The Story Behind Sato: How it all started?

Before I begin how all of this started, I want to express that it took us a solid 1 year of non-stop hustling to build a tool like this and I am so grateful for the team that had put in their hours of research and work onto this. 

So, yeah, hi, I am Porag Gogoi, and I am the co-founder of Sato. A tool that allows designers, developers, and marketers to embed a fully customized video player inside their website. And like every product has a story that begins with a frustration and what ifs, we had ours too, and I want to share how all of this began.  

The Starting Point 

As a designer, working with clients for a long time, one constant demand they had was - “ We need a video on our website.” Whether it’s on the homepage, work section, or any other section of the website, a video is like that one important part that was the necessity. So, when one of our clients reached out to us for embedding a video on their website, the real game began. The problem I initially faced was hosting a video on website builders. Most web design platforms had limitations when it came to uploading videos. And platforms like Webflow, where I was working, had strict file size limitations. So, obviously the website lagged. To be honest, it felt ridiculous because something as foundational as video shouldn’t be this fragile. And yet, here we are. 

Entering the Rabbit Hole of Solutions 

So, by now I knew the first problem was hosting the video itself. Now, we could have tried the famous cloud computing platform like Amazon Web Service as well, but it can be a headache if you are not a developer. You will need to upload the video to an Amazon S3 Bucket and generate an object URL from that file’s properties. And trust me, this is a labour-intensive task because if you are already spending time designing and developing a website, why take the extra load of understanding cloud computing technology? Plus one of the problems we faced with AWS while working with one of our clients, who are currently our Sato customer (yes, a really proud moment for us) is how overpriced it can be. In addition to pricing, the tools came with other challenges. It was complex and had an enormous surface of configuration choices.  So, logically and practically, if I am building a small portfolio site that needs a single background video, expecting the client or a small agency to become AWS experts or experts in any cloud based solution is unreasonable. 

We even tried our hands on JavaScript video libraries (open-source HTML5 video player), but frankly speaking, they carry a steep learning curve and if you’re building a small Webflow site or a quick landing page, spending 50-60% of development time wiring up a custom player isn’t a smart move because honestly designers, marketers need a fast, predictable tool that lets them deliver a refined video experience without deep dev work. 

The third-party maze: More features, but at what cost

Now, the obvious way to embed was to upload the video on YouTube. But placing a YouTube embed felt like hanging a fluorescent tube light in a modern fancy cafe (seriously, no kidding), it works, but it breaks the mood. Yes, that’s the perfect analogy I could think of. And for agencies, marketers, and designers who want videos to match their brand aesthetic, using YouTube was like committing a sin, I better not do that. The experience that YouTube gave didn’t feel right- I couldn’t brand it, there were autoplay suggestions everywhere, plus worst of all, it bulldozes the entire UI experience. 

I was so frustrated toggling so many tools that I finally decided to switch to HTML5 no-code tool, which strengthened my belief further to build a tool like Sato. 

• The first problem we encountered was that the players were way too expensive, especially for a small project where I just needed to embed one video. Why would I want to pay 19$ for simply embedding one player on a homepage? 

• Second, it had limited customization. Even something as basic as the default play button couldn't be removed. And many players enforce their own branding and have even basic customization locked behind expensive tiers. In short, between affordability, performance, and control, the existing options felt like compromises designers, marketers and developers shouldn’t have to accept.

So, the pattern became quite obvious. For hosting, cloud computing tools weren’t straightforward, YouTube players weren’t customizable and premium players were not affordable. No doubt, why I was having an existential crisis every time I was planning to embed an iframe on the website. 

The frustration took roots 

After contemplating a lot and questioning about why something as embedding a video player is so complicated? Why can't it be simple? We made Sato. 

Our core priority is and will be providing our users with an affordable, lightweight, highly customizable video web player plus also offer them the feature to host videos. Splay (now Sato) - the story of rebranding the product is a whole new ballgame ( Read more here) is made for everyone and is compatible across any development website.

In future we are planning to integrate more features to support the functionality of our target users. But right now the initial focus is giving our users the essentials done extremely well : fast hosting, reliable playback, designer control, and a simple workflow. We are starting to hit the rhythm and gaining users at a faster rate than expected ( doing a happy little dance as I write this). All I can say is that the journey has been a rollercoaster of emotion. It was awful, nerve-jerking, emotional, so many waves that I have literally lost count of it. 

Sato is our labour of love, and we are really curious and excited to see how everyone uses it and integrates it on their website. If you have read till the end, thank you for sticking through. We hope Sato makes your work a little smoother, fast and efficient. Give it a try and share your genuine feedback. 

P.S. - I will miss the melancholy and the quiet chaos I embarked on while figuring out the entire embed game and discovering a tool like Sato. Trust me, when I look back now, I feel those were the best times. We have more to do and we are constantly struggling and improving, all we need is your little help. Stay with me, stay with us, the journey has just begun and there’s more to it.