dude you really out did yourself. usually i criticize people because their product homepage doesn't tell nor show anything about their product so i'm confused about what it does and how to use it.
YOU... DID.. IT... PERFECTLY
your homepage not only tells me exactly what this does, but shows me to the point where i'm excited to use it. good on you. others should learn from you.
my one thing that i noticed (and this could be a revenue generator for you) is the lack of templates currently. the more templates you have for us noob video editors, the better. not only that, but allowing the community to contribute and/or sell their template would be a HUGE win for you.
This means a lot. I have spent some time getting it down. A lot of blood, sweat, and tears haha.
I agree with the templates. I am trying to allocate my time wisely and I think expanding that will be major.
I am drawing up a way to make it even easier for people to create amazing videos.
When you click "add new video" I plan to make it interactive and guide you along every step.
Your options will be
Do you want to create a video
- from scratch
- from a template
- for your podcast
- for your product
- for your brand
Based on the selection I will walk the user through an simple experience. Have them upload their assets, select a vibe, enter some information, etc. Then generate the video data and put it on the timeline.
I am doing sales, customer support, engineering, and design. So once I can get some runway I will be able to roll it out.
To be honest I hate sales and marketing. I just want to build, and if I can get to ramen profit. Then I can pay people to do what I hate.
Had an issue with sign up via Google, but I got past that and really quickly I was able to build a video!
It's really enjoyable to use. Well done!
...You may have also picked the absolute perfect time to put a product out like this. We're all mostly stuck at home, coming up with great ideas that we want to communicate.
Yeah, I can't think of anything i'd need a video for, but still made one just to see if it works as well as the intro makes it look. And it really does work that well!
One small issue and a small feature request, tho:
- Undo of resizing images should restore it to the size that it was before you started dragging, currently it restores it to a lot of sizes during dragging.
- It would be great if you could switch between different kinds of text effects without having to remove the entire effect and re-enter your text.
[EDIT: found some more small bugs]
- Copy & paste hex colors for text doesn't work b/c it will paste the text element instead
- One time the download link for the video didn't work, it just closed the modal and i had to render it again. Worked fine the next time
All in all very well done! Will definitely be spreading the word about this one!
Nice job! It looks like a ton of effort. What's the tech stack for something like this? All homegrown? I've wanted to mess around with screencast editing but programmatic video stuff in general seems daunting.
But... "After Effects for dummies" is selling it short. This is a web based video editor! After seeing Figma do it's thing, I was waiting for someone to do it for videos. We're nearing the point where you can do 100% of your work in the web. Keep up the good work!
This is insane. The home page is super clear and the product itself is very slick to use. Good job on defining the right vision on the product and prioritizing the exact set of features to launch with to solve the specific niche problem space (podcast/video promotors on instagram). You seem to have a good handle on feature creep.
I completely agree. I'd love to pay for this on a per-seat basis. $50-100/mo/seat seems about right here.
I also don't know if including storage in the pricing is helpful. It might make more sense to represent that in time. If this is being sold to users too inexperienced to use AE, then the idea of bitrates and pixel resolutions probably will be foreign to them. But time is something everyone knows and can easily reason about.
You might also experiment with completely removing that restriction. Storage is cheap and hosting video isn't really a huge value add. The features and functionality are the real selling point, so price on those things and the real value you offer to users.
This product will most likely also sell with a higher price, but for an initial launch I would recommend keeping prices low.
What you want is to learn if your product is something people are willing to pay for. Once that is established, you can tune the pricing to increase the revenue.
I was excited to see at least some AE features in the browser or more-than-beginner type editing -- but it's more akin to iMovie or a basic templated editor? Impressive nevertheless for one person to bootstrap, congrats.
In the pricing section I see there's a limit on videos. Is this a monthly limit or total limit. For example, free tier says 5 videos, is that 5 per month?
I am still experimenting with the pricing and do have paying customers.
