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by Brajeshwar 1207 days ago
I churned with Loom too because I don't need the storage part and was looking for an alternative. I like the idea of an open-source Loom alternative. However, if anyone is looking, I found out that an old software I was using, Cleanshot[1], added the feature to record your webcam and screen with their recent update. I have started using it again. For the upload part (I don't use their cloud), either using Dropbox or Google drive is pretty trivial to setup and is done by the time I finish writing the email or a cup of tea to send to anyone that needs it.

For the Sorbay founders here -- best of luck and congratulations on the launch. Personally, I felt your narrative is kinda made-up and not genuine or compelling enough (again, may be just me and trying to be open, trying to do the founder-to-founder open feedback). Can we try a different narrative? The reasoning is, why would the team just give up what they were doing and start working on a tool because one of their tool get in the way of getting their work done efficiently?

Finally, a tool such as a screen-recorder is good to have an open-source alternative but that's that -- it is open source for the sake of being open source and falls into the current hot open-source core but paid service layer business model.

Again, best of luck and I will definitely try it out once it is public, the pricing is decided and ready to use (not the waitlist thingy).

1. https://cleanshot.com

1 comments

Great feedback! Comments like these are what brings me to HN each day. Yeah, the backstory is certainly a bit more nuanced but we were trying to break it down into a piece that's maybe easier to digest.

We were working on an idea in its very early stages that wasn't completely fleshed out. We were trying to find markets, gauge interests, were building POCs for it, talked to potential customers. Going through this stage means constantly re-evaluating if you have enough confidence that this idea in its current form is going to make it. If your team is going to be able to make it. I still have confidence that the idea we were working on is going to make it in some form but maybe at a different angle. Maybe from a different company and maybe more as a feature than as a standalone product. As avid users and fans of Loom, at some point our confidence in building an open source screen recording and sharing tool just reached a tipping point that lead us into building it. We were using it on a daily basis and saw the need for companies to have full control on their data.

Thinking about other stories from founders, I'd say it's not that uncommon to see them pivot. I have no numbers on this but I have seen quite a few companies that came out of HN with a completely different idea than what they were initially applying for.

Would love to write more on this, but it's already super late (or early) here in Germany.