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Show HN: I built an After Effects for dummies

• kanobo 6y ago
  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.
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    Fair enough. I needed to get an MVP out and start figuring out ways to make money before I completely go into debt. My goals for the future are to give more customization to the motion graphics and to feature some of the core elements a professional in hurry will need. Nothing too complex but just right. You can also think of it being a mix with other types of video editing tools. I do plan to roll out keyframe animations when I get some cashflow. I am excited for that.
    • stopachka 6y ago
      I would consider pinging a yc partner with this page—you’ve definitely got the chops and have a great product on your hands. Think a lot of folks would be up to take a chance on you. Makes sense if vc is not up your alley, but IMO its all win at least until seed
      • michaelaubry 6y ago
        Thanks that means a lot. I've always felt like an underdog, I feel like there is bias at YC and I am ok with that. It keeps me hungry.
    • 5041us 6y ago
      You are probably familiar with crello and canva. Alot of companies use these tools. If your tool would have keyframes and a bezier editor (like cubic-bezier.com) I would instantly migrate to your tool. I guess for some customers stock footage is also important - but there you could just partner up with istock etc. Other things I would hope to see in such a SaaS for marketing motion graphics is: - Motion Blur - gradient with multiple points - basic css styles (dropshadow etc)
  • dylan604 6y ago
    I came to say the same thing. If you're going to compare yourself to AE, then you better bring some heavy hitting features. The iMovie comparison is exactly what I was thinking. It's a FisherPrice "baby's first NLE". That sounds a lot harsher than I mean for it to be, but it is apropos. People that have never used an editor and wants to get into it, then this very well may be an amazing option for them. For $32/mo though, that's a big ask. For $50/mo you can have access to the full Adobe suite, and this is but a fraction of that. I wish you well, and it definitely looks like you've spent a lot of hard work on this. Just don't try to compare yourself to something you're clearly not trying to be. PS: that's the royal you, not directing at the parent
    • michaelaubry 6y ago
      Fair enough
    • nlh 6y ago
      You can't just compare it by saying "$50/mo gets you the full Adobe Suite" -- there's a hidden cost there. Yes, you get access to the full Adobe Suite of software, but there's a huge learning curve that comes with that and dozens (hundreds?) of hours of learning required to get good. This tool seems pretty much effortless to learn and use. There's intrinsic value in that.
      • PMan74 6y ago
        Bingo, right now, I use Kapwing for basic video editing, very easy to do the basics and the results are good enough for what I need. No way I'd spend the time to come up to speed with Adobe to do the same things.
      • TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
        This is $32/mth for fewer features than iMovie - which isn't exactly a difficult tool to learn. And is also free. And works on your phone/tablet with no separate content upload step. This reminds me of those canned Flash and js animation sites from 10-15 years ago - where people who couldn't learn ActionScript or js would pay $$$$$ for a basic text explode or image carousel. It's a perfectly viable business model, but it is rather literally aiming at the Dummies part of the market. The best part of this is the marketing and the site design, not the actual product.
• michaelaubry 6y ago
  I quit my job over a year ago. Been bootstrapped on savings. I picked up a gig last year and only made $30K in 2019. Hoping my efforts pay off.
  • deleted 6y ago
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  • dceddia 6y ago
    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.
    • michaelaubry 6y ago
      Yes it's daunting. You have to love it to be able to get through the hard times. I am using React.js to build the UI and manage state. Using FFMPEG and a combination of other rendering techniques on the backend. Shout outs to Vercel AWS React team
      • dceddia 6y ago
        Awesome. React is my jam, hit me up if you need anything.
        • michaelaubry 6y ago
          Nice. Hit me up on Twitter and lets talk @michaelaubry
      • ricahe2559 6y ago
        FFMPEG is super powerful. Michael, do you take screenshots on a headless browser and stitch them using FFMPEG? At least, that's what I have done for a hobby project.
        • 6y ago
• epberry 6y ago
  I think the focus on speed and bundled content is important. These are the two biggest weaknesses of After Effects today imo.
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    Yes bundled content is a big pain point of mine. My biggest pain points with After Effects. 1. When I want to create a creative video I typically look on Envato for inspiration. Then I pay $30 to Envato on top of the $270 a year for After Effects. Then I have to learn how to install the template or asset. I wanted a marketplace and library integrated with the tool. 2. I also want the After Effects experience to be like Figma , Canva, or Sketch for making videos quickly. I don't want to fiddle with too many knobs and counter intuitive tools. While they are powerful and After Effects will always be GOAT. Its too much sometimes, especially in a world of speed and iteration.
    • mmerlin 6y ago
      For the four letter acronym clueless (FLAC? ;) like me... GOAT = greatest of all time https://www.acronymfinder.com/Greatest-of-All-Time-(LL-Cool-J-music-album)-(GOAT).html https://www.acronymfinder.com/Greatest-of-All-Time-(LL-Cool-...
