time/ventures/doodleloop/LAUNCH.md

# Doodleloop: launch plan

For a parent holding a phone photo of their kid's fridge drawing: turn it into a looping animated GIF in under a minute, in the browser, with no app, account, or upload — instead of texting another flat photo or wrestling a video editor they don't have.

- **Page:** https://teahubxyz.github.io/time/ventures/doodleloop/
- **Join early access:** [the issue form](https://github.com/teahubxyz/time/issues/new?template=early-access.yml&title=Early+access%3A+Doodleloop&venture=doodleloop&plan=Studio+%E2%80%94+Founding+%28early+access%29) (a public GitHub issue; no email, nothing charged)
- **Signal:** https://github.com/teahubxyz/time/issues/17 (👍 = wants the next version)
- **Design:** product-first: the tool fills the first screen and the look follows the product
- **Card:** https://github.com/teahubxyz/time/issues/15 (pitched by `kimi`)

## Audience: the first 100 users

The first 100 users are parents of 4-10 year olds who already photograph and text kid art to family, plus elementary art teachers looking for a classroom wow-moment. They gather in r/Parenting and r/daddit, teacher threads on r/Teachers, the Show HN crowd that upvoted huashu-art-motion and anatomy, and the GitHub discussions of those two repos where people already asked for 'make my painting move' tools.

## Business model

The free page is the whole magic trick and stays free forever; nobody pays for what it already does. Doodleloop Studio charges a one-time founding price to teachers and committed families for control and throughput: custom motion paths, batch-animating a whole sketchbook or class set, HD/4K and print-ready export, and saved projects. That is worth money because it turns a one-off delight into a reusable classroom and family-archive tool that saves prep time and makes the sender look good.

## Pricing (early access: nothing is charged)

| Tier | Price | For | Includes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | anyone with a photo of a drawing | local in-browser processing (nothing uploaded), a dozen motion styles, intensity and speed sliders, instant preview, GIF export with optional WebM |
| Studio — Founding (early access) | $29 one-time | families and teachers who want to direct the motion, not just pick a style | custom motion paths, HD/4K loop export, print-ready stills, saved projects, founding-price locked in for life |
| Studio — Classroom (early access) | $59 one-time | teachers animating a whole class set of drawings | everything in Studio — Founding plus batch-animate a sketchbook or classroom set and class-size export queue |

## Primary call to action

**Export GIF**: the header's one button, linking to the early-access form.

## Launch channels (drafts; nothing is sent)

### Show HN

> Show HN: Doodleloop — drop in a photo of a kid's drawing, get a looping animated GIF, all in your browser. Everything runs locally with canvas/WebGL; nothing is uploaded, no account, no app. Pick a motion style (ink ripple, Van Gogh swirl, paper-cut bob, falling snow), tweak intensity and speed, hit Export GIF. It's free. There's also an early-access list for Doodleloop Studio (custom motion paths, batch, HD export) via a GitHub issue form — founding price, nothing is charged today. Would love feedback on the motion styles.

### r/InternetIsBeautiful

> I made a site that turns a photo of a drawing into a looping animated GIF, entirely in your browser — nothing gets uploaded. Drop in a kid's crayon drawing, pick a style like watercolor bleed or neon pulse, and export a GIF you can text to the family. Free, no account. There's an optional early-access list for a paid Studio version (custom motion paths, HD export) — the page states plainly that nothing is charged today.

### GitHub Discussions on huashu-art-motion (Show and tell / ideas thread)

> This repo proved how much people want 'make paintings move with code' — I built the no-code version for non-developers: doodleloop, a single web page where you drop in a photo of a drawing, pick a motion style, and export a looping GIF, all processed locally in the browser. Free, nothing uploaded. If you'd want custom motion paths or batch export, there's an early-access issue form (founding price, nothing charged today). Curious what styles this community would add.

## 7-day lines

- **Success:** After 7 days: at least 10 distinct GitHub accounts have joined the Studio early-access list or 👍'd the signal issue, and at least one launch thread has real comments from parents or teachers describing whose drawing they animated. (at least 10 signups)
- **Kill:** After 7 days: fewer than 2 early-access signups and no thread producing a single comment from the parent/teacher audience — meaning the delight didn't land even where the audience already gathers. (at most 2 signups)

A signup is a distinct GitHub account, other than the repo owner or a bot, that opened an early-access issue for
Doodleloop or 👍'd the signal issue. Between the lines, the studio watches one more week, then parks it.

## Where each idea came from

- positioning: `kimi`
- audience: `kimi`
- business model: `kimi`
- pricing: `kimi`
- primary cta: `grok`
- launch channels: `kimi`
- metrics: `kimi`

**Dissent:** Pricing structure (single $49 tier vs two founding tiers) and signup thresholds (20 vs 10) differed between plans.

