
Show HN: I built an After Effects for dummies - michaelaubry
https://storycreatorapp.com
======
thrownaway954
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.

~~~
michaelaubry
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.

~~~
bigiain
> I agree with the templates. I am trying to allocate my time wisely and I
> think expanding that will be major.

Maybe worth trying out some "Create and share templates in your free plan,
earn upgrades to 3 months worth of Pro plan when 5 other users create with
your templates!" kind of crowd sourcing and network effect thing?

~~~
addandsubtract
Are the people creating templates interested in this product, though? If I was
a creator, I'd rather want to sell a premium template and get a percentage of
each sale – or if they were included for free in the premium plan, then a
kickback from the premium plan sales.

------
michaelaubry
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.

~~~
thecupisblue
Amazing work man! This looks and feels great!

Dropped it on producthunt, hope you get some boost there!

~~~
michaelaubry
Also what does dropped it on PH mean?

~~~
thecupisblue
It means your product is hunted, so you can join in as the maker and share it.
The more people upvote it, the more visibility it gets on the front page of
producthunt. It was a really popular startup launching ground before, now it's
just meh, but can still get some nice leads :)

------
matlin
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
Fair.

Thanks for for the support :)

------
davjhan
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
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
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
Thanks man. Always happy to chat if you would like to do that. Hit me up!

------
bgdam
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
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.

~~~
novaleaf
umm... are all these people pushing to increase price serious?

I know you want to encourage, but After Effects is "only" $20/mth.

~~~
michaelaubry
I think pricing works in mysterious ways. There are a lot of variables.

\- what is the market willing to pay \- does this solve the core problem \-
how much is this problem worth (hint time is the most valuable thing in the
world)

I don't think it should be more expensive than adobe products at all. My goal
is to make it cost efficient for most folks who don't have large budgets.
However here are a few points.

\- hiring someone could cost a non adobe user $800 for 2-3 videos (this is way
more than an adobe product because you are paying for time and skill) \-
assets and templates depending on usage can easily cost $100 for a few videos
on envato (this also enables non creative users to create professional looking
content which solves the problem above). \- if users can move faster and can
iterate faster then they make more money (this applies to serious users who
know what they're doing and agencies with a higher budget)

Just some of my thoughts. There is no magic bullet for pricing but I think the
number one rule I have found with pricing is that it's relative. If Tiffany &
co can sell a $1.5k paper clip
[https://www.popbuzz.com/internet/viral/tiffany-everyday-
obje...](https://www.popbuzz.com/internet/viral/tiffany-everyday-objects-
memes/) then pricing is really what you make of it.

There are variables and you have to know what your target audience is willing
to pay. My idea on pricing is that I want to 10x your investment. So if I am
charging $20 per month. I want you making at least $200 from the service.

If you're an agency making $10,000 from the service I am going to charge $1k

~~~
electriclove
Keep things reasonably priced and allow your user base to grow. There is a
huge market for the casual user.

~~~
michaelaubry
True.

I have considered a one time fee with upgrades.

~~~
mantap
Don't. No matter how many people vocally moan about subscriptions (myself
included), the fact is if you are actually creating value for users then
people will pay them.

One time fees lead to bloated software, most of the money is in making upgrade
versions and forcing users to pay again, which means there is a huge financial
incentive to constantly add features that sound cool whether or not users
actually use them.

For pricing IMO your starting sweet spot will be around $10/month. There's a
benefit in charging _something_ and getting people signed up with their card
details. At some point in the future you may find it beneficial to charge $5/m
to get more users through the door and make money through extras. Just my 2
cents.

------
kanobo
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.

~~~
dylan604
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

~~~
nlh
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.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
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.

------
nishanth_v
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
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
I was confused too. I recommend updating the text to be more clear. Congrats
on a slick looking product.

~~~
michaelaubry
Thanks for the support. For sure I got you :)

------
aldanor
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
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
Mousetrap is the best shortcut library I’ve used, and can help you do this
well, catching a bunch of edge cases

~~~
jozzy-james
e.keyUp...c'mon man, don't need a whole library

~~~
michaelaubry
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 :)

------
drevil-v2
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.

------
jychang
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
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! :)

------
jasonshapiro
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
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.

