I wanted Letterboxd for stand-up, so I built Standupd

A really interesting idea for stand-up fans. I especially like how much attention you paid to checking the catalog — if users can’t find something they’ve already watched, it takes away from the whole point of having a service like this.

whats your top three comedians ?

The catalog work is a real prerequisite, but I’d separate “people can log what they watched” from “people will build a habit of logging stand-up.” Have you seen repeat usage from the same users yet, or is that still the main assumption behind the Letterboxd comparison?

Not much into standup, but this seems amazing and going to check it out

The structural risk in the Letterboxd analogy isn't the catalog, it's the event rate. A film person logs maybe eight to fifteen titles a month, which is frequent enough for logging to become a ritual on its own; a stand-up fan might finish two specials a month and attend one or two live shows a year, so you're building a habit loop on roughly a tenth of the events, and no amount of catalog accuracy fixes an input that sparse. The way out is probably to make your atomic unit smaller than the special, because comedy is remembered in bits, not in titles - letting someone save a specific bit with a timestamp, a tag, or a one-line paraphrase gives you several logging events per special instead of one, and it generates the exact text that makes your catalog searchable the way people actually recall comedy ("the one about the airport"), which also directly defuses the failed-search problem you're rightly worried about. That corpus is the thing Letterboxd never had and IMDb can't scrape, and it's a far better moat than release-year cleanliness. The other piece I'd watch is your ranked lists: a lot of Letterboxd's inbound comes from list and year-in-review pages rather than the app, so "best specials of 2026" as a real page, generated from your logs, is probably your cheapest acquisition channel and it gets better as the data grows. Two questions: what's specials-logged-per-active-user-per-month looking like so far, and how are you modelling the case where someone sees a set live and then logs the same material as a special a year later - one entry or two?

The Letterboxd comparison is immediately legible to anyone who's used it — you don't have to explain the concept, just the comedy-specific angle. That's a strong foundation.

The data quality problem you ran into is actually a feature in disguise: catalogues with accurate live-vs-special distinctions will be rare, and yours will stand out the longer you maintain it. The first person who logs "I saw Chappelle at the Wiltern" correctly will never leave.

One thing that could really drive growth: let people see which specials their friends rated highest but they haven't watched yet. You already have the log + ratings data, so the social surface is essentially free to build. That's the feature that kept Letterboxd sticky long after initial log curiosity wore off.

Congrats on shipping something you actually wanted to exist — those always have the clearest product instincts.

The live-show detail gives you a moment that is inherently social: ‘I saw this comedian in [city] on [date].’ I’d make a shareable card optional after a live log, then test it with a small group before building more social features. It could create both a personal memory and a repeatable discovery path without asking users to invite their whole network.

The live-show logs are the asset nobody else has. Streaming catalogs are commodity data, but a record of who actually paid to sit in a room for a given comedian is intent data that venues and promoters cannot buy anywhere, and that is a business long before consumer subscriptions are. I'd over-invest in making live entry effortless even if it costs you some streaming UX.

Wow

Very cool idea

The catalog is a great wedge because it turns a broad “social app” idea into a very specific habit: log the thing you watched and find it again. I’d measure the loop from first search to second log, then use missing-special requests to prioritize catalog work rather than trying to make everything complete at once. Partnerships with comedians could also create trusted entry points without needing a huge audience upfront.

Love this — the "Letterboxd but for stand-up" gap always seemed obvious in hindsight, which usually means it's a good idea nobody bothered building.
The catalog cleanup point resonates hard. I went through something similar on a much smaller scale (a niche calculator) — the actual product logic was the easy part, and the unglamorous data-quality work ate way more time than expected. Tours listed as filmed specials is such a specific, annoying failure mode; good on you for catching that instead of shipping around it.
The "seen live counts double emotionally" line is a nice touch too — that's the kind of detail that makes a niche log feel like it's actually for the people who care, not just a generic tracker with a comedy skin.
Just searched for a special I watched recently and it was in there — nice work. Following to see how the catalog holds up as more people start logging.
This works because it's specific to their actual pain points (catalog quality, not just "cool idea"), shows you engaged with the details they cared about most, and ends with a natural, low-pressure signal of genuine interest.

Love this — the Letterboxd model fits comedy really well. I'm building a social app too (group planning) and the hardest part has been the friend-group cold start: getting person #2 to join. Are you seeding the catalog manually, and how are you thinking about that second-user problem?

Congrats on getting the catalog to 1,246 specials. I like that you are treating missing metadata as a product problem instead of pretending search alone will solve it. I would be curious whether a lightweight “request this special” queue becomes a useful loop for prioritizing catalog work and bringing early fans back. The double emotional credit for live shows is a great detail.

The catalog hygiene problem is real, but it's a prerequisite, not your actual product. Your measurement should separate these: catalog accuracy is the cost of entry (you lose if it's wrong), but repeat usage is what determines if you've built something people actually need. Letterboxd won because people return to log what they watched and see what friends are watching - not because the catalog is complete. I'd watch your 7-day and 30-day return rates harder than catalog size. If >40% of first-time loggers log a second time within a week, you've found something. If it's <20%, then "my special is missing" is covering for "I don't log unless I'm bored."