I'm afraid this product got killed by Google
by Feri ForgacsWhen I launched this product last year, I think stories on webpages weren't really a thing. There were some similar solutions out there but they were adopted by just a small amount of users. AMP Stories were mainly used by big sites like CNN or National Geographic but the average user hasn't even heard about it. Or if they did I don’t think they paid much attention. There were early adopters though, and I think that’s also the reason I was able to make my first sale with Story View. But that was more than a year ago. And things have changed.
I was working on the second version of Story View when I saw a random tweet that gave me anxiety. It was about a plugin that was designed to create AMP Stories. It was just a beta but already looked really good with a ton of features. Developed by Google, available for free.
The first version of Story View wasn’t focusing completely on AMP Stories but it was an important feature for most of the customers. It was also a unique selling point compared to other similar plugins, so I wanted to focus on that in 2.0. But when I saw what Google was working on, I completely lost motivation. I added a few features to the existing product but I stopped working on 2.0.
When they launched the first version of their plugin, everyone started to talk about that. It got more than 3 500 installs on the first day and by the time I’m writing this post, it has more than 42 000 downloads. I made 40 sales with Story View :D
I was thinking about this a lot, but I’m afraid I have to let this product go.
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Don't let the fact that Google has released a competitive product stop you. This is our story: https://devan.codes/blog/2020/11/4/making-google-blink-first
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This is a perfect validation of your product. Copy best features give it skin / ui features and sell as a premium
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Maybe you need to release it on Codecanyon. It has huge audience for WordPress and it plugins.
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I was thinking about that, also asked other indie hackers what they think about Codecanyon and other marketplaces but it looks like it's not the right way to go.
Based on my experience, in the WordPress ecosystem, when something is available for free, the majority of users will go for that.
At the moment I feel like working just a few extra hours on this product is still a waste of time. I don't want to use my resources to go "against" Google. Maybe another time, but not with this product.-
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I just said that because similar plugins are making good sales on Codecanyon.
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I just re-read my previous comment and I have a feeling that it was a bit harsh. It wasn't against you or against your idea. I'm sorry.
I saw that plugin earlier this year, and I'm wondering if they have the same experience as I do since Google's plugin became available.
Probably, if I'd see a bright future for the product, I wouldn't let it go just like this. And I still have a few feature ideas in my backlog but in the end, I think I'd end up building the same thing that is available for free.
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