Seeking tech co-founder for vertical SaaS/marketplace for storytellers

Hello! My name is Jon Firman. I am the co-founder of Story Prism, a place for people to write better stories, faster.

My co-founder and I are both filmmakers who made this app because even though creating and distributing content is much easier than ever before, none of the available services out there address the fundamental problem that all narrative creators face - turning a vague idea into a sellable story.

We are currently looking for a technical partner to join us as our third founder.

Some quick points on our traction so far:

We are pre-launch. Released a public beta in late November 2021
400 users so far, growing 12% per month
Growth has been completely organic - minimal marketing spend

What Is Story Prism?
Story Prism is a suite of AI-powered writing tools to help anyone go from a vague idea to a finished story.

How do we do this? By focusing on the fundamentals of storytelling and using AI to act like a “Co-writer” rather than something that will write for you.

We are creating six pre-writing tools all centered around a writing application. These tools will help you with things like character building and plot design. All of them are interconnected and work together to help a writer form the basis for their story.

As the user completes each tool, the AI learns more about their story and can generate relevant suggestions in areas where they’re stuck. This acts as a customized bouncing board, tied directly to their story, which they can riff off of throughout the entire process - from nebulous idea to polished story.

In short, we are building an application that simulates collaboration with a co-writer for those who need one to collaborate with. Our primary customers are amateur screenwriters, professional indie filmmakers, and novelists, though we're also looking into indie video game developers who need narrative content. This is for anyone who needs a story, including professional writers who need their work streamlined due to tight deadlines.

So far we’ve launched two of the tools for the beta. Users are loving it and are eager to see the rest of the application built.

But this is just the first step in a much larger goal. Ultimately, we want to build Story Prism in a way that attracts the future buyers and sellers of a decentralized autonomous market network that is owned and managed by creators and combines:

AI-powered saas tools to help storytellers develop and market their projects
A marketplace and networking platform for narrative creators to learn, develop, meet, collaborate, buy, sell, market, distribute, invest, and grow their careers anywhere and everywhere

Our big picture goal is to give structure to unstructured creative indie spaces so that more people can make an independent career telling stories and audiences can have more varied and compelling stories to choose from.

Who are we and what's our background?
My brother and partner, Matt, and I are indie filmmakers who’ve been in the space for over 8 years. When we’re not doing commercial work, we write and direct our own films and help many others with their projects. I specialize in directing, cinematography, and editing, and Matt specializes in writing, planning, and managing sets. Here’s our latest short, which was recently screened at the Maryland Film Festival.

But don’t be fooled! Creating films is very similar to starting a business.

You’re starting with a hypothesis i.e the script and you’re validating it carefully throughout the whole process so as to avoid, “putting the cart before the horse.”
You’re coordinating and collaborating with a lot of different professionals who must complement each other to create something real out of a nebulous idea.
You’re managing multiple processes at once on a tight schedule and on a tight budget, so you have to know how to allocate resources and money effectively, and you have to know where to cut the limbs if the emergency requires.

This is how we were able to easily pivot from filmmaking to building a working product with zero coding experience. We manage and coordinate with a developer right now, but what we really need is a technical founder who can be a true partner and help us see this thing to its full potential.

Who Are We Looking For?
We want a self-learner, someone who isn’t afraid to say they don’t know something, and who is willing to learn how to do it.

The truth is, we’re filmmakers first and foremost. We didn’t go to Harvard or work at Google. We live in Baltimore, in a small basement apartment, making salaries that are below what we should be making at our age. We have no business being in the AI space, and quite frankly, we’re complete outsiders in the startup world. Yet, here we are. We have a fully functioning beta, paying users, and a loyal fan base that's growing by the month.

You don’t have to be a technical wizard who has 20 years of experience and 2 degrees from MIT. In fact, it’s probably better if you don’t. The only hard and fast requirement is that you must love to learn.

That said, the following skills are a huge plus:

Front and backend dev experience (Node.js, React, AWS)
Some experience in AI - ideally using and integrating GPT3 into applications.
Experience in Java / Python.
Has experience managing and directing teams in some form (not necessarily tech-related)
Has an interest in stories - either movies/tv shows, novels, or video games (not necessary but certainly a bonus)
Can commit to at least 25-30 hours a week.

What Can We Offer?
Right now we can’t offer a salary until we get funding, but we can offer an equal partnership. Also, we’re offering a kickass business idea with huge upside potential.

Of course, you hear that all that time, but think about it like this. Unlike another group of founders, you could partner with who may have more funding and resources, if you partner with us, you’ll be partnering with a team that isn’t just building something for the present, but also something that is laying out the foundations for the new creative industries that will be networked, decentralized, and owned by the users.

We can accomplish this because we know what it takes to create and sell content, and we have a clear vision for how to make it significantly easier for independent creators. We just need your help!

How to Reach Us
Feel free to reach out here if you’re interested in partnering up.

Thank you!