I'm going head-to-head with Blinkist. I need beta testers!
Hello IH folks!
After the successful launch of Habitify - my first app - I've decided to play a bigger game: book summary.
I have a lot of friends who are long-time Blinkist users, and I often receive lots of complaints regarding the unpleasant experience scrolling through stock photos and buggy offline experience.
I believe everyone wants a seamless, desirable reading experience to learn the most out of their spent bucks.
So I created Summerian, a book summary app that is available on ALL platforms you own: from your phone, laptop, watch, smart speaker to TV. Similar to Handsoff of Apple, you can pick up your reading/listening where you stop in other platforms almost instantly.
The app is in beta stage and I have around 100 invites to try the app (with a library of 400 books) for free. I sincerely hope to hear your opinion about the app USP and if this choice of mine to go head-to-head with the market leader is wise.
Here's the beta: https://summerian.net/
Thanks a lot!
I have been a blinkist user. I signed up for a yearly plan, but I stopped bothering with their "summaries" after 2-3 days.
The main problem in my experience are not bugs (I would say that the android app is solid) or stock photos (honestly, who cares?) but the fact that the summaries totally suck. To test the quality, I read only summaries of books I had read (over 10+). And it looked like a completely different book.
The original books are trivialized and simplified beyond the necessary and blinkist summaries deliver zero value. So in my experience, you should focus on that.
And again in my experience giving yourself a time-frame (15 minutes in your case) is generally a bad idea. The book should give you the time-constraints you need. Some books require a 40-minutes summary, others 5 minutes.
Anyway, I will look at your summaries and will let you know.
Edit (additional feedback): I couldn't access to the summaries. I got sent to "about:blank#blocked". I completed your questionnaire and in my opinion you should add multiple-answers to the questions.
Agree 100%.
I think a UGC version of blinkist where I could follow specific users I trust/whose notes I enjoy. For example, I really like Derek Sivers' book notes, and find they match my notes for the same books.
Here's a link: https://sivers.org/book
I don't need a whole summary, just notes / key takeaways and a rating.
I think the affiliate revenue from amazon would be significant, and you could even have sponsorships or have users pay to be featured once you have enough users.
I agree with you that it is possible to build a website/app like this based entirely on affiliate revenue and I suppose it is blinkist real business model (I can't explain otherwise the quality of their summaries).
My question is if it is possible to build it from scratch today, in a market where there are lots of competitors. Clearly, the answer depends on the size of the team you need to sustain.
I agree with you on the key takeaways format too. Not only delivers the same value to the reader, but it is also a lot simpler for the note taker. A good summary needs to be a pleasant read and have a good story telling, something that it isn't necessary in notes/key takeaways. And I would argue that it is one of the most difficult and time-consuming tasks.
@Luqa, I think the perception of "summaries" depends on who's talking. Would you like to try out our summaries to see if we should make any adjustments?
Does Goodreads offer this option? (Haven't used it)
Thanks for the example of Derek Silvers. I love it!
I think if we develop the app and grow the community large enough, at some points we may have the user's generated summaries/notes after which you can choose to follow.
I haven't thought about amazon's affiliate revenue. Do you think it will exceed the user subscription?
Hey, you will be sent the beta app later and you can access the summaries from there. It's better to use an app to read them/listen to them imo :)
Our summaries are done by over 30 professional linguists, with 6 rounds from reading to final delivery, hopefully it will live up to your expectation!
I was just going to say the same thing. The summaries are way to short to provide real value. So I agree, that's the main problem to fix
@RomaTesla yeah I think the more we do this, the better we can understand your needs and change the reviews accordingly. Luckily, it's not generated by any robots so we can easily make adjustments
Having a market leader means there is a market. I would go thru all the online reviews on the web and app store to understand what are the issues with the existing leader. It's normal for the leader to ignore and not be able to add or iterate as fast as a startup.
You have to do something better or different to stand out. Don't fight on the price to the bottom. Build it for a niche that the market leader is ignoring cause maybe its too small for them but it might not be for you.
Yes I agree that price war is the least preferable option, especially when our market leader has raised a lot of funds.
My philosophy is to focus on the product and solves the problem to the root.
your focus should be the customer if you're interested in making money.
If your making the product for personal use as the main objective then focus on product is my advice.
^ This
I've not used Blinkist but have a subscription to Readitfor.me if you are looking for another player in this niche to compare.
big fan of blinkist , signed up for beta use. Looking forward to trying it out! Will submit feedback.
Hi Peter, fellow Indie Hacker and book lover here. I'm creating Readlist.io -- a community to discover and share great books. I'd love to try your product!
I read a lot of books and have considered signing up to Blinkist, but deep down I guess I don't really think (good) books can be summarized in 15 minutes. But I could be wrong! So I'd like to give your service a try =)
Hi! Nice to meet you. For me personally, I agree that the good and detail-rich books cannot be simply summarized in 15 minutes. That's something we're trying to reach a consensus within the team.
Oh and I love your community! We can certainly collaborate!
Sounds good, stay in touch
Love this. Id love to help test!
Hey you can sign up using the link above!
I support any David v. Goliath story ;)
Doesn't matter that it's the market leader. If the users hate the app, there's room for a better one.
Just signed up!
Thanks Frank! You really motivated me!
I love what this guy is doing:
https://fourminutebooks.com/book-summaries/
Hey Peter,
Interesting Product, good luck!
I have once tried Blinkist, but for some reason decided it was not worth it. I read the free book everyday for about a week and just didn't find it interesting or worth the 15 minutes. I would much rather read a blog post by an Indiehacker or something like that. Much more value.
Signed up and good luck :)
Oh thanksss! Did you join the slack group too?
Not a fan of slack I use telegram and discord
All right! I will email you then!
This comment was deleted 3 years ago
Hey, you can access the summaries from within the beta, which will be sent to you later tomorrow!
About the book titles, I'm just using the stocks I gathered from the internet. The landing page will surely be redesigned!