Three months of talking instead of typing: 162 hours saved. Now building the archive-first dictation app I always wanted
I've been dictating everything on my Mac for three months — 11,669 dictations, 495k words, 188 WPM average against my ~40 WPM typing. The app's own stats page says 162 hours saved.
But the number that actually changed my mind wasn't speed. It was search: every dictation (audio + text) lands in a local archive, and I keep finding myself pulling up things I said weeks ago — the plot of a feature I'd talked through weeks earlier, the exact wording I gave a customer. Every other dictation tool throws that away.
So that's the bet Acousmos makes: dictation where your voice becomes an asset, not disposable input. Mac only, solo, bootstrapped, $0 MRR, launching properly soon.
Curious about one thing from folks here: when you dictate, do you ever wish you could find what you said again — or is that just me?
What stood out to me is that your insight isn't about dictation—it's about memory.
Most dictation apps optimize for getting words onto the screen. You're optimizing for making spoken thinking retrievable weeks later. That's a fundamentally different job, and I think it's where the real long-term value is.
"Memory" is honestly a sharper word than any I've used for it — thank you for that.
You're right that it's a different job. The design consequence I keep coming back to: memory only works if capture costs nothing. Nobody maintains a separate "record my thoughts" habit for long. So the archive isn't a feature you use — it's a byproduct of typing by voice. You dictate because it's faster, and the memory builds itself on the side.
The retrieval moment that sold me: I half-remembered a phrase from a feature plan I'd talked through three weeks earlier — found it in three seconds, and replayed my own voice working out the idea.
Curious what retrieval would need to look like for you to trust it with your thinking — full-text search is table stakes, but I wonder what else.
Interesting question.
Your example made me think about one implication of building a product around retrieval that I don't think I can explain properly in a thread without oversimplifying it.
I think it's much easier to discuss against a real example than in a few public comments.
If you're interested, what's the best email to reach you on?
Sure — the support email on the Acousmos site reaches me. Happy to hear it here in the thread too, if it turns out to fit after all.
Thanks! I’ve just sent it over.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts whenever you have a chance.