Roast My Idea: The science of memory retention - This app can help you remember the books you read
Hi all!
So doing things a bit backwards as far as LEAN startups go - but I've finally finished building an MVP of my app, and now I'm ready to see if there's any interest in it, before I sink more time into it lol.
The Premise:
Our brains are not designed to remember everything we read, which is why many of us struggle to retain information from the books we consume. People waste so much time and effort reading, highlighting, and taking notes only to forget amazing insights, learnings and quotes that can inform and guide the way they live their lives. Some people might even go back to re-read a book just to refresh their memory, instead of learning something new!
The Idea:
Science has has shown us that techniques such as spaced repetition has been proven to increase long-term retention. Spaced repetition basically involves reviewing information at increasing intervals to reduce the chance of forgetting.
That's where Dripreader comes in. By using a scientifically designed reminder system based on spaced repetition, Dripreader will help the notes and learnings from the books you read become solidified in long-term memory.
The App:
The app would have an easy way you can enter your highlights, notes, summaries/etc of a book that you've read. It would even have an AI-assistant which helps you curate good notes. The notes then get queued up in a spaced repetition algorithm that calculates when to show you your notes again. More frequently at first, then gradually spacing it out further and further.
Market Positioning:
Competitors like Blinkist or StoryShots have a wildly successful business model of providing the key summaries of books. But I think that firstly, the summaries aren't really all that memorable because someone else creates them for you. And secondly they also fall into the trap of being forgotten about. This app would sit along side them to be an option for people to even put their notes from Blinkist in, so that they become part of their review cycle.
I've put together a basic landing page, using yep.so from another indie hacker on here. https://www.dripreader.com/ And the app itself I built a working MVP in appGyver but looking to re-build on bubble if there is any traction.
So, what do you think? I'm open to any feedback, positive or negative, to help improve the idea. Let me know if you think Dripreader is worth building!
I don't think your competition is Blinkist/StoryShots/Shortform, but note-taking apps like Obsidian, Evernote, Notion, etc.
this is a much more challenging market to compete in, and your idea not presenting enough differentiation from the existing apps.
as an avid Obsidian user myself, I would not use this app because I can implement this exact process on the app (with an extension for flashcards & spaced repetition and another one for AI assistance) while leveraging the other benefits the app has to offer (locally & privacy first note taking app with a vast community)
Am an avid book lover and deep researcher. I would not use an app like Dripreader because it would take me to another place.
LP is too stock fm, so would move on instantly.
Good point actually! The people who this would benefit would most likely already have their own system for taking notes.
Whilst the benefit of the spaced repetition system is something that is unique, you're probably right there might not be enough to change behaviour and use another platform.
Maybe you're right in that this pivots to being an API service or chrome extension. User can copy-rightClick-startDrip that then queues it up into the spaced repetition system.
Edit: Oh yeah - voice transcription using the whisper ai is something I'm keen to add for myself. As in being able to say 'Hey Siri...Take a Drip Note' or something and it will start a recording that you can say your note.
Voice activation never worked for me. dont use siri. Never understands me. grr
I would love 1-tap and it knows what to do. Please consider reaching out to voicedream as they need your bright ideas!
I can relate to the problem described. As others have pointed out, I probably wouldn't want to create another place for notes, etc., especially if I have to create them manually. What I would find very compelling would be a fully automated system that tracks exactly what I am reading (i.e. how far along I am in a book) and then automatically creates short summaries or knowledge snippets that are put into a spaced repetition or similar system. For example, I might sometimes switch between several books on the same topic. Or I might stop reading a book and pick it up a few weeks later. Having content tailored to my individual progress would be very helpful.
I'm an avid reader and I think you're spot on about the problems you mentioned. I wanted to let you know about Readwise - they target the same problem as you! (Not to discourage you, but just so you can assess the market, consumers well)
Oh man this is very similar! Yeah shame I didn't see this when I set out to build mine lol. Still though, like I said, I'm doing this backwards market validation after product lol but definitely learnt a lot and have built a tool that's bespoke to my own needs at least.
For sure, and don't let a competitor stop you. If anything, it validates that the problem and a market exists.
Of the top of my head, you could consider offering different price points for different countries ($7 is cheap in US, but not so in other countries). You can experiment with a usage based pricing model, or something of the sort.
Good points. I do tend to give up too quickly and it probably warrants at least a bit more validation. What would you say would be a good way to validate demand from here?
I think the demand itself is validated (a pretty successful company exists!).
Here is what I'd do next (roughly):
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The notes then get queued up in a spaced repetition algorithm that calculates when to show you your notes again.
As an avid notetaker and book reader, have you heard of mymind.com and Imprint: Learn Visually? I believe doing AI in helping organize notes in mymind has a lot of potential but I'm not a fan of the learning aspect with books vs Imprint. Maybe you can elaborate more?
wow, what a beautiful website ! the ui 👏 Fab 😎
I'm Aditya. How you came into coding ? 🙃
Great idea
This will first require a great not taking app which can then integrate with an LLM ai which can summarize the notes.
I like the spaced repetition idea which can be really valuable especially for students.
Also what will prevent note taking apps like notion evernote to implement something like this?
Good luck
Amar Desai
Twitter : @amardesai