      • michaelaubry 6y ago
        HAHA I love it. Thanks for clarifying
    • switchstance 6y ago
      Envato!? :) Try us https://motionarray.com https://motionarray.com
      • michaelaubry 6y ago
        Motion Array is great. I followed some of your video tutorials. Lets talk.
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• leemac 6y ago
  Ahh! This is so cool!! Really neat idea, very slick. Played around with the demo, very well done! I love the walk-through. Small issue: I noticed you can click on multiple music/sounds and they start to stack with each playing over the other (using Windows/FireFox). That was the only issue I encountered during a quick play-through. Good luck!
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    Awesome. Ill put this in the backlog. Maybe letting the user know they can only have one audio at a time and asking if they want to swap.
• jacobwsmith 6y ago
  Fantastic landing page - I feel like I got a quick understanding of what the offering was and how it could help me.
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    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. Who do you think this tool is for?
• thrownaway954 6y ago
  THAT... IS... AWESOME.... 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.
  • jamalx31 6y ago
    100% his landing page feels like a breath of fresh air comparing to other landing pages mess
    • michaelaubry 6y ago
      Thank you :)
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    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.
    • 6y ago
• boothead 6y ago
  Whoa, very cool!
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    Thank you!
• Kye 6y ago
  Mowgli is a very good dog.
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    He's the best.
• deleted 6y ago
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• maximevoisin11 6y ago
  Amazing ! Can you make it collaborative ? If yes, then you have a "Figma for video editing" : you made After Effects online and collaborative. Huge ! (and then I'd want to invest ;) )
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    Yes and I know exactly how to do it. - is it a part of my vision: yes - does it get me excited: HELL YES - do I understand if there is a need in the market: no - do I currently have the resources to build it: no I'd like to first secure some runway. I've been bleeding out for awhile. Second, I would like to talk to users and if this is a serious problem worth solving and not just something that is cool. Then I am all for it ready to hit it hard. Some things that get me pumped for the future. - realtime collaboration - simple keyframe animations - vast library of templates - guided/interactive video creation - API for other developers and organizations to create video
    • maximevoisin11 6y ago
      Love it. Happy to make intros in the YTber community if they sound like an interesting persona to talk to.
      • michaelaubry 6y ago
        Yeah for sure. One issue I personally face is trimming YouTube videos into bite sized content. If you look at the video used here https://storycreatorapp.com/cases/entrepreneurs https://storycreatorapp.com/cases/entrepreneurs I actually had to manually download the video from YouTube and trim it. It would be nice to do it online and place the trimmed video in a 1:1 artboard for social media. Mix that with captions and motion graphics. Could speed up the production for a lot of accounts. I'd love to verify that and check if this persona is willing to pay.
• txu 6y ago
  Super impressive work since I first saw it on IndieHackers. Congrats!
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    Hell yeah. Lets gooo
• jamalx31 6y ago
  Honestly, one of the best products I've seen this year.
  • Wistar 6y ago
    And probably the most complimentary HN comment section I have ever seen.
    • blevin 6y ago
      This is what HN was like in the early years -- a (much) smaller community of people making things, sharing them, and rooting each other on.
      • michaelaubry 6y ago
        I love it. How has it changed? I am not on here often. I am glad I could bring that back :)
        • deleted 6y ago
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• batt4good 6y ago
  What kind of stack did you use for this awesome project?! I've never really known how to get started with an app like this outside of wrapping a bunch of functions around ffmpeg.
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    Combination of things. It's like a cake haha. React.js FE Node.js BE Vercel FTW
• arvidkahl 6y ago
  This is an extremely impressive product. Signed up a couple weeks ago, it's spectacular.
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    Hell yes. You're a smart man.
• saadshamim 6y ago
  out of technical curiosity, how do you render the video? is the whole thing like a canvas element?
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    Combination of several rendering techniques. The idea is as long as you have all the information the user wants in in each layer. Then you can do a lot of things with this understanding. The major pieces of information you need to collect while working on a 2D plane are these. - The x,y coords - The width and height - A path to the asset - additional properties like colors and opacity From having this critical information stored nicely means you can email it to a graphic designer and have them decode it and follow the "map". You can send it to a client side process and have it interpret the information. You can send it to a server and have it interpret the information. You can do a one shot kill and build a system that pieces them together using one approach. You can send each layer to a different process. You can create a specialized technique for each layer type. The key is collecting the information. The actual rendering can be done in many ways. FFMPEG, canvas, screen shots, send it to a human lol. Using OS commands, etc.
    • steventey 6y ago
      "send it to a human" lol that made me chuckle! Thanks for explaining this in detail, Michael! Really great work here!
