WatchIt

George Ginsberg launched WatchIt in 2012 with a clear mission: democratize video creation for enterprise brands. The inspiration came from recognizing that traditional video production was slow, expensive, and required specialized skills. Ginsberg and his co-founder had some personal capital to invest and secured roughly $1 million from seed investors early on, allowing them to bootstrap the platform while building momentum.

The team started by creating content themselves and syndicating it to validate the market before opening up the platform as a SaaS product. WatchIt's core innovation combined three elements: automation (like converting 16:9 videos to square format), creative tools designed for non-videographers, and licensed content from providers like Getty, AFP, Reuters, and AP. This combination allowed anyone to turn a story into a professional video in about 10 minutes—a dramatic improvement over the traditional Fiverr-agency-Rev-subtitles workflow that cost $1,000+ per minute.

The breakthrough came through an unlikely partnership with Gannett, owner of USA Today and 140+ other properties. Ginsberg met with Gannett's digital leadership and pitched the platform. Instead of a traditional sales call, they ran an internal competition: one team created a video the old way while another used WatchIt. The WatchIt team published their video before the traditional team even started creating. This proof-of-concept won Gannett's trust, and they became an early champion, helping Ginsberg refine product-market fit for the industry. Ginsberg also leveraged prior relationships with content providers from his previous startup acquisition.

Ginsberg's strategy focused resolutely on enterprise—not SMBs or individual creators. He rejected pursuing the long tail (vloggers, freelancers) despite recognizing market opportunity there, reasoning that competing in that space required templated solutions and sacrificed brand customization. Instead, he doubled down on content marketing. Rather than paid media, WatchIt published high-quality research—like a white paper on optimizing social video—that news outlets wanted to distribute. This generated qualified inbound leads with minimal media spend. The payback period of less than six months meant CAC was roughly $20-25k on a $50k first-year deal, with negative gross churn (meaning expansion outpaced losses). Customers expanded horizontally, bringing the platform to additional teams and brands within their organizations.

With $29 million raised across multiple rounds (including investments from clients like ProSieben and SPH), WatchIt operates a 60-person team split between Tel Aviv (engineering), New York (sales and marketing), and London (EMEA coverage). They serve over 200 enterprise clients with average first-year ACV of $50k and minimum lifetime value of $300k. The company is growing at roughly 100% year-over-year and is "not so far away" from breaking $30M ARR. Churn remains sub-1% annually. Ginsberg attributes much of this success to maintaining simplicity in pricing (charged per video created, not by seats or teams) and becoming strategic advisors to clients on video strategy, not just a creation tool.