4 ms·
I used to be the idea guy no one likes. I always had these Grand ideas that I would rattle off to friends and colleagues. We would go and white board them out.
by lbacaj 8y ago
I used to be the idea guy no one likes. I always had these Grand ideas that I would rattle off to friends and colleagues. We would go and white board them out. We would eat lunch over them and discuss them, point by point by point.
In the end, nothing. Nothing would materialize, we would start some work then realize how much effort these grand schemes were and get completely discouraged.
Then I forced myself to stop rattling off these crazy ideas, instead just whisper the big vision to myself and break it down to its smallest viable parts for building (aka MVP) and go off try to build that. After trying about 3 different ones so far and failing to get any traction on those 3 I have the pain of having spent my nights and weekends trying to make ideas work.
I no longer rattle off crazy ideas to people because I’ve come to understand what it actually means to go off and build them.
As a little self promotion, my latest idea (I know right) is actually kind of working but it took a ton of effort and I am afraid to even talk about the grand vision but non the less have been chipping away at it on the weekends.
I built an app that lets you listen to any Article on the go so you can maximize that dead time on your commute or when biking. The app is cross platform and uses some beautiful sounding AI ML models to convert Text to Audio.
You can try it here if you have the time, but just know it took a ton of effort and discipline to go from Idea to App.
https://articulu.com https://articulu.com
- dsaavy 8y agoDownloaded it to give it a try and compare against an app I’ve been using called Speechify (heard about that one on a podcast). Congrats on getting an idea to materialize, you’re right in that’s the hardest part!
- fouc 8y agoLast year I spent close to 5 months making a Grand idea come to fruition. It's given me a greater appreciation for product management and UX design, because it sure ain't easy.
- p1esk 8y agoAre you using Wavenet for text to speech?
- rocmcd 8y agoJust an anecdotal data point - on your landing page, you may want to consider adding a small demo of what the playback sounds like. I like the idea of articulu, but I'm not going to download and install an app without hearing what it sounds like first.
- FiddlyPack 8y agoI have wanted this app since I first start preferring using mobile devices as audio-only rather than screen-first. Unfortunately, iOS and Android both seem to be further away from supporting that use-case OOTB than they were in 2013. Anyway, thanks for making this.
- bckmn 8y agoIf anyone's interested in this space/solution, we've been running Narro (https://www.narro.co https://www.narro.co) along the same lines (with a TON of integrations now) for years. It also supports dozens of languages/voices, PDFs, ebooks, videos, publisher analytics, yadda yadda yadda
- amelius 8y agoJust a small point: you have 7 (seven!) play buttons on that splash page, but none of them work! Also, there is an "Add article" button, and it doesn't work either ...
- sp0tby 8y agoHey! I love the idea for your app. I've looked for something like this several times. Quick suggestion.. you should put a sample of the voice quality on your website so people can hear it before installing it.
- jaredcwhite 8y agoHey, thanks for sharing that app link. Checking it out on my iPhone now and it's pretty impressive!
- DyslexicAtheist 8y ago> ... I no longer rattle off crazy ideas to people because I’ve come to understand ... From Baltasar Gracián, "The Art of Worldly Wisdom"[1]: Keep Matters for a Time in Suspense. Admiration at their novelty heightens the value of your achievements, It is both useless and insipid to play with the cards on the table. If you do not declare yourself immediately, you arouse expectation, especially when the importance of your position makes you the object of general attention. Mix a little mystery with everything, and the very mystery arouses veneration. And when you explain, be not too explicit, just as you do not expose your inmost thoughts in ordinary intercourse. Cautious silence is the holy of holies of worldly wisdom. A resolution declared is never highly thought of; it only leaves room for criticism. And if it happens to fail, you are doubly unfortunate. Besides you imitate the Divine way when you cause men to wonder and watch. [1] https://archive.org/download/artworldlywisdo00jacogoog/artworldlywisdo00jacogoog.pdf https://archive.org/download/artworldlywisdo00jacogoog/artwo...
- rajacombinator 8y agoGood step. Next step is learn to sell your ideas before building anything!
- gxqoz 8y agoHow does this compare to the text-to-speech feature in an app like Pocket?