      • michaelaubry 6y ago
        Haha it's all about communication. Glad you got a chuckle.
• lefrenchy 6y ago
  This is an awesome looking product, I think it will really take off for small shops that want to be able to quickly put out content. Nice work, wishing you the very best!
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    Yeah thats the goal. Let me know if you know anyone who can find value. Always happy to have a conversation.
• yarone 6y ago
  I am a big fan of Wave Video Maker which looks similar, at a glance. I will take a look at this. Congrats and good luck.
• bgdam 6y ago
  Dude this is fantastic. Also you really need to charge more. Start by doubling the prices for all the plans. It's easily worth it and people will pay.
  • timdorr 6y ago
    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.
    • michaelaubry 6y ago
      This is a really great point. First you are right, pricing will go up. As I add more assets (animated text 100+, templates 100+, progress bars and other elements 100+) I will raise the price. Early adopters will be grandfathered in for life. I think adjusting the pricing based on your feed is very appropriate, makes a lot of sense and its giving me a lot of ideas.
      • mediaman 6y ago
        You might be careful about increasing price too much - some of the professional tools are not that expensive per month, and this is definitely aimed at a casual to prosumer level. However, to increase revenue capture, charging for templates or other assets could make up for it. Swapping in a temporary trial plan instead of a free plan and using a low cost plan for the occasional casual user will probably keep your support costs lower too - free users can eat up a lot of your time/money, and also tend to be more negative about the product than paying customers. Maybe the more expensive plans get more templates for free, and the cheaper plan is more a la carte. Great job and congratulations on this release. This is a good market to be in and I can already see uses for this in my own budget product promo videos.
• nishanth_v 6y ago
  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?
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    This is 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.
    • sethammons 6y ago
      I was confused too. I recommend updating the text to be more clear. Congrats on a slick looking product.
      • michaelaubry 6y ago
        Thanks for the support. For sure I got you :)
• splatzone 6y ago
  This is so cool! Some specific thoughts - My finger slipped and it wheecht me out of the editor before I'd finished editing the video - maybe it could prompt me to confirm if I want to leave the editor/save my work if I've made changes? - Is it possible to disable the browser right click/context menu on the timeline? I expected to get some additional options but got the browser context menu instead So cool! Well done
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    Great point. I do an auto save every 3 seconds, but yes if you go back before then it's game over haha. I will check to see if it's possible to disable that I remember this being a hard thing to do on another project I was working on. Ill look into it again :) worst case I'll see if I can trigger a save function on a back event. I'd love to have a custom context menu. What options would you expect to find?
    • splatzone 6y ago
      Ah awesome. Yes I see now that it's autosaved, I didn't realise that when I ended up on the homepage :) It's easy to swipe left accidentally on the MacBook trackpad and end up on the previous page. Re. context menu, I think I just expected to be able to copy and paste the element there. I suppose most people are used to desktop video editors where you can right click and copy a clip
• aldanor 6y ago
  Looks pretty awesome. 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.
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    Thanks for catching that. Hot keys have been a pain. I also found an issue with copy pasting inside text boxes. I promised myself and my startup friends I wouldn't touch code until I handled doing marketing and sales. It's on the backlog now, thanks for letting me know. This feedback goes along way :)
    • stopachka 6y ago
      Mousetrap is the best shortcut library I’ve used, and can help you do this well, catching a bunch of edge cases
      • jozzy-james 6y ago
        e.keyUp...c'mon man, don't need a whole library
        • stopachka 6y ago
          You’d be surprised — for ex: where do you listen for that event? Something has to be in focus — most kb implementations rely on this and fail.
        • michaelaubry 6y ago
          Don't really need a lib. Things to consider. If the textbox is active then you need to respect the native key commands for the textbox. You have the ability to cmd + c & cmd + v to copy & paste objects in the editor. So you need to most likely prevent the event key from propagating upwards inside keyUp within the textbox. So you aren't wrong it's just one more thing to consider amongst the million other things. I have a backlog and will knock these out all in one day easily :)
• bitcoinmoney 6y ago
  Awesome product. Seems like I could use this.
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    Let me know if I can help. Hit me up on Twitter or send me an email. Ill work with you and get you set up :)
• davjhan 6y ago
  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.
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    I love it. It's funny because I think I spent way too much time on this relative to the advice I was getting. 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.
    • davjhan 6y ago
      tbf, I don't think it's possible to make a 'simple' but valuable video editing app, especially with one person. But I think you made the simplest video editing app that does provide value to a specific market of people. (entrepeneurs and podcasters, who, I might add, are willing to open their wallets easier than the average consumer.) I know this because at first I couldn't find a way to add new layers. But then I realised that for these people, you don't really need multiple video layers. They just want to slap on a progress bar, add a title, and export. To me that showed restraint in the right areas and a good understanding of your customer. You seem to have an exceptional talent on UI/UX design, development, and marketing. As someone who is trying to do everything himself, and basically do what you just did, I've bookmarked this as inspiration.
