30 Oct The Cut30 Video Reference Database Goes Public (and then some)
Hey gang –
I need to tell you about something I’ve been working on that’s honestly gotten a little out of hand.
You know how everyone says “study the best creators” but then you’re just… scrolling TikTok for hours?
Yeah, I get it.
We have hundreds of hand curated reference videos inside Cut30. Great stuff. But they’re sprinkled throughout the content, inline with tutorials, exercises, examples, and more.
So one day I pulled them all out and started categorizing them. Then I thought—can I use AI to speed this up?
But here’s the thing: AI analysis of this kinda thing easily turns into surface-level slop.
It reads like it’s useful whether it is or not, and labels without intention or consistency. So I went deeper. Way deeper.
I built custom taxonomies for short-form video—Formats, Concepts, Elements—so we could match videos to our own categorization and patterns, not just label them aimlessly. Then I created this insane prompt system that pulls out the DNA, and analyzes and breaks out hook components. It does all of this agnostic niche or topic.
So you can learn from the best videos, not just the best ones in your niche.
But then, I realized our list was limited by what we knew. What we put in.
So I built a scraper and loaded it with 500 of the best accounts we could find to start.
- We scraped ~40,000 videos from 500+ top creator and brand accounts
- Then created a scoring algorithm to find outliers—not just viral hits, but novel and effective content.
- Created a workflow to escalate the best stuff for deep analysis and sent around 5% of those to our analysis engine to analyze and organize
- Then we turned it all into a searchable, filterable, public database.
It’s perfect for breaking down what makes a specific video click, looking at similar videos with the same broader concept, or diving into a specific Format – like Carousels.
And it updates daily.
It’s rough around the edges (very V1), but it’s extremely useful. You can search by format, concept, topic—whatever you need.
A free account gives you full search access and filters.
Try it here: https://videodatabase.org