I mass-deleted a year of work to rebuild from scratch. 11 months later, here's what happened.
I had a working product. People were paying for it. The feedback was good.
Then I deleted everything and started over.
Not because it failed. Because it worked just well enough to show me what was wrong.
THE PROBLEM I KEPT HEARING
I built Annnimate as a copy-paste animation library. GSAP animations you grab and ship. No rebuilding scroll effects from scratch every project.
Users loved the concept. But the same request kept coming up:
"Can I change the timing?"
"How do I make this faster on mobile?"
"I love it, but I need more control."
The animations worked. But they were rigid. You either used them exactly as-is or you were on your own editing JavaScript.
That's not what I wanted to build.
THE DECISION
In February 2025, I made a call that felt insane at the time.
Delete the codebase. Redesign everything. Rebuild from zero.
Not a refactor. Not a "v1.5" with some improvements. A complete restart.
New architecture. New design system. New approach to how animations are customized.
I thought it would take 4 months. It took 11.
WHAT I BUILT DIFFERENTLY
The core insight was simple: customization shouldn't require editing code.
So I built a data attribute system. Every animation is controlled by HTML attributes:
data-anm-duration="1.2"
data-anm-easing="expo"
data-anm-stagger="0.1"
data-anm-disable="mobile"
Change the attribute. Change the animation. No JavaScript editing. No risk of breaking things.
The code you copy is the code you ship. How it behaves is up to you.
THE NUMBERS (Week 1)
Annnimate v2 launched January 8, 2026.
First week results:
- 530 unique visitors
- 43 legacy users migrated (from v1)
- 3 new paying customers
Not explosive. But proof that it works.
The traffic came from my newsletter (1,100 subscribers) and LinkedIn (9,000 followers). These are people who've been following along for months. Many already had access from v1.
What I need now is new eyeballs.
THE LIFETIME DEAL
To fund the next phase, I'm doing something I said I'd never do: lifetime deals.
150 seats. EUR 349 each. Full library forever.
Here's the honest math:
- EUR 349 is about 1.75x the annual price (EUR 199/year)
- If I sell all 150, that's EUR 52,350
- That buys me 6+ months of runway to grow this properly
The deal includes:
- 40+ production-ready GSAP animations
- Every format (React, HTML/CSS/JS, Webflow)
- Data attribute customization
- New animations added monthly
- Every future update. Forever.
The AI Assistant stays separate (EUR 10/month add-on). The lifetime deal is the library. Simple.
WHAT I LEARNED
Building in public for 11 months taught me a few things:
-
"Almost good enough" is the most dangerous place. v1 worked. That made it harder to justify the rebuild. But working isn't the same as right.
-
Scope creep is real, even when you're aware of it. I planned 4 months. It took 11. Every "small addition" adds up.
-
Users tell you what's wrong before you're ready to hear it. The "I need more control" feedback was there from month 2. I just didn't want to accept what it meant.
-
Launching is the easy part. Building something people find is the real work. That's where I am now.
WHAT'S NEXT
The lifetime deal runs until March 31 or until 150 seats sell out.
After that, it's annual subscriptions only. No more lifetime access.
I'll be posting updates here as the launch progresses. Traffic sources, conversion rates, what's working and what isn't.
THE ASK
If you're a developer or designer who works with web animations, I'd genuinely love your feedback.
Take a look at the library: annnimate.com
What animations are missing? What would make this more useful for your workflow?
I'm building this based on what users actually need. Your input shapes what gets built next.
TL;DR:
- Built animation library, users wanted more control
- Deleted everything, rebuilt from scratch over 11 months
- Launched last week, 530 visitors, 3 new customers
- Doing 150 lifetime deals (EUR 349) to fund growth
- Would love feedback on what to build next
I'm a lifetime user of Annnimate for a few reasons:
1 - its really good. Clean documentation, code is nice and light, and the animations it gives me are world class
2 - Julian has been very responsive and a great communicator any time I have had a question or comment
3 - It's not expensive. Similar services are 2-3 times the cost and don't offer the level of polish that Annnimate does.
I've been using it for a long time and I'm super impressed to see how far it's come from its debut over a ago. Not to say it was 'bad' in any way in its first iteration, but the new one is much more in depth and I appreciate the work that went into delivering the extra level of control and polish. I guess sometimes blowing something up and starting from scratch is a good idea!
I'm excited for future updates and to see where it goes next!
This made my Evening Matthew. Thank you.
The three things you mentioned are exactly what I optimize for. Clean code, fast support, fair pricing. Good to know it comes through.
And you're right about v1. It wasn't bad. But v2 is what I actually wanted to build from the start. Sometimes you have to ship something to learn what it should have been.
Glad you're along for the ride. Plenty more coming.
The “almost good enough” point especially hits. A working v1 creates its own gravity — not because it’s right, but because it removes urgency. Deleting everything and restarting isn’t a technical decision as much as a psychological one.
The shift to attributes instead of code edits also feels like a deeper design decision than just DX. You’re basically moving customization into a safer, more legible layer, which makes experimentation cheaper and less scary. That usually changes how people actually use a system, not just how fast they adopt it.
The numbers make sense in that context too. It’s not explosive, but it’s coherent — existing users migrate, a few new ones convert, and now the real work is distribution rather than validation.
Curious to see how this evolves once feedback comes from people who didn’t follow the build-in-public arc and encounter it cold.
You nailed it. The "almost good enough" trap was the hardest part. V1 worked. People paid for it. But I knew deep down it wasn't right.
And yes, the attributes system was a deliberate design choice. I wanted people to experiment without fear. When changing something is one attribute swap instead of editing code, people actually try things. That changes everything.
Your point about cold users is something I think about a lot. The build-in-public crowd already trusts the process. Someone finding Annnimate through a Google search has none of that context. That's the real test ahead.
Appreciate you taking the time to write this out.
Just leaving my comment - I'm one of the "lifetime" customers and I have to say that I'm fully satisfied of the product, and Julian has been always been super supportive. Building a community around a niche product is always complex, but since the attitude I'm pretty sure he and his partners will succeed.
Thank you Fulvio. Comments like this genuinely make my day.
You've been with Annnimate since the early days. Seeing you stick around through the rebuild means more than you know.
You're right that building a community around a niche product is hard. But having people like you in it makes it a lot easier. Grateful to have you here.