      • michaelaubry 6y ago
        Thanks man. Always happy to chat if you would like to do that. Hit me up!
• miguelmota 6y ago
  Awesome demo! It's really intuitive to use.
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    Nice. I have plans to make it even easier. I think for some users an interactive setup would be useful.
• alecfreud 6y ago
  great, here come more Gary V style videos... kidding aside, this is awesome. excellent work.
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    Flood the internet with Gary Vee - as if it weren't already.
• pier25 6y ago
  This is super impressive. Congrats! Would love to know more on the frameworks you used, infrastructure, etc.
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    Yeah nothing unordinary. React.js on the FE with a lot of custom components. Used styled components. Used Apollo and zustand.js as global state/cache management. Node.js with FFMPEG binary as a way to process videos Prisma2, GraphQL and postgresql for data Vercel for hosting
    • pier25 6y ago
      So what do you use for storage, CDN, etc?
• dvt 6y ago
  First of all, hats off to an amazing product: very nicely polished, marketed, and packaged. However, and I'm sure you know this much better than I do, this seems like a niche-of-a-niche type of product, no? YouTube already has some rudimentary video editing capabilities, Vimeo has a pretty nice video editor, and there's (quite literally) dozens of others. Can you even compete in this landscape? I feel that why After Effects/Vegas Video still exist is exactly because they're pretty hardcore tools.
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    Great points. I believe so. I don't think it's a zero sum game and competition is great. I have a vision for this product and my main goal is to overload the user with value and an amazing product. I want to have a marketplace and be the go to spot for the best templates (not overly cookie cutter, all beautiful designs), everything needs to be well designed and have a premium feel. I also plan to roll out features other players don't have - they have been copying me for a minute. So I am not going to reveal them all but just know my goal is to bridge the gap between power and ease of use. Mix that with premium assets, a market place, and the user always in mind as a priority. I think I'll have a fighting chance.
• ape4 6y ago
  Very nice but I want desktop (Windows) app. Partly because I am often in low bandwidth situations.
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    Got it. This is something to consider. It is possible to use blobs and write to localStorage. I'll take offline mode into serious consideration when I get some cashflow and a team.
    • marapuru 6y ago
      You could also consider the approach Figma took with their webapp. Basically it's a webbrowser with the application preloaded.
• marktolson 6y ago
  Well done, looks amazing. Uploading videos (webm) doesn't seem to be working right now. Interested to know what kind of infrastructure you're running on.
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    Ahh thanks for bringing that to my attention. I have a strict check on these formats. If its not in the array it shall not pass. const supportedVideos = [ "video/ogg", "video/mp4", "video/webm", "video/mov", "video/quicktime", "video/x-matroska" ]; No particular reason why I dont support webm never really thought about it. I'll update it and run some tests. Thanks for letting me know.
    • michaelaubry 6y ago
      Scratch that haha /webm is supported. Double check the file mimetype. Ill look in the logs :)
• mwizzle 6y ago
  This looks great! What stack is it built on? How long did it take you to build? I'd love to learn about how you decided to build it, scoped out what features to build and cut, the whole behind-the-scenes. Pretty please! :D
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    Hey, React.js for the UI and state management. Vercel for serverless hosting and easy deployments FFMPEG for stitching Node.js on the backend handling the rendering Prisma 2 as a ORM for database interaction GraphQL to perform operations on the data This took me longer than anticipated about 11 months. Let me know if you have any more questions happy to answer. You can DM me on twitter @michaelaubry
• mmckelvy 6y ago
  Looks great! Question regarding the features. Do I need to record my videos using something else or can I do the actual recording using your product?
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    HAHA no one has asked me this. I have this built out and hooked up to S3 I disabled it as I thought users wouldnt want it. In the early days. I would use the webcam, record me talking. Then caption it on the spot, add some letterbox text and publish to my Instagram story. I might have to reveal it and bring it back. This is of course if people want it and it solves a pain point worth paying for.
    • mmckelvy 6y ago
      Yeah from my perspective the fewer tools the better. If I could record and edit in the same place I'd like that.
    • rikroots 6y ago
      This sounds interesting. My use case for a SAAS video editing product would be to do some video screen captures, then edit them together, then add voiceover, subtitles etc (are interactive hotspots on your roadmap?) to get a half-decent final cut I could add to my site or share on YouTube. Also: excellent website. I wish you much fortune in your endeavour!
• swframe2 6y ago
  See also: veed.io, slide.ly, kamua.com
  • antoineMoPa 6y ago
    For sure there is a lot of competition in online video tools.
