The archive · Developer & Business Tools · Product decision · 2019–2020
Story Creator App bets easy web video beats After Effects for non-designers; HN 868
Michael Aubry quit a $200K job to build a browser video editor for podcasters and entrepreneurs; launch drew 868 HN points and 291 comments.
Story Creator App
What the business is
Story Creator App is a subscription web video editor for non-designers: upload a clip, add captions, animated text, music and templates on a timeline, and export social-ready video — positioned as After Effects for people who would never open After Effects.
Starting capital：Bootstrapped on personal savings after quitting an engineering job paying about $200K/year; his only 2019 income was a gig that brought in roughly $20–30K.
How it started
Michael Aubry said he had wanted to be an entrepreneur for years: after living in his car in Silicon Valley while learning to code instead of taking a gas-station job, he worked his way up to roughly a $200K engineering salary, then quit. He built Story Creator App over about 11 months, bootstrapped on savings, said he made only around $20–30K from a gig in 2019, and spent months polishing a product advisers told him was too much work — then decided to ship anyway.
What happened
The 2020-08-04 Show HN drew 868 points and 291 comments. Users praised the demo-first landing page, signed up during the thread, and reported bugs he fixed live; commenters quoted tiers around $19–83/month and argued he was either undercharging against After Effects' $20/month or overshooting for a tool closer to iMovie. Aubry answered that his customer is the non-designer who otherwise pays roughly $800 for a few videos or learns After Effects, said keyframes and a template marketplace would come when cash flow allowed, and said he was structuring B2B integrations around $20K/year.
No ending yet — it is still running.
Background
Story Creator App is a web-based video editor for people who need polished short videos but cannot use After Effects: a timeline with captions, animated text, music, trimming and templates, exporting social-ready formats. Michael Aubry built it alone and positioned it as 'After Effects for dummies' for podcasters, entrepreneurs and small brands.
Aubry said he had wanted to be an entrepreneur for years. After living in his car in Silicon Valley while learning to code rather than take a gas-station job, he climbed to roughly a $200K engineering salary, quit, and spent about 11 months building the editor — React on the front end, Node with FFmpeg rendering behind it — bootstrapped on savings, with only around $20–30K from a 2019 gig for income.
He proved the market before the public launch: from April 2020 he cold-called podcasters and Instagram-driven entrepreneurs through Instagram DMs and converted his first paying customer. On 2020-08-04 he posted 'Show HN: I built an After Effects for dummies', and the thread drew 868 points and 291 comments, with users signing up mid-thread, praising the demo-first homepage, and debating whether his roughly $19–83/month tiers undercut or overshot After Effects' $20/month.
The material records no outcome beyond the thread: a bootstrapped solo product with paying customers, plans for angel capital, templates, keyframes and ~$20K/year B2B integrations, and no record of what happened to the company after 2020.
What has to be true
- Aubry bet on the customer the giants ignore: people who would otherwise pay an editor or learn After Effects, not people who already know it.
- He proved demand before building for anyone else: Instagram-DM cold calls from April 2020 produced the first paying customer ahead of the public launch.
- The demo-first landing page did the selling; commenters said it showed exactly what the product does and converted a skeptical audience.
- He priced by perceived ROI and planned a template marketplace, staying under Adobe instead of competing feature-for-feature with After Effects.
What can be applied
Compete on the user the power tools ignore: sell speed and simplicity to non-designers who would otherwise hire an editor, and prove willingness to pay before the public launch.
Aftermath
As of the 2026-09-05 crawl, the material is the 2020-08-04 HN thread itself: it records a live, bootstrapped product with paying customers, a one-person team, roughly $19–83/month tiers, plans for angels, templates, keyframes and $20K/year B2B integrations, and 868 points and 291 comments from the launch. Nothing in the material records what happened to Story Creator App after 2020, so its later state is not recorded here.
Sources
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