I find the average user needs anywhere between 5 videos a month to 10. These are serious users who are consistent with their posting and are making a return.
Those who are learning and new to the content game can get a few videos rendered per month to see if it's for them.
Agencies are a different persona though and they would most likely need more than 10.
I had a question about your work ethic on this project. Did you treat like a full time job Mon-Fri 9-5 or more like College project with frequent all-nighters? How did you sustain the motivation to keep going even through the rough patches as a solo developer?
Would love to read blog post about your journey through this.
Kudos! You have to admire anyone for executing on a launch this well as a solo dev. SaaS products targeting the more casual professional have a huge potential to grow right now.
IMO the killer feature will be the seamless import/export of content from phones to Web UI to social media account. Any platform allowing a frictionless experience in this regard will open the market to the much broader audience, which I think you're well branded for.
I'd love to hear more about your experience building the rendering stack with ffmpeg - and whether or not you recommend using it.
I showed this to a youtuber friend with 4m subscribers. His first response was "looks easier than our current workflow, but we upload in 4K currently and the demo maxes out at 720p".
To be fair, he probably uses After Effects way more than the average expected subscriber, so this isn't a representative sample.
This is legit feedback if you’re targeting this segment. I have relatives in the YT content “industry”, and they’re (inordinately?) obsessed with uploading content at the highest quality YT will allow. If something isn’t pumping out 4K, it doesn’t pass their smell test, for better or worse. So, if you allow 4K exports, I’d advertise it loudly! :)
This is really impressive, and a great example of the modern web put to productive use. I especially liked how you could start messing around with the demo without having a registration prompt (you only need that when exporting, which I think is perfectly reasonable).
Not a rocket ship but not a baloney sandwich either haha.
I have vaguely heard of them. Cool name. Id love to learn your use case, pain points, and what I need to do as a product creator to make a significantly better product.
If you're interested I would like to get inside your brain. Hit me up on Twitter @michaelaubry or email michael@storycreatorapp . com
If you don’t mind me asking, how did you decide to commit to complex app like this? It must’ve taken a long time to build the MVP. Did you interview potential customers before hand or just went I
with your gut or your own pain points? How did you know people will be willing to pay for this, considering there are a lot of similar tools out there?
I made a lot of rookie mistakes and I am ok with that. It was purely a gut feeling.
I am genuinely interested in video. I have been fascinated by it since a kid. So I knew I wanted to solve this problem.
I also love design tools and a good challenge. So I went against the grain and followed my gut. It brought a lot of pain and useful learnings. I wouldn't have it any other way.
Next time I will know what not to do. Always talk to the market and implement the MOM test. Do follow your gut but do mix that with conversations.
I love your landing page. My gut says you will be able to carve out a niche in the editing software market by empowering influencers to edit on their own. Do you have a monetization strategy in mind?
Had the same thought that something like this should exist every time I've found myself having to waste an afternoon putting social content together for someone. But obviously didn't care enough to go any make it myself.
Great work, you'll be on to a winner here if you nail the workflow. I'd say you really have to focus on building it as a tool for larger social media teams to bash out iterations when driving conversions little creators is fine but the real money will be in that and you can charge a lot more for it.
You know what Figma has done for templating/design systems within a team with it's strong internal asset libraries. Things like that for social media teams to work from the same sheet on assets are going to be key.
Turn "We need to try a different copy line" from a 40 minute job to a 2 minute job and companies will pay.
Nice. That's good. I feel like I can continue to improve.
Things I am focused on are making it easy to find the type of content the user wants to create and sending the user down the path to success in the least amount of steps possible.
I think the messaging is always a work in progress. I am glad it makes sense and is clear.
[+] [-] thrownaway954|5 years ago|reply
dude you really out did yourself. usually i criticize people because their product homepage doesn't tell nor show anything about their product so i'm confused about what it does and how to use it.