• matlin 6y ago
  This is awesome. Hats off to you. 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 6y ago
    Fair. Thanks for for the support :)
• switchstance 6y ago
  Any major differentiators from https://offeo.com https://offeo.com?
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    Never heard of them. Just checked out the site, it looks awesome. Are you a user?
• harryf 6y ago
  Looks great but trying the tour on my iPhone was troublesome - feels like it wasn’t really designed to be used on a phone. Which is a shame if true, because that’s where all the social media influencers etc live
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    Fair point. There is definitely a wide audience on desktop. According to my analytics. Most of the traffic came from desktop. At best it got to 50/50. That said. I am focused on nailing this on mobile as well, once I get some resources. I have used all responsive techniques. So the bones are there I just need to give it a little love :) I agree itll be killer to produce on the go.
    • fiblye 6y ago
      > Most of the traffic came from desktop. At best it got to 50/50. I think most of your early traffic is going to be biased towards the techie crowd who use desktops. They're also more likely to be using pro software. Mobile users will probably find it more handy, and I think that's where most of your growth could come from.
• grativo 6y ago
  This is a really great product! You did this with a lot of heart! I saw your most recent YouTube tutorial and the ending proved that you are very dedicated and driven to this. Only big things from here on out! Great job once again!!
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    Ah man. Thanks for checking out the videos haha. Trying to educate folks and explaining things always helps you deepen your knowledge on a thing. So a major win-win. I think it's also been helping my SEO. What about the end stood out? Which video?
• ivanvanderbyl 6y ago
  This is really cool, love the niche this fits into — and for other future founders, there's a lot of low hanging Adobe apps which could follow this path: Audition? Acrobat? One thing I would suggest: increase your prices, at least at the top end. $83/month for the Business plan is way too cheap. At least put an extra zero on there.
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    Good points. Im always on the side of charging more where it makes sense. Still learning the market. I am doing B2B integrations where they get access to the tool embedded in their product and an S3 link sent to their system for $20k annual. This breaks down to $1.6 monthly.
    • sethammons 6y ago
      Don’t be afraid of really jacking up prices. We once had an enterprise customer who turned out to only need our self-serve $80/mo package to start. He told us to add at least one zero to that because $80 was too small for him to expense. That customer is now paying over $20k/mo as they’ve grown on our platform.
      • michaelaubry 6y ago
        Geeze thats amazing. See it's all relative. I need to find a customer like that. You're so right though money is a mindset. You get what value you can reasonably offer but that's not the entire picture. It's what you believe you're worth combined your negotiation skills. As long as you have leverage and good positioning then you can make some sweet deals.
• nojvek 6y ago
  The home page took over a minute to load for me. How is this being served? seems like you could optimize this.
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    Using Vercel.com It's all serverless. Could be assets taking a second or internet connection. Lightspeed in incognito is saying first contentful paint was 0.5 s. Could be extensions or just a rare exception. If you could provide some more insights I am happy to see how it can be faster. Always fascinated by speed.
    • pier25 6y ago
      I did some benchmarks on static hostings recently: https://www.pierbover.com/posts/static-hosting-benchmark-2020/ https://www.pierbover.com/posts/static-hosting-benchmark-202...
  • tyscorp 6y ago
    It might be getting the ol' classic hackernews hug-of-death special.
    • michaelaubry 6y ago
      Well, a hug is a hug. I'll take it :)
• seishan 6y ago
  This is impressive! You've sold me on the product, and I'm excited to see how this product develops over the coming months and years.
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    Reach out to me on Twitter @michaelaubry
• radley 6y ago
  So, Adobe Spark? https://spark.adobe.com/ https://spark.adobe.com/
  • igorstellar 6y ago
    To be fair, as someone who doesn't know what it is, I clicked "Watch Video" on Spark website and that video did not show me what it is and how to use the product but rather some nonsense-story. Story creator website showed me exactly how the app looks like and how to use it right away without having me to click anything. Awesome work, bookmarking it for future use!
    • radley 6y ago
      If you scrolled down a little you'd see an H2-sized "What can you create with Adobe Spark?" and three quick overviews.
  • Torn 6y ago
    OP's app looks more like Canva (https://www.canva.com https://www.canva.com, which Spark is also a copycat of), especially the icons in the left nav. The timeline view is super neat though.
• tomc1985 6y ago
  This obsession with "stories" is getting out of hand. It's like that horrible "Made with Love" trend from a few years ago.
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    You sound like a real fun person
    • tomc1985 6y ago
      I'm not very much fun around folks that use frothy-sounding trendwords unironically
• AlexDanger 6y ago
  The site is fantastic. I think you have massive potential upside if this is marketed appropriately. Do you need any help with sales and marketing? I'd be interested in having a discussion if you'd prefer to focus on building things.
