The video software market does not reward patience. It rewards the team that ships fast, listens hard, and builds something people actually want to use on their own without a walkthrough. Dadan is the first company out of Saudi Arabia to build that kind of product at scale in the US market.
Over the past year, Dadan did exactly that.
After launching its MVP at the end of 2024, Dadan went global in March 2025. In the months since, the platform has grown to nearly 40,000 users across 70+ countries, with over 4,000 business accounts actively using it today.
A video is streamed on the platform every second. Dadan now ranks among the top 10 screen recording platforms on G2, has won multiple G2 awards, and took home AppSumo’s Tool of the Year for 2025.
Where It All Started
Dadan was built to solve a problem that their team experienced firsthand, too many tools doing too little, stitched together with too much back and forth. But there was a second problem nobody in the market was seriously addressing.
Everyone was focused on making video creation easier. Nobody was asking whether the content people spent hours and real budget producing was actually being watched. Video engagement, not only video creation, was the gap Dadan was built to close.
Recording happened in one place. Captions required a second tool. Hosting needed a third. Getting feedback from viewers meant something else entirely. Each step in the video workflow was a separate subscription, a separate login, and a separate context switch.
The premise behind Dadan was that this shouldn’t be the case. Record, edit, host, and share should live in a single loop. And if AI could handle the parts that used to require manual effort like transcription, editing, chapter creation, meeting notes, it should be built in by default, instead of being bolted on as a paid add-on.
That premise is what the year was built on.
TL;DR
- Launched globally March 2025
- Nearly 40,000 users across 70+ countries
- 4,000+ business accounts
- AppSumo Tool of the Year 2025
- 4.9/5 on G2
- A video streamed on the platform every second
Key Milestones
A lot changed in a year, here is what that looked like, month by month.
April 2025: Foundation
April set the foundation for what Dadan would become. In one release window, browser-based recording arrived with no extension required, calendar sync enabled automatic meeting recording for Google and Microsoft calendars, video requests launched, Google Classroom integration went live, and direct publishing to YouTube, Slack, LinkedIn, and Dropbox became available.
Also in April, embedded forms came in that capture leads while a video plays, with auto-sync to HubSpot, Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, Brevo, GoHighLevel, and ten other platforms. Passive viewing became an active lead generation event.
May 2025: Global Reach
Subtitle translation launched across 120+ languages. Playlist creation arrived for grouping related recordings. Chapters became embeddable on external sites, and timestamped sharing links let users point viewers to a specific moment in any video.
July 2025: Interactive Video
Domain-level access control gave users the ability to restrict which websites could embed their videos. The bigger addition was to Dadan’s interactive video system like real-time quiz scoring, multiple question types including MCQs, rating scales, and open-text answers, and exportable response data.
For educators and trainers who need to assess comprehension rather than deliver content, this changed what Dadan could do.
August 2025: More Control for Users
Anonymous video requests removed the last problem point for video collection. CRM webhook support opened Dadan to custom integrations beyond the native list.
Universal player page settings let users control transcript visibility, sign-up prompts, and other viewer-facing elements globally across all videos.
October 2025: Smarter Lead Capture
In-video phone number capture added a new field to lead forms, passed automatically to connected apps and webhooks.
AI-generated summaries became attachable directly to a video’s resource panel. A frame-based thumbnail picker lets users pull any still from the video timeline without a separate upload.
November 2025: Editing by Transcript
The most significant release of the year. The Transcript Video Editor launched, where you can edit video footage by deleting words from the transcript, with AI silence and filler word removal built in.
The recording interface was rebuilt with flexible layout ratios, a teleprompter, and an AI script generator. An intro slide maker was added for professional video opens.
December 2025: Full Platform Coverage
The Chrome extension launched. The Windows desktop app arrived. Calendly integration enabled automatic recording of scheduled meetings. Multi-screen recording support went live.
February 2026: Mac App
Native builds for both Intel and Apple Silicon. Flexible recording modes, separate mic and system audio tracks with noise suppression, on-screen annotation tools, and a customisable camera bubble.