------
trilinearnz
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
Thanks I just added that. I think it's good to give users the ability to see
what's its all about before committing.

------
tiffanyh
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
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

------
kuldeep_kap
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
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
Are you me? This exactly describes my current experience.

You should write more about this!

------
kakkan
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?

------
arvidkahl
This is an extremely impressive product. Signed up a couple weeks ago, it's
spectacular.

~~~
michaelaubry
Hell yes. You're a smart man.

------
whywhywhywhy
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.

------
jacobwsmith
Fantastic landing page - I feel like I got a quick understanding of what the
offering was and how it could help me.

~~~
michaelaubry
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?

------
jamalx31
Honestly, one of the best products I've seen this year.

~~~
Wistar
And probably the most complimentary HN comment section I have ever seen.

~~~
blevin
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
I love it. How has it changed? I am not on here often. I am glad I could bring
that back :)

------
Sreyanth
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
What is dogfooding?

~~~
danvillalon
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

------
yarone
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.

------
switchstance
Any major differentiators from [https://offeo.com](https://offeo.com)?

~~~
michaelaubry
Never heard of them. Just checked out the site, it looks awesome.

Are you a user?

------
dvt
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
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.

------
lefrenchy
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
Yeah thats the goal. Let me know if you know anyone who can find value. Always
happy to have a conversation.

------
mmckelvy
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
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.

~~~
rikroots
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!

------
splatzone
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
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
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

------
epberry
I think the focus on speed and bundled content is important. These are the two
biggest weaknesses of After Effects today imo.

~~~
michaelaubry
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
For the four letter acronym clueless (FLAC? ;) like me...

GOAT = greatest of all time

[https://www.acronymfinder.com/Greatest-of-All-Time-(LL-
Cool-...](https://www.acronymfinder.com/Greatest-of-All-Time-\(LL-Cool-J-
music-album\)-\(GOAT\).html)

~~~
michaelaubry
HAHA I love it. Thanks for clarifying

------
ivanvanderbyl
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
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
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
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.

------
techsin101
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?

------
dna_polymerase
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
Great feedback. I think you're right it could use some more context.

I think FAQs would also be nice.

------
radley
So, Adobe Spark?

[https://spark.adobe.com/](https://spark.adobe.com/)

~~~
igorstellar
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
If you scrolled down a little you'd see an H2-sized "What can you create with
Adobe Spark?" and three quick overviews.

------
nimbix
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.

------
rswail
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
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 :)

------
saadshamim
out of technical curiosity, how do you render the video? is the whole thing
like a canvas element?

~~~
michaelaubry
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
"send it to a human" lol that made me chuckle!

Thanks for explaining this in detail, Michael! Really great work here!

~~~
michaelaubry
Haha it's all about communication. Glad you got a chuckle.

------
AlexDanger
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
Definitely. Id much rather be engineering.

Reach out to me on Twitter or email @michaelaubry michael @ storycreatorapp .
com

------
mwizzle
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
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

------
slord54
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!

------
kylejtorres
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
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!

------
batt4good
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
Combination of things. It's like a cake haha.

React.js FE Node.js BE

Vercel FTW

------
sak5sk
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
Yup working towards that everyday. Makes me happy. Cheers :)

------
langitbiru
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.

~~~
uxcolumbo
For pro users there is a replacement for AE - check out

Davinci Resolve Fusion

[https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/uk/products/davinciresolve/...](https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/uk/products/davinciresolve/fusion)

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...

------
dayaz36
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!

------
pdxandi
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
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
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)

------
looperhacks
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
Got it. Sorry about that. Hopefully youll check it out in the future.

------
earthnail
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
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!

------
berkayozturk
Incredible work! Can I ask which technologies you used to build the editor?
Wappalyzer detects Next.js, React and Vercel.

~~~
tessela
The timeline looks nice, I wonder if it is opensource.

------
slhomme
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.

------
techsin101
[https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/hxly9e/after_128_da...](https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/hxly9e/after_128_days_and_35k_loc_ive_built_a_photoshop/)

------
jnfr
Congrats Michael! Your hard work over the last few months is evident. I wish
you only the best from here onwards!

~~~
michaelaubry
Thanks for the love and support. Just getting started!

------
ricahe2559
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
Yeah thats a great approach.