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    Definitely. Id much rather be engineering. Reach out to me on Twitter or email @michaelaubry michael @ storycreatorapp . com
• jasonshapiro 6y ago
  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.
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    Instagram makes it super difficult to post on the platform. If you're a partner then I think it's possible. 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.
• jnfr 6y ago
  Congrats Michael! Your hard work over the last few months is evident. I wish you only the best from here onwards!
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    Thanks for the love and support. Just getting started!
• tiffanyh 6y ago
  I’ve been a happy paying https://clipchamp.com/ https://clipchamp.com/ User for sometime but will have to give this a try. Congrats Michael. People underestimate how hard it is to build and ship. So massive kudos to you on your new product.
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    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
• BHSPitMonkey 6y ago
  Nice work! FYI, on https://storycreatorapp.com/features https://storycreatorapp.com/features you've accidentally used the same caption/copy for the last two features.
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    Hahaha completely overlooked that. Thanks for letting me know. Fixing it RN :)
• viraj_shah 6y ago
  This is awesome.
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    Thanks
• langitbiru 6y ago
  Nice. The only thing that makes me hesitant to ditch Adobe subscription is After Effects. There are replacements for Photoshop, Illustrator, but not for AE.
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    If it meets your needs then hop aboard. I'd love to learn more about what you're working on and how you plan to use video/motion graphics. Hit me up via email or Twitter @michaelaubry. Id love to chat.
  • uxcolumbo 6y ago
    For pro users there is a replacement for AE - check out Davinci Resolve Fusion https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/uk/products/davinciresolve/fusion https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/uk/products/davinciresolve/... And it's a perpetual license as well - useful if you prefer the older licensing model. Remember what happened to Adobe users in Venezuela. But storycreatorapp looks great for content creators who don't have the time to learn video editing & FX and just want to get things done quickly and focus on their content. Definitely going to check it out more...
• sak5sk 6y ago
  Hey, nice job! The tool looks really cool and seems like it would save a lot of time for people who are not into video editing but want to add cool effects. All the best to you!
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    Yup working towards that everyday. Makes me happy. Cheers :)
• chadlavi 6y ago
  as someone who doesn't need this product in order to make money, that's surprisingly expensive! people are really paying 30 bucks a month to edit instagram story videos?
  • tiffanyh 6y ago
    I can’t believe people are paying $x per month to just put files in a folder to let them sync. Dropbox is a multi-billion $ business. Never underestimate what people are willing to pay for.
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    Pricing is extremely weird and there are interesting Twitter discussions around this. It's crazy to me people are willing to pay $5 a day for frothy milk with a shot of espresso but Starbucks isn't doing too bad neither is Blue Bottle, etc. As I expand the asset library, each template, and animated text I make takes a lot of time and skill that is one click for users. Lastly just like Starbucks and other great companies it's all about crafting a pleasurable experience that people enjoy engaging with. I want people to come to the product and have fun. Personally I LOVE using Figma, Canva, and Sketch. They are delightful for me. Just my 2 cents.
• kylejtorres 6y ago
  So cool to see this on HN. I’ve used the product to make a lot of my social media posts. It’s so easy to use and makes me look like way more of a pro than I actually am. Keep up the great work!
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    Kyle the man. The first tester and had some UX input that was super valuable. Thanks for sharing the love. I want to see you back on the product making more videos soon!
• trilinearnz 6y ago
  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). I wish you the best of luck with your venture!
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    Thanks I just added that. I think it's good to give users the ability to see what's its all about before committing.
• jozzy-james 6y ago
  so am i correct in that this essentially scripts an AE program and renders when done (used to do those for automated things myself)? if so, kudos - and if not, kudos as well
• jacob_rezi 6y ago
  Looks awesome, Michael! Looks like we did the exact same thing using the Ouch Scribbles. Take a look - https://www.rezi.io/ https://www.rezi.io/
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    HAHA good choice. Rezi looks very cool.
• ricahe2559 6y ago
  This looks great, Michael! Do you take individual screenshot on a headless browser for all layers and stitch them using FFMPEG? I played around with FFMPEG to when my company needed dynamic videos (ie. They wanted to create videos like the ones Facebook automatically generates). And that's at least what I did.
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    Yeah thats a great approach.
    • ricahe2559 6y ago
      Lottie may be super helpful for you (if you are not already using it). Are there any better techniques you are using for rendering?
• ChicagoBoy11 6y ago
  Bro I tried the demo and on the surface this looks insanely well executed. If my job goes remote next year (I'm a school admin/support person, so if that's the case I'll have a lot of downtime), you wanna take on an unpaid intern just in exchange for learning from this?
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    Im from near Chicago. I love the excitement. Hit me up on Twitter DMs @michaelaubry
• techsin101 6y ago
  as a developer i am curious about how it works? do you use ffmpeg? do you upload all videos on server?
