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Shawn Hacks
Shawn Hacks

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I am building a screen recorder for creating studio-quality product demos

I’m an indie dev, and every time I launch or ship something, there’s this familiar mini-hell: “now I need to record a decent demo…”

You probably know the drill:

  • Install yet another screen recorder

  • Wrestle with audio settings (system sounds vs mic)

  • Accidentally capture messy tabs or notifications

  • Re‑record because you forgot to hide something sensitive
    Open a separate editor just to crop, zoom, or add a simple arrow

After doing this too many times, I realized I was spending way more time fighting tools than making the actual demo. Most of what I needed was simple: clean product walkthroughs, short tutorial clips, or something polished enough to share on social media—but the existing tools made that way harder than it should be.

So I ended up doing what most devs probably shouldn’t do when they’re busy: I built my own thing. 😅

It’s called Screentell, and the idea is simple:

A low‑friction, in‑browser screen recorder + editor that covers ~90% of all “I just need a decent demo” use cases—without installs, complex timelines, or heavy software.

What Screentell Does (and Why It’s Built This Way)

📹 Easy Recording

I wanted to hit “record” and just go:

  • Record screen + camera simultaneously with system audio and mic

  • Dual‑stream engine for high quality capture

No software installs—runs entirely in your browser (Chrome, Edge, Brave, Arc)

Preview recording

🎬 Browser‑Based Editing (No Desktop App Needed)

Most of my edits are simple, presentation‑style tweaks—not full video productions. So Screentell focuses on:

  • Crop & trim your recordings to hide anything sensitive

  • Focus Zoom (2D) and Cinematic 3D Transforms to guide your viewer’s eye

  • Multi‑track editing — move, resize, or hide your face cam after recording

  • Advanced clip editing — cut, delete, adjust playback speed, etc.

Advanced clip editing

Add 3D transforms

Crop video

✏️ Stickers & Annotations

I always end up wanting arrows and callouts, so Screentell includes:

  • Hand‑drawn style arrows, speech bubbles, shapes, and text Customizable colors, borders, shadows, and own image uploads Quick visual cues without jumping to a separate editor

Stickers & Annotations

🎨 Layout & Presentation

I care about how the final frame looks (especially for socials):
Choose backgrounds (solid, gradient, wallpaper)

  • Add padding/shadows to give a studio‑quality look

  • Flexible face camera layer — show/hide, resize, animate

Result looks great on landing pages, tweets, or product updates without Premiere or Final Cut

🔒 Privacy & Local‑First

Everything happens locally — your recordings never leave your device unless you choose to share them. No server uploads, no cloud processing.

Who It’s For

If you’re:

Don’t want to install heavy software or learn a complex timeline editor

…then Screentell might be the tool you’ve been waiting for. It runs entirely in the browser—record → edit → export—and most people can figure it out in just a few minutes of clicking around.

Right now, it’s very much built from my own pain points as a solo dev who constantly needs “yet another demo,” so I’m sure my blind spots are showing.

If you do screen recordings often, I’d love to know:

👉 What’s the most annoying part of your current workflow?

👉 What’s one thing your current tool still doesn’t do well?

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