Focal

About the startup

Focal — Watch Smarter. Not Longer. YouTube has more content than you'll ever have time to watch. Focal fixes that. Focal is a video intelligence tool that reads between the lines of any YouTube video and tells you exactly what you're getting into — before you invest your time. In seconds, it delivers a clear verdict: WATCH, SKIM, or SKIP — plus a density score, timestamped highlights, and the key moments that actually matter. Stop guessing. Start knowing. Every video comes with a crisp summary of what's covered, a breakdown of the most information-dense moments, and timestamped gist bullets so you can jump straight to the parts worth your attention. Whether it's a 3-minute tutorial or a 3-hour conference talk, Focal tells you what's signal and what's filler — so you spend your time on content that earns it. Built for people with limited time — or limited patience. Focal was designed with ADHD in mind, but it's useful for anyone who's ever clicked on a video, watched for 10 minutes, and realized it wasn't what they came for. It respects your attention like it's the finite resource it actually is. How it works Install the Chrome or Firefox extension and Focal appears right on YouTube. Request a summary for any video and within moments you'll see your verdict, a density score reflecting how much information is packed per minute, and a set of timestamped bullet points covering the core ideas. No tab-switching, no copy-pasting, no extra steps. You can also access your full history and saved summaries through the Focal web dashboard, and share summary links with teammates, students, or anyone else who deserves to know what they're about to watch. Go deeper with Lenses Not every video needs the same lens. Focal's Lens system lets you re-evaluate any summary through a specific perspective — without re-running the full analysis. Built-in lenses like Just the Steps, No Fluff, and Deep Understanding shift what gets surfaced and how it's framed. Power users can build and publish their own custom lenses, or subscribe to lenses created by others. Your intelligence feed Subscribe to lenses that matter to you and Focal surfaces new insights in your feed as your subscribed lenses find things worth flagging. It's a smarter way to stay on top of content across channels you follow — filtered through the perspective you care about most. Integrations that fit your workflow Connect Focal to Notion and push video summaries directly to your workspace — individually or automatically by verdict. Research, learning, content review: Focal plugs into the tools you already use. Who is Focal for? Researchers and students evaluating whether a source is worth watching Professionals keeping up with industry content without losing hours to it Creators and marketers analyzing video content at scale Anyone with ADHD who needs the point before they can commit to the journey Anyone who's ever watched half a video only to realize it wasn't what they needed Focal doesn't ask you to watch less. It helps you watch better. Try Focal free. No credit card required. Install the extension and get your first verdicts in under a minute.