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    FFMPEG is a huge component. There isnt a silver bullet there are many moving parts. Essentially FE handles collecting information. BE handles parsing information and using various rendering techniques to stitch together the pieces.
    • techsin101 6y ago
      What about hosting stack, doesn't video processing eats up insane amount of resources on backend?
• pdxandi 6y ago
  This looks amazing, well done! Really intuitive and easy to use. A minor suggestion: the phrase "Free Demo" on the landing page sticks out to me and feels awkward. I think maybe changing it to "Try" or "Demo" would be more fitting. Adding "Free" seems unnecessary and distracting. I also think it should be highlighted, maybe changing it to blue text. Or maybe green. Just my opinion.
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    Great feedback. I had demo before some people said it made it feel like an enterprise product where demo was booking a sales demo. So I tried to make it clear it wasnt that. Maybe try sample or something could be more fitting. What do you think?
    • pdxandi 6y ago
      I agree that "Demo" does make it seem like more of an enterprise application. I got a similar feeling about "Free Demo" and, to me, it felt like it cheapened the product. I've played around with different words and phrases, and I think matching your other buttons actually works the best. I took two screenshots, one title case and one sentence case. I like sentence case but it's inconsistent with your "Sign Up" button. Screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/1o07pp7 https://imgur.com/a/1o07pp7
• kuldeep_kap 6y ago
  Congrats! This looks amazing! 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 6y ago
    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.
    • pier25 6y ago
      Are you me? This exactly describes my current experience. You should write more about this!
• kakkan 6y ago
  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?
• earthnail 6y ago
  This looks amazing, congrats!! One quick note: on your features page, the trim section has the same text as resize gifs. You pasted the wrong copy there ;). Again, congrats on your great work! [EDIT] found one more: when I use your demo, the onboarding tutorial stops after step three. Regardless of whether I click next, click "skip", or drag the playhead marker, I never get shown step 4 out of 6.
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    Great catch. Yeah I think for Step 3 or 4 it's looking for a CSS class selector I removed. Need to buff that one out. Its going in the backlog. Thanks for letting me know. You rock!
• looperhacks 6y ago
  This looks like a really great product, but scrolling the landing page is laggy AF (Firefox). Doesn't make me want to try it out.
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    Got it. Sorry about that. Hopefully youll check it out in the future.
• rswail 6y ago
  This looks awesome! One prospective customer group, I'm helping a teacher friend of mine (she teaches Y1-4) as she produces basically an episode of Playschool/Sesame Street per day to her students. She's working in iMovie and looking to move to Final Cut Pro, specifically for better editing and effects. So this looks like an awesome halfway house. I can also see a marketplace for templates around your editing product that would be another great sideline for creators. Questions though about storage and video streaming. Are you offering the streaming service along with the editing? Or is this purely the editing stage and then there's a take the raw footage and upload to somewhere like mux.com for the encoding and streaming requirements? My contact details in my profile here, really interested in this :)
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    Thats really cool. I will definitely follow up. So the videos are hosted for you and a part of the plan. I encode the video so it's supported on phones and all social media platforms. To post on Instagram you have to download it. You can easily embed the video using the hosted link onto blogs and you can tweet the link, use the link in SMS, etc. I'd love to help more :)
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    I don't see any contact info though. You can email me if you are interested michael @ storycreatorapp.com or @michaelaubry Looking forward to it. See you on the inside!
• drevil-v2 6y ago
  Top work mate, looks great. 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.
• tehbeard 6y ago
  Not sure if this is an older tablet issue (nexus 7) or the site getting a lot of traffic but the videos? (There's just a cast option on an empty area) aren't showing up on the homepage.
• slimskim 6y ago
  Looks like an amazing product!! Is there a way to try it first without making an account? Would be awesome if you could just dive straight in. Might remove a bit of friction for some.
• dna_polymerase 6y ago
  Looks great, but looking at the pricing page makes me wonder, what is this Video limit. Do I get to edit 20 videos for $19 per month, or what? Why would you limit the number of videos if storage is already limited? Maybe add little help icons next to the points that clarify the limits.
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    Great feedback. I think you're right it could use some more context. I think FAQs would also be nice.
• gitowiec 6y ago
  Doesn't work on latest Firefox Mobile (galaxy s8)
• 4theBroken 6y ago
  Isn't this the same as Adobe Premiere?
  • michaelaubry 6y ago
    It has aspects of premiere. Sort of a merger between the two. It's tailor made for social media content. Which means adding some motion graphics with the ability to trim audio and video.
• klst 6y ago
  https://animockup.com/ https://animockup.com/ ?
• pjmlp 6y ago
  Congratulations for doing it as web app, pity that one needs to create a login to test it.
