Scratched my own itch for far too long
by SimonI love learning from books. There is so much inspiration and good advice out there. At the same time though, I always struggled to remember and apply all those learnings. A few of you can probably relate to that.
Last year, I became fascinated with the science of learning. How does memory work? What are the best ways to retain knowledge? For books, it turns out it is all about active reading 📚. Engaging with the content, marking interesting passages and making your own notes. But what happens next? How could I make more out of my notes? I finally found a problem I really wanted to work on.
More than a year and over a thousand hours of development later, I finally have something I want to share with you fellow indie hackers.
I should not have waited this long, I know! 🙈
A big part of this past year was learning about new technologies and acquiring new skills. This is my first web app after all! Let me know what you think! :)
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Wow, great idea and execution. It feels like you got into my life and found what I needed, without me even knowing I needed it. Keep us updated!
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Glad you find it interesting :) Looking forward to your thoughts after using the app.
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Man, this looks incredibly polished and high quality. Made me request access immediately.
I'm on the same boat as we spent tons of time working on our product before releasing it. People often talk about the downsides of "not getting user feedback" early, and that definitely matters. But there is also upside.
When you spend time polishing your work and release something that looks professional and ready to use on day one, that has a huge impact on user experience. It makes people treat you as a real business, not just a side project. They will more willingly buy from you and give you harsher feedback, which is a good thing.
So it might not be so bad to have waited after all.
Congratulations, can't wait to try it!
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That means a lot to me! :)
I agree, there are definitely two sides to this. It's also probably easier to get away with releasing late when you actually solve a problem for yourself. Looking forward to your feedback on the actual product!
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Well done and congrats on launching your product.
It looks very professional and you've definitely put the work in to make it high quality!I've just started learning to dev as well, I've worked on a few projects in the past but I've had to rely on outsourcing which hasn't helped. So I've decided to start coding my self!
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Thank you so much! :)
Yeah I bet, outsourcing can be very difficult. Especially for / as a startup.
Just reach out to me with your project / idea and we can discuss it further. Until then, best of luck! -
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On that note, my first practice project is in the self development space. It's also something I"m building to scratch my own itch!
We should connect further I think there might be room to collaborate in some way- if I get more serious with it.
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Congrats! It’s definitely useful.
The source can probably be expanded to not just books but also articles, tutorials, blogs as well.
How do you plan to charge money?-
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Thanks! :) It can really be any kind of knowledge. I use it for my lectures at university now as well.
Thats something I have not decided on yet. Any suggestions?
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I see, that is great to know.
Charging directly from end consumers might be hard, if you go to that route maybe consider a freemium model? some features are only available through a paid plan?
Have you considered selling to businesses or other education institutes? Could be useful for companies to train their employees, during the onboarding process, e.g., new engineer boot camps.
Just my 2 cents.-
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Freemium might be the way to go. I also thought about giving access to all features, but limiting the amount of content you can have in a free account. Similar to what Notion did initially.
I haven't really tried anything when it coms to B2B. Although especially education institutes could be really interesting, i agree!
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Great idea! I think many people would benefit from other people's notes. Maybe public-facing notes for free and private notes at a monthly fee?
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I think so too! There are big plans for making it more social. Interesting idea connecting this to monetization, thank you! Thinking about this topic for some time already.
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This looks great - signed up.
Curious to know how you plan to execute the retention improvement features. Is there some element of spaced repetition? I used to engineer at a. EdTech startup, we should connect sometime.
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Awesome! Sent you an invite. Let me know what you think of the app once you got to try it :) Would love to talk about retention features in detail.
Yes there is. You can add learning cards to your knowledge - either a question that makes you recall the content, or a simple review card that makes you read it again. That all works using a spaced repetition algorithm.
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Awesome thanks! Will do.
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Looks great!
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Very cool! This was your first web app!?
Just signed up! I've already got a feature request for you if you're interested.I enjoy learning mathematics on the side, but it is very abstract so it can be difficult to memorize things as you go. If you don't support it already could you add support for LaTeX (https://www.latex-project.org/) in the future?
So that if I'm going through a book or a course I could record down equations as I go?
I'd be willing to bet I'm not the only person who would like that :)-
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Yes it was! I worked some time as an android dev before though.
After looking at it for a bit, I found that I could add a "add formula" functionality quite quickly - similar to what you kind find here: https://quilljs.com/standalone/full/ (try the f(x) button in the second row). Would that help already?
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Yes that it would definitely help me get started. I appreciate it!
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Just so you know, math formula support is now working! It uses TeX (https://katex.org/docs/supported.html) so its pretty powerful.
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Thank you! Looks great!
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Looks awesome
How did you make the graphics?
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Thanks! You mean the animated drawings? I used https://www.svgator.com/ to make animated SVGs.
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Very design-ish. Prob that's the place where you spent the most of your time!
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Well, I haven't tracked how much time exactly 😁 but yes when I develop something new I find myself just looking at the UI and moving pixels around
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MVP: maximum viable product :P
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Let's call it a SLC instead 😁 see todays post from @HermanMartinus
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hahah
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