Opportunities › Real-time collaborative notes and documents › Proposed app
Plainpage
Plain-text notes that grow into shared documents, with live cursors, no lock-in
- Score
- 53
- confidence 61
- Evidence
- 11
- items on the page
- Rivals
- 3
- named in sources
- First version
- 40 d
- estimate
- Type
- Desktop and mobile
- PWA: on computers and phones alike
ScreensConcept
Desktop and mobile: Users capture notes on the go but collaborate and edit extensively at desks; real work needs both quick mobile capture and sustained desktop editing. Sample screens on a computer and a phone, in the proposed brand. Their numbers are sample data.
Quick note
Plain text mode- Words212
- Folder
About this appAI proposal
Plainpage opens like a blank text file. Type, paste, save. No templates, no databases to set up, no blocks to pick. When a note needs more, the same text becomes a structured document: headings, checklists, code blocks and LaTeX, all in markdown.
Share a link and you both see shared cursors and presence as you write. Notes sit in simple nested folders. Everything exports as plain markdown files at any time, and you can import a folder of .md files in one step.
It is for individual knowledge workers, developers and small teams who went back to plain text files and miss only the sharing and structure. Plainpage keeps the fast start and adds those two things when you ask for them.
- Tagline
- Start as plain text. Grow when you need to.
- Voice
- CalmPlainDirect
- Why this name
- A plain page is where notes begin. The name signals text first, with structure added only as needed.
In the first version
Members say which features they would use. It tells PWAS what people want; it changes no score.
Starts as plain text
Opens straight to a cursor. Capture first; structure is optional and never forced on you.
No member yet
Markdown in, markdown out
Import a folder of .md files and export everything as plain files whenever you like. Your notes stay yours.
No member yet
Live cursors and presence
See who is in a note and where they are typing. Simultaneous edits merge without conflicts.
No member yet
Code blocks and LaTeX
Syntax-highlighted code and rendered math inline, written with the markup you already type.
No member yet
Brand identityAI proposal
Check the name against trademark registers before using it.
Palette
#FAF6EEPaper · surface#1F2421Ink · text#2F6B4FMoss · primary#E0A030Amber · accent, cursors#C4573AClay · data, alerts
Typography
Aa
Plainpage
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ 0123456789
Start as plain text. Grow when you need to.
PricingAI proposal
Competitor pages in the material: Notion from €9.50 a month, Trello from $5, Asana from $10.99 (billed yearly). Tiers sit near the low end of those; they are a starting point to test.
Free
Free
- Unlimited personal notes
- Markdown import and export
- Up to 2 shared notes
Pro
$6 a month
- Unlimited shared notes
- Live cursors and presence
- Version history
- Offline sync
Team
$10 a month
- Per user
- Shared folders
- Roles and permissions
- Admin export of all notes
Would you pay Pro · $6 a month?
Your answer tells PWAS which prices people accept. It changes no score.
No answers yet.
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
- Users invite others. A note owner shares an edit link. Collaborators join in the browser, see live cursors, and are prompted to keep the note in their own workspace.
- Do they become customers?
- Invited collaborators use the product directly and can become paying users. Test how many guests create accounts and start their own shared notes.
- First customers
- Small developer teams of 2 to 10 people who keep notes in markdown files and need shared docs without adopting a heavy tool.
- Where to reach them
- Hacker News: Show HN post with a live demo link to a shared note and a one-click markdown import.
- Developer communities: Post in engineering and open-source communities, offering free team trials to gather feedback.
- First milestone
- Ten small teams share notes weekly for a month, and five of them pay for the team plan.
Why people already pay for this
- VerifiedHacker News post received 52 points and 37 comments
- Public claimUsers abandon heavy notes and project tools and revert to plain text files despite their simplicity.
- Public claimUsers want note-taking software that combines the simplicity of a text editor with the capacity to grow into structured documents.
- Public claimThe product will be monetized as a paid offering.
- 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 · Real-time syncCRDT library with WebSocket serverMerges simultaneous edits, powers shared cursors and presence, and supports offline editing.
- This app · EditorMarkdown-based rich text editor frameworkPlain text feel with code blocks and LaTeX rendering on the same document.
RisksAI inference
- TechnicalOffline-capable CRDT sync with a plain-markdown round trip is hard; formatting may be lost or conflict on export and re-import.
- CommercialUsers who chose plain text files may not pay; the free tier could cover what most need. Willingness to pay is untested.
- CommercialNotion, Trello and Asana have free plans and large user bases, so switching must be clearly easier.
- PlatformPWA support for offline storage and installation varies by browser, notably on iOS, which may limit the capture experience.
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.