YOU... DID.. IT... PERFECTLY
your homepage not only tells me exactly what this does, but shows me to the point where i'm excited to use it. good on you. others should learn from you.
my one thing that i noticed (and this could be a revenue generator for you) is the lack of templates currently. the more templates you have for us noob video editors, the better. not only that, but allowing the community to contribute and/or sell their template would be a HUGE win for you.
[+] [-] michaelaubry|5 years ago|reply
I agree with the templates. I am trying to allocate my time wisely and I think expanding that will be major.
I am drawing up a way to make it even easier for people to create amazing videos.
When you click "add new video" I plan to make it interactive and guide you along every step.
Your options will be
Do you want to create a video
- from scratch - from a template - for your podcast - for your product - for your brand
Based on the selection I will walk the user through an simple experience. Have them upload their assets, select a vibe, enter some information, etc. Then generate the video data and put it on the timeline.
I am doing sales, customer support, engineering, and design. So once I can get some runway I will be able to roll it out.
To be honest I hate sales and marketing. I just want to build, and if I can get to ramen profit. Then I can pay people to do what I hate.
[+] [-] jamalx31|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kreelman|5 years ago|reply
Had an issue with sign up via Google, but I got past that and really quickly I was able to build a video!
It's really enjoyable to use. Well done!
...You may have also picked the absolute perfect time to put a product out like this. We're all mostly stuck at home, coming up with great ideas that we want to communicate.
I hope it takes off.
Watch this space!
[+] [-] Moghammed|5 years ago|reply
One small issue and a small feature request, tho:
- Undo of resizing images should restore it to the size that it was before you started dragging, currently it restores it to a lot of sizes during dragging.
- It would be great if you could switch between different kinds of text effects without having to remove the entire effect and re-enter your text.
[EDIT: found some more small bugs]
- Copy & paste hex colors for text doesn't work b/c it will paste the text element instead
- One time the download link for the video didn't work, it just closed the modal and i had to render it again. Worked fine the next time
All in all very well done! Will definitely be spreading the word about this one!
[+] [-] michaelaubry|5 years ago|reply
Hoping my efforts pay off.
[+] [-] tiffanyh|5 years ago|reply
Hit up Courtland at Indie Hackers. He has a podcast and your story would be a perfect fit.
Should help drive some traffic your way as well
[+] [-] dceddia|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rememberlenny|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thecupisblue|5 years ago|reply
Dropped it on producthunt, hope you get some boost there!
[+] [-] statictype|5 years ago|reply
(Is this the first release)
[+] [-] Copenjin|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 29athrowaway|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ActsJuvenile|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xenospn|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] matlin|5 years ago|reply
But... "After Effects for dummies" is selling it short. This is a web based video editor! After seeing Figma do it's thing, I was waiting for someone to do it for videos. We're nearing the point where you can do 100% of your work in the web. Keep up the good work!
[+] [-] michaelaubry|5 years ago|reply
Thanks for for the support :)
[+] [-] davjhan|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] michaelaubry|5 years ago|reply
If I didn't have great people in my life then I would be stuck on a never ending feature rabbit hole.
When I start my next company I plan to have more balance between MVP, user interviews, pre sales, business metrics, market research, etc.
This venture was purely intuition and a major desire to build this :)
The great thing is I love building this product.
[+] [-] bgdam|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] timdorr|5 years ago|reply
I also don't know if including storage in the pricing is helpful. It might make more sense to represent that in time. If this is being sold to users too inexperienced to use AE, then the idea of bitrates and pixel resolutions probably will be foreign to them. But time is something everyone knows and can easily reason about.
You might also experiment with completely removing that restriction. Storage is cheap and hosting video isn't really a huge value add. The features and functionality are the real selling point, so price on those things and the real value you offer to users.
[+] [-] caseyf7|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hanspeter|5 years ago|reply
What you want is to learn if your product is something people are willing to pay for. Once that is established, you can tune the pricing to increase the revenue.