~~~
ricahe2559
Lottie may be super helpful for you (if you are not already using it).

Are there any better techniques you are using for rendering?

------
leemac
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
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.

------
nojvek
The home page took over a minute to load for me. How is this being served?
seems like you could optimize this.

~~~
michaelaubry
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
I did some benchmarks on static hostings recently:

[https://www.pierbover.com/posts/static-hosting-
benchmark-202...](https://www.pierbover.com/posts/static-hosting-
benchmark-2020/)

------
ChicagoBoy11
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
Im from near Chicago. I love the excitement. Hit me up on Twitter DMs
@michaelaubry

------
Schwolop
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.

------
thrownaway954
@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/)

------
randompwd
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

------
pier25
This is super impressive. Congrats!

Would love to know more on the frameworks you used, infrastructure, etc.

~~~
michaelaubry
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
So what do you use for storage, CDN, etc?

------
BHSPitMonkey
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
Hahaha completely overlooked that. Thanks for letting me know. Fixing it RN :)

------
grativo
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
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?

------
harryf
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
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
> 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.

------
jacob_rezi
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
HAHA good choice. Rezi looks very cool.

------
tehbeard
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.

------
maximevoisin11
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
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
Love it.

Happy to make intros in the YTber community if they sound like an interesting
persona to talk to.

~~~
michaelaubry
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.

------
ourcat
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")

------
slimskim
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.

------
txu
Super impressive work since I first saw it on IndieHackers. Congrats!

~~~
michaelaubry
Hell yeah. Lets gooo

------
marktolson
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
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
Scratch that haha /webm is supported.

Double check the file mimetype. Ill look in the logs :)

------
muddi900
Looks a lot like canva's video editing tools. I'll test more when I get on the
desktop

------
robotnikman
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.

------
tomc1985
This obsession with "stories" is getting out of hand. It's like that horrible
"Made with Love" trend from a few years ago.

~~~
michaelaubry
You sound like a real fun person

~~~
tomc1985
I'm not very much fun around folks that use frothy-sounding trendwords
unironically

------
seishan
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
Reach out to me on Twitter @michaelaubry

------
jack_riminton
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?

------
droobles
Coolest product I've seen on HN – congrats, I'll be recommending to content
creator friends!

------
klst
[https://animockup.com/](https://animockup.com/) ?

------
swframe2
See also: veed.io, slide.ly, kamua.com

~~~
antoineMoPa
For sure there is a lot of competition in online video tools.

------
ape4
Very nice but I want desktop (Windows) app. Partly because I am often in low
bandwidth situations.

~~~
michaelaubry
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
You could also consider the approach Figma took with their webapp. Basically
it's a webbrowser with the application preloaded.

------
alecfreud
great, here come more Gary V style videos...

kidding aside, this is awesome. excellent work.

~~~
michaelaubry
Flood the internet with Gary Vee - as if it weren't already.

------
chadlavi
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
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.

------
jozzy-james
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

------
gitowiec
Doesn't work on latest Firefox Mobile (galaxy s8)

------
miguelmota
Awesome demo! It's really intuitive to use.

~~~
michaelaubry
Nice.

I have plans to make it even easier. I think for some users an interactive
setup would be useful.

------
bitcoinmoney
Awesome product. Seems like I could use this.

~~~
michaelaubry
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 :)

------
4theBroken
Isn't this the same as Adobe Premiere?

~~~
michaelaubry
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.

------
viraj_shah
This is awesome.

~~~
michaelaubry
Thanks

------
boothead
Whoa, very cool!

~~~
michaelaubry
Thank you!

------
techsin101
as a developer i am curious about how it works? do you use ffmpeg? do you
upload all videos on server?

~~~
michaelaubry
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
What about hosting stack, doesn't video processing eats up insane amount of
resources on backend?

------
cc_stoic
damn, this is going to make so much money

------
muliwuli
do you have an affiliate program ?

------
Kye
Mowgli is a very good dog.

~~~
michaelaubry
He's the best.

------
pjmlp
Congratulations for doing it as web app, pity that one needs to create a login
to test it.

