Startup makes Zoom customizable and shareable

Grain captures content in Zoom calls so that users can save portions and share them across other platforms, among other features

Spotted: Whenever a new platform becomes successful, companies emerge to build services or products on top of it. Many successful platforms have an entire developer ecosystem riding on their coattails. Companies often encourage this developer community because adds functionality to their platform. As video conferencing company Zoom has soared in popularity during the coronavirus lockdowns, a number of companies have built apps on top of it and one, Grain, has based its entire business around it.

Grain, founded in 2018, captures content in Zoom calls so that users can save it and share it across other platforms, such as Twitter and Slack. For example, a person in a Zoom meeting can record part of the meeting and then share it with someone else on Twitter using a clip that has its own unique URL. 

Grain also transcribes content in recordings and can provide closed captions. Users can share video clips of between 30 seconds and 10 minutes in length and can string together clips into “highlight” reels with no time limit. Users can also edit the highlight after it has been recorded, and control who else can edit the video, to prevent people stringing words together out of context.  

According to co-founder and CEO Mike Adams, the name Grain was chosen because “Grains are little pieces that can accumulate to become something meaningful. That’s what our video highlight clips are all about. Little nuggets that come from somewhere else but can stand on their own. We get most excited when thinking about what can be made when you combine the ‘grains’ together.”

Grain is just one example of a company that has achieved success by developing apps for other products. At Springwise, we have recently covered innovations such as an app that allows users to make instant podcasts for their Twitter followers and an app that can manage the privacy settings of all of your social media accounts.

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