Motion graphics editor for video producers who don't use After Effects

The moment happens when a social media video producer or small studio editor finishes cutting a client video and needs a lower-third that slides in with a custom ease, or a logo that scales up while text fades separately — and realizes they either need to learn a compositing application they've never touched or ship something that looks cheap.

This gap persists because Adobe has a structural incentive to keep it broken. After Effects is a separate paid product. Every time a Premiere or Rush user hits the animation ceiling, Adobe's preferred resolution is an upsell to Creative Cloud All Apps. Fixing the gap inside Express or Rush would cannibalize that upsell path, so the ceiling stays exactly where it is.

What users get wrong from existing tools isn't just missing features — it's the workflow tax. Users say they 'can't animate the photo and animate the text on the same project' and that 'managing the timings of animation when having more than one in the same scene' is hard even when basic animation exists. The problem isn't zero animation support; it's that multi-element, multi-keyframe animation on a single canvas is architecturally absent from the tools most video producers actually live in.

This is a business because the need recurs on every project that involves any branded motion — every client video, every social asset, every event recap. A freelance video editor producing ten client deliverables a month is hitting this ceiling ten times a month. Without a dedicated tool, they either pay for and learn After Effects (weeks of ramp time, higher subscription cost), outsource the motion work (margin erosion), or ship static titles (client dissatisfaction). The recurring nature of the pain — per project, not per year — means they'll pay a recurring price to avoid it.

What to build

Build a standalone browser-based motion graphics editor where users import a video clip or image, layer text and graphic elements on a shared timeline, set independent keyframes per element with easing controls, and export a rendered video file or transparent overlay — with no compositing background required.

Where to start

Start specifically with lower-third and title animation for corporate video freelancers, where the motion requirement is highly repeatable, the aesthetic bar is defined (not experimental), and you can ship a template library that gives a first-time user a finished result in under ten minutes.

The hard part

The hardest early problem is render quality and export fidelity — users who've been burned by compressed, laggy browser-based video tools will abandon immediately if the first export looks worse than what they had, so you need a real rendering pipeline before you can acquire and retain anyone.

How it makes money

Monthly subscription per seat, around $15–25/month, with a free tier capped at watermarked exports to drive discovery and a one-time template pack upsell for users who want branded starting points.