clerk × chantastic

Hey Nick and Dom 👋

Talking with y’all about this role has been an absolute blast. I’m getting stoked.

Here’s my pitch, based on everything we’ve discussed.

Theme:
Support. Arm. Educate.

Contents

Big picture

Clerk is killing it at developer engagement. The existing influencer marketing strategy is working — bringing attention to the service staying in the auth conversation.

But there’s a gap once people make the jump to Clerk. Video support for new customers doesn’t exist. This gap is where I see myself making a massive impact.

We need to support the growing Clerk community with intermediate resources and education. And do so in the medium that brought them in: video.

You are recruiting well. Let’s arm those people.

Together, I believe that we can:

  • Drastically improve customer sentiment.
  • Impressively reduce 1:1 support burden (for the most common pitfalls).
  • Retain customer engagement with high-quality video content: features, tutorials, and updates.
  • Leverage partner networks (egghead.io, Frontend Masters, etc.) to distribute high-quality onboarding content.
  • Build an internal culture of sharing through video.
  • Lay the groundwork for community events like conferences and interviews.

Below is my skeleton pitch for the first 90 days (based on our chats). This isn’t written in stone. We’ll flesh it out once I “see behind the curtain”.

A 90 day pitch

Support (0-30 days)

Surface customer pains that can be alleviated with video. Build communication channels with support, devrel, marketing, eng, and the community to continue the inflow of ideas.

  • Publish short videos for high-impact pain points.
  • Develop quick, repeatable, branded shorts styles:
    • Features: “Did you know…”
    • Pain points: “If you’ve seen this error, chances are…”
    • Success: “Check out this {showcase cool apps using Clerk}“
  • Share a guide for making similar videos and invite other teams and community members to contribute.

Arm (30-60 days)

With a short video strategy in place (and aware of customer pain points) we can arm them for success.

  • Publish short videos around underutilized features.
  • Develop evaluation process (metrics, UTM, sentiment and engagement, etc).
  • Identify places where we can leverage video (docs, blog posts, onboarding email campaign, etc).

Educate (60-90 days and beyond)

  • Develop a video tutorial for one key integration (likely Next.js).
    • Step-by-step guide on YouTube channel.
    • Distribute as a tutorial on egghead.io.
    • Pitch as an in-person workshop to Frontend Masters and conferences.
    • Develop a durable onboarding drip campaign.
  • Document strategy for second place, first-class integration integration.
  • Invite the community to use our outline to produce their guides.

Evaluate. Adapt. Repeat.

Why you should trust me

I believe that you’re looking for someone autonomous — capable of fully owning video. I’m ready and qualified to take things from a one-person production to a full team.

I’ve done this at Storybook/Chromatic. I produced shorts, tutorials, and talks. I partnered with egghead to develop a course. And I directed small teams to produce interviews and an online conference.

I’m armed with the tools, techniques, and partners to do it right from day one.

What I’m looking for

This is what I see as competitive, for the responsibilities above. This is based on my compensation from my Storybook/Chromatic role, other startups I’m talking with, and friends in a video creator role.

  • $225k base pay.
  • Full insurance coverage for me and my family of four.
  • Dedicated recording space. (The one Chromatic leased was $1300/mo.)

I think Staff Video Creator is sensible for the immediate need at Clerk.

If I’m able to meet or exceed our goals for this role, after a year, I’d ask to be promoted to a Principle Video Creator (or comparable) with $250k/annual base pay.

I’m happy to discuss the finer details on a call.

Thanks

Thanks for considering me for this role.
I think we’d make one hell of a team.

Talk soon.

chan