ManualFilm — record once, hand off a real SOP

Talk through a process on camera and get a checklist-based staff manual automatically

Problem

A small business owner got sick for four days and the business basically stopped because every process lived only in his head, which scared him more than the lost revenue. He started recording himself doing routine tasks while narrating, and handing those recordings to staff turned out faster than any written document. In another thread, someone running six restaurants with 180 employees says each location behaves differently and what works at one becomes a mess ten minutes away. What small businesses lack is a cheap way to turn tacit process into something deliverable.

Solution

A mobile-first capture tool: hold to record, talk while working, and it auto-transcribes, strips filler, splits into chapters by step, attaches keyframe screenshots, and produces a shareable SOP page with checkboxes plus a printable PDF. Each step can carry acceptance criteria and common mistakes so new hires can self-serve and the owner stops repeating verbal training.

Users

5–50 person brick-and-mortar businesses and studios — restaurants, salons, auto shops, retail — plus the one person inside a solo company who knows how everything works.

MVP

One-tap recording with auto transcription; split steps by pause and timestamp; auto keyframe per step; export checklist PDF and shareable web page; templated acceptance-criteria and common-mistake fields.

Revenue

Free for 3 recorded processes; $9–19/month subscription for unlimited processes, staff sharing, and version history; per-location add-on seats.

Why now

Transcription and video understanding costs collapsed in the last year, while the small-business anxiety about handing off process is evergreen and unserved — too small for big players, right-sized for one dev.