Bridging the gap between creative and media

Variads is a solo dev project by Erik Nordquist. It was born from a simple observation: media platforms keep raising the bar for creative volume—more variants, more formats, more personalization—while the way we produce video ads has barely changed. Creative production still has not solved scaled video ads.

The problem

Performance and brand teams need a constant stream of fresh creatives. Platforms reward testing and iteration. But making one video is expensive; making hundreds or thousands is out of reach for most. The result is a gap: media wants scale, creative production is built for one-offs. Variads is about closing that gap—not by replacing creativity, but by making every piece of creative work harder through modularity, compatibility, and automation.

What Variads does

Variads helps you produce modular video assets that can be combined into many variants instead of one. You define building blocks—hooks, contexts, formats—and the system handles compatibility, rendering, and delivery. That means more creatives from every frame you produce, so you can meet platform demand without burning out your team or your budget. It’s built for people who care about both creative quality and scale.

Why solo, and why now

This is a one-person project by design. The goal is to move fast, stay close to the problem, and build something that actually fits how creative and media teams work. The ever-increasing creative demands from platforms aren’t going away—so the tools to meet them need to exist. Variads is one attempt to build that bridge.