Roast me 🦃: A 'smart' read-it-later to improve knowledge retention

[johnjarrell]

Hi community,

First of all, thank you for taking the time to read this. I'll try to keep it simple.

The gist of it:​

A read it later app with built in tools and techniques to improve knowledge retention.
This will be in the vein of Readwise, but more 'focused' on knowledge retention with a definite workflow to go from reading to creating a note.

The main features:​

• web extension to import content from any webpage
• an inbox where you can be more selective about what goes into your reading queue. Each import will display the reading time, the main key ideas in a succinct bullet list and the main keywords. This will allow the user to decide whether or not to invest time in the article.
• progressive summarisation: an iterative highlight process in three steps where you narrow down and remove most of the content to keep what matters. The last step is to 'rewrite' the content in your own words, this will be optionally done via AI.
• active recall: generating flashcards from the content using AI + the ability to review them
• spaced repetition: get your highlights in your mailbox
• automatic clear up of the inbox: after X days, the article if unread are removed. This is to nudge people to avoid overconsumption of information and go for quality over quantity.
• export to Obsidian, Notion, etc.
• offline access
• oustanding UX (I am aiming for it at least!)

Market research:​

This is mainly a scratch my own itch issue. I used to pay for Readwise, but it was quite dear for what it was. Now they have reader - which is quite good to be honest - so I want to niche down on their model and aim simplicity/post-read value (i.e. how to remember what you read).

I know that they have invested a fair amount of money in Reader, so I suspect the market to be there.

Right now the main competitor are Readwise, Matter and Instapaper

I need to get proper numbers.

Execution stage:​

I have built a landing page at www.rememberio.com

The copy writing is a work in progress, it's pretty bad at the minute.

I am now designing the MVP and expect a public alpha version in February.

I have pieces done as a PoC.

Getting customers:​

I am a dev, so marketing is new to me.

I am trying to communicate on Twitter and had reasonably good feedback given how small I am (45 followers now).

I have put the landing page out this week and two people subscribe to the wait-list.

Thank you!​

Any feedback is welcome. Roast me and my idea please

Because I am the one asking for help, I am happy to give anyone roasting me a discount of some sort once the platform is up.
Also let me know if you want early access to the MVP sometimes in Feb.

 

[jasdaz]

@johnjarrell Hey buddy, thanks for sharing. So first a few things to your webpage, seems like you used some template which I highly recommend. Some images are missing. I would also under the registration and login buttons not only textually talk about the waiting list but add another form immediately there to sign up to the waiting list to remove friction.

Despite that, I like the idea, seems like a useful product to me. After you said readwise I had a look on their features and it seemed to have a pretty big overlap with your idea. For me it’s not clear enough what you want to differentiate yourself from them.

Imo, try some forums of readwise, check out what their customers say und what some complain about or are lacking. Look at subreddit about building your second brain and offer some rough mvp, see if people like it & stay in contact with them.

Seems like this is mostly a marketing risk, some market seems to be there, see readwise, if you’re a developer I’m sure you can pull off some product. But try to as early as possible find some channels to acquire customers, that seems to be the make or break to make this a valid business model.

Good luck!

 

[johnjarrell]

@jasdaz Wow, this is more than I expected. Thank you so much for your time.

The design is put together using the Figma kit Untitled UI, and I've built it with Next/Tailwind. I actually thought about building a few templates and selling them. I take this as a compliment!

The images are not present, I'm still working on the design of the app so will add them.

I am 100% sure about how to differentiate myself from Readwise yet. I've had that idea in mind for a few years but not the skill to solve it - now readwise has released Reader and it's very similar to what I had in mind (with a lot of extra features).

It was disappointing at first to see that they release the product I was thinking about building, but it validates the idea in a way.

At this stage, my idea is to differentiate by offering a more opinionated workflow about how to transform content into a note for your second brain.

I found an issue we're dealing with is too much information - so I'd love to tackle that issue as a differentiator.

The second differentiator would be simply the price tag. If I can offer a product that has the critical features at a much lower pay point, it could also help.
I can t compete with a whole team of devs on my own, but I can focus on what matters to people.

Reader had a rocky start, so I could try to take advantage of that.

But I think that marketing will be very important here, so I might need to skill up.
I also would need a much smaller market share than them, so there is no reason we couldn't cohabitate..

 

[jasdaz]

@johnjarrell Sure sure! Just as a follow-up on the webpage, don’t get into the technical founders trap (that many of us, me included fell in) where you build the whole product first and then end up realizing that you don’t have a valuable way to get customer validation.

Good for technical upskill, terrible if you actually want to build a profitable business.

The book “lean startup” gives a good high level overview of that, not sure if you have heard about it!

 

[peacenothate]

@johnjarrell You mentioned that the copywriting is pretty bad. I agree.

The writing could be more simple, friendly yet professional. The benefits could be given more focus. And the storytelling element is missing from the landing page.

DM me if you need any help with the copy.

 

[johnjarrell]

@peacenothate Thank you Jim.

I do need to work on it, I finished the landing page yesterday and procrastinated on the copywriting.

Thank you for the advice, I am going to review it.

 

[johnjarrell]

UPDATE:

After doing some research about landing page copy writing, I have:- put out a tweet threads with a list of tips I've learnt as a mini-landing page guide,- updated my copy by applying as many of these tips

Here's the tweet if you are interested:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1740379467724263536

And the updated version is at www.rememberio.com (in a few minutes, currently deploying!)