video for a technical architecture doc at work. Had diagrams, system flows, the whole thing. NotebookLM's audio completely ignored the visual parts, and the Video Overview just turned each page into a slide. DistilBook actually pulled out the diagrams, animated them, and explained them step by step. The output looked like something you'd see on a tech YouTube channel.

Where it's strong:

• Technical docs with diagrams/charts/architecture that need visual explanation
• Product walkthroughs, SOPs, onboarding material
• Long-form content- — I've seen it generate 30+ minute explainer videos from dense docs
• Output is something you can actually share with your team or audience

Where it doesn't fit:

• If you just want a quick summary to listen to on a walk, this isn't the tool. This is for when you need the visual output.
• It's more of a "create content from your docs" tool than a "chat with your docs" tool

Honestly for pure personal learning I still reach for NotebookLM first. But the moment I need to actually explain something visual, or create something I can send to someone else, DistilBook has been surprisingly good. The fact that it handles the visuals properly is what makes it different from everything else I've tried.

3. ElevenLabs Reader - for pure "read this to me" needs ( found from this community )

Not trying to be smart, not trying to summarize. Just reads your PDF/article aloud in a great voice. I keep this on my phone for long Substacks and papers where I just want the raw content in my ears while walking.

NotebookLM's audio is better if you want synthesis and conversation. ElevenLabs is better if you want the actual content read faithfully without AI interpretation. Different tools for different needs.

4. Claude/ChatGPT - for deep Q&A on specific sections (obviously )

When I need to drill into one specific section of a paper and ask follow-up questions, I just paste it into Claude or ChatGPT. NotebookLM is better for multi-source synthesis, but for single-section deep dives, a regular LLM with a good prompt beats the notebook format.

My prompt template: "You are an expert in [field]. I'm going to paste a section from a paper. Explain it to me like I have a background in [my level] but have never seen this specific topic. Focus on [what I care about]."

The point:

NotebookLM is great at what it does conversational synthesis of text-heavy sources. But I think a lot of the frustration on this sub comes from trying to make it do things it wasn't built for. Visual content, long-form output, shareable deliverables, mobile-first learning — those are different tools for different jobs.

My stack:

• Quick text synthesis → NotebookLM
• Visual/technical docs → actual explainer content → DistilBook
• Faithful read-aloud → ElevenLabs Reader
• Deep single-topic Q&A → Claude/ChatGPT

Anyone else running a multi-tool workflow? Curious what combinations people have landed on.