The Mac app also introduced one of the most distinct features in screen recording, which is real-time zoom while recording, letting you highlight exactly what’s on screen as you go, without touching it in post.
Community & Users
In July 2025, Dadan launched on AppSumo. At the time, Dadan was early. The AppSumo launch was about finding the users who would push the product hard and say exactly what wasn’t working.
The goal behind the AppSumo launch wasn’t volume. Dadan wanted power users who would stress-test the platform and give real, unfiltered feedback on what worked and what didn’t. The full campaign numbers are covered in the AppSumo blog, but the more important outcome was the feedback loop it created.
The team spoke to over 200 users in one-on-one calls and engaged with more than 1,200 users directly via chat. That volume of real-time input, from people actively using the product, shaped the direction of the roadmap in ways no internal review cycle could.
The 123 public reviews on the deal page, averaging a 4.3 rating, gave the team a clear read on how users valued the creation and distribution sides of the platform separately.
What came out of that process was also the Dadan community. Every feature since has launched through that community first, which means by the time something goes live, it has already passed a real product-market fit test with actual users.
AppSumo named Dadan its Tool of the Year
AppSumo named Dadan its Tool of the Year for 2025. The recognition was based not primarily on sales volume, but on how the product performed under real usage, how the team engaged with the community, and how consistently Dadan performed during and after the campaign window.
Following the campaign, the team launched a private Dadan Insider Facebook community for AppSumo users, which became a direct feedback channel that continued to shape the product into 2026.
By May 2026, Dadan had nearly 40,000 members, maintained a 4.9/5 rating on G2.
The Dadan team also celebrated Eid ul Adha together in May 2026 over a team dinner, a moment to pause and mark how far the company had come in its first year.
Instagram Channel
This year, we expanded our presence on Instagram to share product updates, tutorials, feature launches, and video creation tips in a more engaging format. Here are some of our favorite videos and moments from the journey so far.
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Love from Our Audience
Our users have been at the heart of Dadan’s growth, helping shape the product with valuable feedback and support. Here are some reviews and messages from users who have shared their experience with Dadan.
What’s Next for Dadan
The roadmap hereon covers a significant amount of ground across editing, recording, and platform integrations.
AI-Powered Video Editing
Full AI-powered video editing is currently in progress, alongside an advanced online video editor. These build on the transcript editor that launched in November 2025 and move toward a more complete, AI-driven editing experience.
Auto Zoom and Automatic Mouse Tracking
Auto zoom with automatic mouse tracking is now live, removing the need to manually zoom in during recording or correct it in post.
Mobile App
A dedicated Android and iOS app for recording from phone camera and phone screen share is in the backlog with 103 votes, the most requested feature on the roadmap.
Video Templates
Video templates are next up, giving users a starting point for common video formats without building from scratch each time.
Import from Google Drive and Canva Integration
Both are next up, Google Drive import for pulling existing video assets directly into Dadan, and a Canva integration for users who build visual assets there before recording or editing.
Speaker Detection in Transcripts
Currently in progress is the ability to distinguish between speakers in a transcript, making meeting recordings significantly more useful when multiple people are on a call.
Blur and Virtual Backgrounds for Webcam
Next up for webcam recordings is background blur and virtual background options without needing a third-party tool.
Conclusion
A year ago, Dadan was a platform with a clear idea and a small user base. Today it has nearly 40,000 members, a 4.9/5 rating on G2, native apps on every major platform, and a product that covers the full video workflow without asking users to leave it.
The bigger shift is in what video can now do inside Dadan, capture leads, assess comprehension, replace a meeting, generate a short-form clip from an hour-long recording. That is a different category of tool than most teams started the year with.
Check out our roadmap to see what’s coming next. From AI powered editing and mobile recording to speaker detection in transcripts and much more, you’ll see an even better version of Dadan throughout the year. We’re just getting started, and we’re excited to keep building with your feedback.