## The board's plans

<details><summary>grok</summary>

```json
{
 "positioning": "For parents who just photographed a child's drawing and want to text an animated loop, Doodleloop delivers instant in-browser animation from a single drop zone without the accounts, uploads, or app installs required by existing tools.",
 "audience": "parents and teachers who already discuss drawing animation in r/Art, r/parenting, r/Teachers, the issues and discussions of huashu-art-motion and anatomy repos, and Show HN threads",
 "business_model": "Teachers and families pay a one-time founding price for Doodleloop Studio. They pay for custom motion paths, batch processing of sketchbooks, HD/4K exports, and project saves because these features save time on classroom sets and produce shareable results that look professional.",
 "pricing": [
  {
   "tier": "Free",
   "price": "$0",
   "for": "anyone wanting a quick loop",
   "includes": "local canvas/WebGL processing, dozen motion styles, intensity and speed sliders, in-browser GIF export"
  },
  {
   "tier": "Studio",
   "price": "$49 one-time",
   "for": "teachers and families needing advanced tools",
   "includes": "custom motion paths, batch animate, HD/4K exports, print-ready stills, project saves"
  }
 ],
 "primary_cta": "Export GIF",
 "launch_channels": [
  {
   "channel": "Show HN",
   "draft": "Show HN: Doodleloop - drop a drawing photo, pick a motion style, export a looping GIF, all in the browser with nothing uploaded"
  },
  {
   "channel": "huashu-art-motion GitHub issues",
   "draft": "Anyone here looking to animate drawings instead of code? Doodleloop does local motion styles and GIF export from a photo drop"
  },
  {
   "channel": "r/Art",
   "draft": "Doodleloop: browser tool to turn a photo of a drawing into an animated loop in under a minute, no account or upload"
  }
 ],
 "success_metric": "20 GitHub early-access signups in 7 days",
 "success_signups": 20,
 "kill_metric": "fewer than 5 GitHub early-access signups in 7 days",
 "kill_signups": 5
}
```

</details>

<details><summary>kimi</summary>

```json
{
 "positioning": "For a parent holding a phone photo of their kid's fridge drawing: turn it into a looping animated GIF in under a minute, in the browser, with no app, account, or upload — instead of texting another flat photo or wrestling a video editor they don't have.",
 "audience": "The first 100 users are parents of 4-10 year olds who already photograph and text kid art to family, plus elementary art teachers looking for a classroom wow-moment. They gather in r/Parenting and r/daddit, teacher threads on r/Teachers, the Show HN crowd that upvoted huashu-art-motion and anatomy, and the GitHub discussions of those two repos where people already asked for 'make my painting move' tools.",
 "business_model": "The free page is the whole magic trick and stays free forever; nobody pays for what it already does. Doodleloop Studio charges a one-time founding price to teachers and committed families for control and throughput: custom motion paths, batch-animating a whole sketchbook or class set, HD/4K and print-ready export, and saved projects. That is worth money because it turns a one-off delight into a reusable classroom and family-archive tool that saves prep time and makes the sender look good.",
 "pricing": [
  {
   "tier": "Free",
   "price": "$0",
   "for": "anyone with a photo of a drawing",
   "includes": "local in-browser processing (nothing uploaded), a dozen motion styles, intensity and speed sliders, instant preview, GIF export with optional WebM"
  },
  {
   "tier": "Studio — Founding",
   "price": "$29 one-time (founding price; nothing charged today)",
   "for": "families and teachers who want to direct the motion, not just pick a style",
   "includes": "custom motion paths, HD/4K loop export, print-ready stills, saved projects, founding-price locked in for life"
  },
  {
   "tier": "Studio — Classroom",
   "price": "$59 one-time (founding price; nothing charged today)",
   "for": "teachers animating a whole class set of drawings",
   "includes": "everything in Studio — Founding plus batch-animate a sketchbook or classroom set and class-size export queue"
  }
 ],
 "primary_cta": "Export GIF",
 "launch_channels": [
  {
   "channel": "Show HN",
   "draft": "Show HN: Doodleloop — drop in a photo of a kid's drawing, get a looping animated GIF, all in your browser. Everything runs locally with canvas/WebGL; nothing is uploaded, no account, no app. Pick a motion style (ink ripple, Van Gogh swirl, paper-cut bob, falling snow), tweak intensity and speed, hit Export GIF. It's free. There's also an early-access list for Doodleloop Studio (custom motion paths, batch, HD export) via a GitHub issue form — founding price, nothing is charged today. Would love feedback on the motion styles."
  },
  {
   "channel": "r/InternetIsBeautiful",
   "draft": "I made a site that turns a photo of a drawing into a looping animated GIF, entirely in your browser — nothing gets uploaded. Drop in a kid's crayon drawing, pick a style like watercolor bleed or neon pulse, and export a GIF you can text to the family. Free, no account. There's an optional early-access list for a paid Studio version (custom motion paths, HD export) — the page states plainly that nothing is charged today."
  },
  {
   "channel": "GitHub Discussions on huashu-art-motion (Show and tell / ideas thread)",
   "draft": "This repo proved how much people want 'make paintings move with code' — I built the no-code version for non-developers: doodleloop, a single web page where you drop in a photo of a drawing, pick a motion style, and export a looping GIF, all processed locally in the browser. Free, nothing uploaded. If you'd want custom motion paths or batch export, there's an early-access issue form (founding price, nothing charged today). Curious what styles this community would add."
  }
 ],
 "success_metric": "After 7 days: at least 10 distinct GitHub accounts have joined the Studio early-access list or 👍'd the signal issue, and at least one launch thread has real comments from parents or teachers describing whose drawing they animated.",
 "success_signups": 10,
 "kill_metric": "After 7 days: fewer than 2 early-access signups and no thread producing a single comment from the parent/teacher audience — meaning the delight didn't land even where the audience already gathers.",
 "kill_signups": 2
}
```

</details>