How LUMIQ used founder video to explain a product that doesn’t fit in a sentence

LUMIQ was just starting to gain traction with its LightMaps products, and the company was beginning to raise outside capital to buy equipment, hire people, and grow into a larger manufacturing space. The product was easy to love once you saw it. Explaining it was the hard part.

The challenge

To most people, LightMaps looked like an aviation weather map. The technology underneath was about much more than that. LUMIQ was developing products for other hobbies, like skiing, sailing and gardening, and a unique way of showing any data. The idea was “put down your phone, you don’t need another app, display your data in your world,” and it took some explaining.

The founders needed people to understand it quickly: the customers finding the brand online and anyone sizing up the company behind it.

What we produced

We started with the founders’ own concept: a single founders interview that explained the company. We sat down with the founders, distilled the points that mattered most, and filmed it so it looked comfortable and professional instead of scripted. We also filmed the facility, the workshop process and the products up close, so there was plenty to cut with.

We delivered three pieces: a banner video for LUMIQ’s website, the Founders Interview (shot in the style of an investor pitch), and a Meta ad. Between them, the footage worked on the website’s hero banner, its explainer section, and in Facebook and Instagram ads.

The results

According to LUMIQ, the Meta ads performed better than any content they had used before with local marketing companies. One video ad returned about 6x on ad spend, compared with roughly 2.5x for static ads.

The videos, especially the Founders Interview, also changed how the website felt. In LUMIQ’s words, they added a level of professionalism that showed the founders’ commitment to the business.

LUMIQ went on to raise enough private money through convertible notes to fund its growth, mostly equipment purchases. We don’t claim the video raised that money. That was the founders and their technology. What the video did was make the company look as serious as it was.

Why it worked

It started with the founders’ own concept instead of a rewrite of it. We pulled out the few ideas that mattered and filmed them in a way that felt natural on camera. And because the shoot was planned around where the footage would run, one shoot did several jobs: website hero, explainer and ads.

A founder explainer is a good fit when your product takes a minute to understand. If people keep asking “so what does it actually do?”, that’s the sign.