Opportunities › Markdown-based presentation authoring tool › Proposed app
Plainslide
Write your talk in plain text. Get clean, designed slides without touching a layout.
- Score
- 42
- confidence 61
- Evidence
- 7
- items on the page
- Rivals
- 2
- named in sources
- First version
- 35 d
- estimate
- Type
- Desktop app
- PWA: runs in the browser, installs on Mac and Windows
- Market since
- 1990
- Mature market · AI estimate
ScreensConcept
Desktop app: Presenters write, edit, review themes, and export slides during extended composition work at their desk. Sample screens on a computer, in the proposed brand. Their numbers are sample data.
Editor
Preview updated- # Q3 research updateTitle slide
About this appAI proposal
Plainslide turns text you write into finished slides. You type headings, bullets, quotes, images and code in markdown; the app picks the layout, type size, spacing and colours for each slide, so you never nudge a text box.
It is for professionals and researchers who think in text and find PowerPoint or Google Slides slow for the formatting work they add. Write, glance at the live preview, present from the browser or export to PDF.
What is different: the design is decided by the tool, not by you. One theme applies to the whole deck, a change to the text reflows every slide, and an optional AI pass tightens wording or splits a long slide without touching your structure.
- Tagline
- Write the talk. The slides follow.
- Voice
- PlainCalmDirect
- Why this name
- Plain text plus slide: two everyday words that say you write plainly and the tool does the layout.
In the first version
Members say which features they would use. It tells PWAS what people want; it changes no score.
Markdown in, slides out
Headings start slides, lists and quotes become layouts. No boxes to drag, no font sizes to pick.
No member yet
Live side-by-side preview
See every slide update as you type, with a filmstrip to jump around the deck.
No member yet
Automatic layout
Long lists split, images pair with text, and big numbers get their own slide, all by rule.
No member yet
One-click themes
Switch the whole deck's type, colour and spacing in a click. Text stays untouched.
No member yet
Brand identityAI proposal
Check the name against trademark registers before using it.
Palette
#FAF6EEPaper · surface#1F2A30Ink · text#0F5C63Teal Deep · primary#E3A32BMarigold · accent#C4573AClay · data#DCE5E3Mist · border and panels
Typography
Aa
Plainslide
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ 0123456789
PricingAI proposal
PowerPoint's pricing page lists paid plans from $9.99 to $19.99 a month plus a free plan; Google Slides lists prices on request. Tiers are set near that range and are a starting point to test.
Free
Free
- Unlimited decks
- 2 themes
- Present in browser
- Watermarked PDF
Pro
$9 a month
- All themes
- Clean PDF export
- AI edit pass
- Share links
- Custom fonts and colours
Team
$19 a month
- Everything in Pro
- API access
- Shared brand themes
- Shared deck library
What it could be worthEstimate
What a software business making this much sells for today, from real deals. Pick a monthly revenue.
If it makes
Worth about
$194,000
Sale range $132,000 to $263,000
$120,000 a year in revenue
From 87 software businesses listed and sold on Empire Flippers in the last year, revenue vetted by the broker: they sell for about 19× their monthly revenue, most between 13× and 26×.
Measured on profit, the middle deal is 32× monthly net profit: about 2.7 years of profit.
An estimate, not an offer or financial advice. A real price depends on profit, growth, churn, how much of the work is the owner's, and the buyer.
How it would growAI proposal
How the product would reach new customers through its own use, and how the first ones would be found. A plan to test, not a result.
- Built-in loop
- Shared outputs. Users publish decks as read-only links and PDFs. Viewers see a small 'Made with Plainslide' footer on free decks, linking to a page where they can paste text and try it.
- Do they become customers?
- Viewers are often peers who also present, so some could sign up, but many only watch. Test the click-through from shared decks to sign-ups, and whether free users keep the footer.
- First customers
- Academic and industry researchers, and engineers, who already write notes in markdown and give talks or lab updates several times a month.
- Where to reach them
- Hacker News and developer forums: Show a real talk written in Plainslide with the source text beside the result, and invite feedback.
- Research communities: Offer a conference-talk theme in lab groups and academic mailing lists and social groups.
- Shared deck links: Free decks carry a footer link so each shared talk can bring new visitors.
- First milestone
- Fifty weekly active users making at least two decks each, and ten paying Pro subscribers within eight weeks of launch.
Why people already pay for this
- VerifiedHacker News post received 28 points and 21 comments
- Public claimUsers have a strong pain point with existing presentation tools: manual formatting and design decisions slow down slide creation.
- Public claimThe markdown-to-slides approach is demonstrably usable and produces output users are satisfied with.
- Public claimSwitching back to traditional tools feels significantly worse after using markdown-based authoring.
- Public claim
Tech stack
Every proposal builds on the same PWA base, installable from the browser on any phone or computer. Dashed boxes are what this app adds.
- AppNext.js and TypeScript
- PWAManifest and service worker
- UITailwind CSS
- Data and authSupabase Postgres
- PaymentsStripe
- EmailResend
- HostingVercel
- This app · Markdown parsingOpen-source markdown parser libraryTurns text into a slide structure that the layout rules can read.
- This app · PDF renderingHeadless browser rendering serviceExports slides to PDF that match the on-screen layout exactly.
RisksAI inference
- CommercialEvidence is one Hacker News post with 28 points. Willingness to pay is unproven, and existing markdown-slide tools may already serve the technical audience for free.
- TechnicalAutomatic layout that looks good for any content is hard. Dense or odd content can overflow or look flat, and users will compare it to hand-made decks.
- CommercialMany professionals must send .pptx files. Without a good PowerPoint export, the tool may not fit shared workflows.
- AIAI edits can change meaning or invent facts. The review-as-diff step must stay mandatory, and model costs could cut into low subscription prices.
- TechnicalPDF output must match the preview across fonts and images. Headless rendering adds cost and can be slow for long decks.
Everything marked AI proposal or AI inference was written by a model from the evidence on the opportunity page. The proposed name must be checked against trademark registers before it is used.