[+] [-] kanobo|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nishanth_v|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] michaelaubry|5 years ago|reply
I am still experimenting with the pricing and do have paying customers.
I find the average user needs anywhere between 5 videos a month to 10. These are serious users who are consistent with their posting and are making a return.
Those who are learning and new to the content game can get a few videos rendered per month to see if it's for them.
Agencies are a different persona though and they would most likely need more than 10.
[+] [-] aldanor|5 years ago|reply
Minor nit: hitting backspace to delete a clip (pretty common in editing apps) forces the browser to go back.
You might also want to catch other types 'leave page' events and ask for confirmation so that the user doesn't lose their work accidentally.
[+] [-] drevil-v2|5 years ago|reply
I had a question about your work ethic on this project. Did you treat like a full time job Mon-Fri 9-5 or more like College project with frequent all-nighters? How did you sustain the motivation to keep going even through the rough patches as a solo developer?
Would love to read blog post about your journey through this.
[+] [-] jasonshapiro|5 years ago|reply
IMO the killer feature will be the seamless import/export of content from phones to Web UI to social media account. Any platform allowing a frictionless experience in this regard will open the market to the much broader audience, which I think you're well branded for.
I'd love to hear more about your experience building the rendering stack with ffmpeg - and whether or not you recommend using it.
[+] [-] michaelaubry|5 years ago|reply
It's something I would like to do. If anyone knows folks inside Instagram connect me Ill ship it.
I am trying to have an agnostic approach and focused on leaving things in the cloud as much as possible without too much extra upload/download time.
[+] [-] jychang|5 years ago|reply
To be fair, he probably uses After Effects way more than the average expected subscriber, so this isn't a representative sample.
[+] [-] gen220|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] trilinearnz|5 years ago|reply
I wish you the best of luck with your venture!
[+] [-] michaelaubry|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tiffanyh|5 years ago|reply
Congrats Michael.
People underestimate how hard it is to build and ship. So massive kudos to you on your new product.
[+] [-] michaelaubry|5 years ago|reply
I have vaguely heard of them. Cool name. Id love to learn your use case, pain points, and what I need to do as a product creator to make a significantly better product.
If you're interested I would like to get inside your brain. Hit me up on Twitter @michaelaubry or email michael@storycreatorapp . com
[+] [-] kuldeep_kap|5 years ago|reply
If you don’t mind me asking, how did you decide to commit to complex app like this? It must’ve taken a long time to build the MVP. Did you interview potential customers before hand or just went I with your gut or your own pain points? How did you know people will be willing to pay for this, considering there are a lot of similar tools out there?
[+] [-] michaelaubry|5 years ago|reply
I am genuinely interested in video. I have been fascinated by it since a kid. So I knew I wanted to solve this problem.
I also love design tools and a good challenge. So I went against the grain and followed my gut. It brought a lot of pain and useful learnings. I wouldn't have it any other way.
Next time I will know what not to do. Always talk to the market and implement the MOM test. Do follow your gut but do mix that with conversations.
[+] [-] kakkan|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arvidkahl|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] michaelaubry|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whywhywhywhy|5 years ago|reply
Great work, you'll be on to a winner here if you nail the workflow. I'd say you really have to focus on building it as a tool for larger social media teams to bash out iterations when driving conversions little creators is fine but the real money will be in that and you can charge a lot more for it.
You know what Figma has done for templating/design systems within a team with it's strong internal asset libraries. Things like that for social media teams to work from the same sheet on assets are going to be key.
Turn "We need to try a different copy line" from a 40 minute job to a 2 minute job and companies will pay.
[+] [-] jacobwsmith|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] michaelaubry|5 years ago|reply
Things I am focused on are making it easy to find the type of content the user wants to create and sending the user down the path to success in the least amount of steps possible.
I think the messaging is always a work in progress. I am glad it makes sense and is clear.
Who do you think this tool is for?
[+] [-] jamalx31|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Wistar|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Sreyanth|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gamerfreakish|5 years ago|reply