• dayaz36 6y ago
  This is really awesome. One suggestion; if you got rid of standard definition from the free plan and made it HD across the board I think it would help you in the long run from word of mouth based on the quality people see. Free version would essentially be used for word of mouth marketing so compromising quality on that could harm the brand in the long term imo. Just my two cents!
• jack_riminton 6y ago
  Nicely done! A thing that really stood out was the design on the front page; the fonts, shadowing, graphics etc Did you use any kind of existing style guide for this?
• jychang 6y ago
  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.
  • gen220 6y ago
    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! :)
• ourcat 6y ago
  Very, very nicely done indeed. That's a LOT of work. It takes me back to the days when I built a web-based editor for SMIL and 'HTML+TIME' nearly 20 years ago (!!). ("smibase")
• slord54 6y ago
  I was looking for something like this last week, I will explain my problem then you can potentially add it to your backlog. I'm not sure how common this is. I have some footage shot on my phone at 30fps and some footage shot on my cheap go-pro knock-off at 24fps. (an AKASO) If I import them into iMovie, the frame rate gets set to whichever video is first in line, so for example the 24fps one gets blank frames inserted to match the frame rate of the first one. I downloaded openshot but the titles don't seem quite as easy as iMovie. Best of luck with the venture!
• berkayozturk 6y ago
  Incredible work! Can I ask which technologies you used to build the editor? Wappalyzer detects Next.js, React and Vercel.
  • tessela 6y ago
    The timeline looks nice, I wonder if it is opensource.
• whywhywhywhy 6y ago
  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.
• nimbix 6y ago
  There's a few companies already in this space, but all I'm aware of are of the "Contact our sales for pricing" type and require you to spend at least 100k annually. Many contracts go into millions - just for the apps & services, without media spend.
• slhomme 6y ago
  Really cool product, lots of potential, pretty well done too, it's really easy to use. One thing that'd be really cool for social videos is to let users add animated gifs from existing libraries like giphy.com and such (basically like Instagram / Snapchat does). Wish you all the best with this project.
• Sreyanth 6y ago
  Two things that drive product value & growth insanely: 1. Dogfooding your own product 2. A free-tier pricing that actually helps one-time users You nailed both of them. Congrats on the launch. Using it right away. :)
  • gamerfreakish 6y ago
    What is dogfooding?
    • danvillalon 6y ago
      Dogfooding: eating your own food. Is refer to the practice of using you own product as your main service, being your own customer. As example, there's a story where every Android (OS) developer where given basic Android phone with low RAM as their main device, they where aiming to decrease the resources the OS required and using the phone by the developers allowed them to experience first hand what low income/cheap phone owners felt IRL, thus allowing them to better focus on improving the product on real pain points experienced by themselves
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• robotnikman 6y ago
  Wow, this looks like the perfect software for my mother, who just needs something simple she can use to put photo collages together with music.
• muliwuli 6y ago
  do you have an affiliate program ?
• droobles 6y ago
  Coolest product I've seen on HN – congrats, I'll be recommending to content creator friends!
• randompwd 6y ago
  Looks really good. The Pricing page made me do a double take when I saw : > 50 Videos I'm guessing per month but the thought it was 50 videos total storage/active crossed my mind. Would probably re-phrase to clarify or have a little (i) click with more info
• techsin101 6y ago
  Questions: 1) is this your side project or did you work full time? 2) how many years of experience do you have? 3) was it you first big project? 4) have you done previous work that exposed you to ffmpeg or similar problems? 5) what made you think this would be a good idea, does your work require you to make these often? 6) how did you stay motivated? 7) did you plan out everything, how did you refine your idea, did you start with finished mockups? 8) What's your exercise routine? 9) would you classify yourself as someone who has trouble staying motivated or focused? 10) would you classify yourself as someone with high energy? 11) would you classify yourself as someone perfectionist or do as you learn? 12) do you follow any particular diet or diet routine? 13) do you rely on coffee or supplements of any kind?
• techsin101 6y ago
  https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/hxly9e/after_128_days_and_35k_loc_ive_built_a_photoshop/ https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/hxly9e/after_128_da...
• thrownaway954 6y ago
  @michaelaubry FYI... if you are ever thinking of selling this down the road, you might want to reach out to canva as your product would fit perfectly for them. https://www.canva.com/ https://www.canva.com/
• Schwolop 6y ago
  Quick issue to fix on https://storycreatorapp.com/features https://storycreatorapp.com/features - both the Trim Video and Resize GIF paragraphs have the same text content.
• cc_stoic 6y ago
  damn, this is going to make so much money
• muddi900 6y ago
  Looks a lot like canva's video editing tools. I'll test more when I get on the desktop
• choicenotchance 6y ago
  Can you please add some templates for creating cooking videos?