What is a personal video introduction and who sends one?

The phrase "video introduction" gets used for a startup's welcome reel, a TikTok bio, a corporate onboarding module and a cold sales pitch, so it is worth pinning down. This article is about the personal kind, which is the kind we built hi.video for, and the definition is narrow on purpose.

A personal video introduction is a short recording in which one person talks directly to one named recipient, sent to that recipient as a link. The parts below follow from that sentence.

The definition, part by part

The sender is one person, visible and speaking as themselves, with their own face and voice. There is no narrator and no team montage.

The recipient is one named person. The video is for them, and their name appears on the page and usually early in the video. A recording that could be sent to anyone is a different thing, and I cover it below.

It is short, under a minute for a first message. That is long enough to say why you are writing and what you would like to happen, and too short to turn into a presentation.

It is sent rather than posted. The sender gives the link to the recipient directly, in an email or a message.

The recipient opens it on a phone or laptop without an account. Nobody else is expected to find it.

What it is not

It is not a webinar or a pitch video, which speak to an audience. A profile reel or a video resume is recorded once and shown to many people, so that is a different thing too.

A screen recording for a team that already knows you is its own category, and well-known team tools such as Loom exist for it. An AI avatar reading a script with your name attached is not a personal introduction either, because nobody sat down and recorded it. hi.video has no uploads and no avatars, and the trust page covers what the "Recorded in hi.video" label does and does not mean.

It is also not a replacement for the written message. A good hi comes with a note, a few lines of text with the video, so that someone who cannot press play still knows what this is about.

Who sends them and why

Job seekers send one to a hiring manager alongside an application, because thirty seconds on camera shows how they talk in a way a cover letter cannot. Freelancers send one to a prospect who asked for a quote, so the quote arrives from a person rather than from a PDF. Founders send one to an investor before the deck.

Salespeople send one as a first touch to someone who has never heard of them. People who met at an event send one two days later, while the other person still remembers the conversation.

The reason is the same in every case. Text from a stranger is easy to skim and easy to ignore.

A short video from a stranger who says your name and mentions something specific is harder to wave off, because a person has visibly spent a minute on you.

The parts of a good one

1. The recipient's name, on the page and in your first breath.
2. One specific reference that shows you looked. The post they wrote, the role they listed, the page on their site you read.
3. Why you are writing, in one sentence.
4. One ask. A reply, a fifteen minute call, a yes or a no.
5. A stop. Finish the ask and end the recording. The urge to add "and also" is what pushes a 40 second hi to two minutes.

Around the video there are two more parts. The note is text and should stand on its own. The button goes to your email address or an https link such as a calendar, so the next step is one tap away.

An example you can adapt

Hi Sam, I'm [your name]. I saw the designer role you posted on Monday, and the line about owning onboarding end to end is the reason I'm sending this instead of a cover letter.

I rebuilt onboarding at my last job, and I would like to tell you what I would do with yours.

If that is useful, the button under this video books fifteen minutes. If not, thanks for watching this far.

That is about forty seconds. It leaves out the sender's history, their list of skills and any second ask. All of that can wait for the call, which is the point of the video.

How one gets made and shared

On hi.video the whole thing happens in the browser. You open the recorder, type the recipient's name and a short note, and choose between your camera alone or your screen with your camera in the corner. You record, and if you stumble you retake or trim.

Captions are available, and when you publish you get a link.

You paste that link into an email or a message. The recipient opens it on any phone or laptop, sees their name, your note and the video, and finds the reply or booking button under it.

They do not need an account and there is nothing to install. You can see when it has been viewed.

New accounts go through a quick camera check first, so your first real hi is not the first time you see yourself on screen. hi.video has no uploads and no AI avatars, and each recipient page carries a "Recorded in hi.video" label, which says how the video was made and nothing about who made it.

The free plan gives you five published videos a month, each up to a minute, with five stored and no credit card. That is enough if you send a few considered messages a month.

Pro is $14.99 USD a month for videos up to ten minutes, 100 published minutes a month, 500 stored minutes, and a custom username in your link. The pricing page has the detail.

Where to go from here

If you have a person in mind, record your first hi for them now, while you still remember why you wanted to write. If you want to plan it first, how to introduce yourself in a video covers what to say, how long an intro video should be settles the length question, and record a video introduction in your browser walks through the setup.