Spanish Audio Drills

Version 1.0 of Spanish Audio Drills now... exists!

Plenty of tweaking/updating/building to do, but getting this project live on the Internet 10 months after having the initial idea feels... pretty big!

https://spanishaudiodrills.com

Now, onto getting some feedback, creating some content, and making it better for Version 1.2
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Tools used:
Notion (back-end/database/content)
Super (front-end)
Clip Collider (custom internal tool)
Audio Drills Player (custom-made player)

Time to take a nap.

I've tweeted 4-5 times now as I start my #buildinpublic journey on Twitter.

The first thing I've noticed are the same accounts liking specific tweets but not engaging in any other way.

I read the bios of these accounts they state they are "indie hackers" and are "building in public" too.... cool! Except...

I realized the only tweets they "like" are the ones where I tag #buildinpublic...

So I'm realizing now that they're likely using twitter bots or other tools to like my tweets in hopes that I'll follow them or engage, etc.

I'm not really against this type of marketing automation, but I wonder how successful relying on solely this type of automation will help these accounts grow or build a network?

My background is in marketing and product management and I'm not an expert on the technical side of things. But naturally, a lot of Indie Hackers here are on the engineering and development side of things, trying to build SaaS products, etc.

In previous businesses I've started, I noticed this pattern, too -

SaaS builders are often really good at building a product, but rely heavily on other SaaS products and automated services to offload their marketing, sales, and brand awareness.

Unfortunately, in a sea of bots-that-like-tweets, I'm not sure this type of auto-engagement will haver a meaningful effect.

I guess we'll see!

I guess the question is this: Can you just build the product and rely on automation to market and sell your SaaS? Or does it require more of a human strategy and effort to get to $10k/MRR?

What SaaS builders have had experience with this?

A Flashtrack is a flashcard for your ears - and the foundation of all Spanish Audio Drills.

I spent months trying to figure out the right formula for Spanish Audio Drill "Flashtracks" (i.e. Flashcards for your ears)

After about 1 billion variations, I determined this will be the MVP 1.0 version...

Here is a version 1.0 Flashtrack for the phrase "No hay de qué" ("You're welcome")...

https://bit.ly/44jxKgd

This MVP version incorporates:

1. a ton of formula feedback/edits
2. hiring a VO guy for instructions
3. creating a system for TTS AI voices
4. creating a system for scraping real examples off youtube
5. smashing it all together cleanly

The main goals of a Flashtrack are to:

1. Help you understand the meaning of the phrase
2. DRILL the phrase into your head with repetitions (at different speeds)
3. and most importantly, see if you can pick out the phrase within sloppy, real-life contexts

Although I've been working on Spanish Audio Drills for more than 8-9 months now (Oct/Nov 2022), I've decided to sharing how it's going.

I'm doing it mostly to create a routine of self-accountability, but also because building alone can be frustrating - when the days are good, when the days are bad... if no one else knows what's going on, it requires even more self-motivation to keep pushing forward.

I hope by posting often about how it's going, I gather both feedback AND momentum.

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PROJECT BACKGROUND:

I'm working on a unique Spanish-learning project that combines my desire to drastically improve my Spanish with something I already enjoy doing - creating new ideas and building small online businesses.

The project revolves around creating what I'm calling "audio drills" or "audio flashcards". Basically, I'm creating 50-70 second audio tracks that focus on one commonly used Spanish phrase at a time. The track uses multiple repetitions of the phrase and then three short example audio clips that use the phrase (which are scraped from YouTube videos) to help imprint the phrase into the listener's brain using audio only (instead of visual flashcards).

For me, I do like normal visual flashcards for vocabulary and definitions. And I like stories and music and TV/movies for broad "comprehensible input".

But I've found I would like to "drill" key phrases into my brain using repetition - without listening to entire podcasts or watching TV shows OR without trying to translate visual flashcards in my head while trying to listen or speak.

The idea is for this project to help boost my (and others') comprehension and recall speed - in addition/as a complement to Spanish classes, courses, and tutoring, etc.