Building an AI Video SaaS: What the API Didn't Solve
The first time an AI video API returned a finished clip, I thought I had crossed the hardest part of the project. I had sent an image and a motion prompt, received a task ID, waited for processing, and displayed the result. The main technical risk seemed solved. It was not. A successful generation proved that an API could produce a video. It did not prove that the surrounding product could survive a timeout, a page refresh, an uncertain submission, a pricing change, a duplicated request, or a failed task involving a user's credits. That distinction changed how I approached the rest of the build. The model remained important, but most of the difficult product work moved to the system around it. A working API call is only a demo The happy path for an image-to-video feature looks simple: Upload an image. Describe the motion. Select a model and settings. Submit the request. Wait for the finished video. That flow is useful for proving an integration. It i...