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Ever wonder how to build a successful start-up from scratch? This week, I'm joined by Louis Pereira, an indie founder who has done just that. Creator of the successful audio transcription product, AudioPen, Louis sheds light on his journey and the calculated risks he took with pricing and subscriptions to validate demand early on. He's a firm believer in building and launching products in public, a practice that he believes played a critical role in growing his audience and gaining traction — and it paid off mightily.
This isn't just a conversation about entrepreneurial success; it's a deep dive into the inner workings of a product, from handling customer conversations to managing bug reports and feature requests. Enjoy the inside view of a successful business on the rise.
00:00:01 Indie Founder Discusses Building Successful Startup
00:10:30 Building Features and Handling Customer Conversations
00:18:38 Building Business Trust
00:26:38 Building in Public and Unexpected Success
00:38:36 "Hackathon Launch Strategies and Productivity Mindset"
00:43:55 The Value of Reading and Accessibility
00:53:41 The Impact of Writing Tools
Louis on Twitter: https://twitter.com/louispereira/
Louis' website: https://louispereira.xyz/
AudioPen: https://tbf.link/audiopen
The blog post: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/louis-pereira-when-an-indie-hacker-strikes-gold/
This isn't just a conversation about entrepreneurial success; it's a deep dive into the inner workings of a product, from handling customer conversations to managing bug reports and feature requests. Enjoy the inside view of a successful business on the rise.
00:00:01 Indie Founder Discusses Building Successful Startup
00:10:30 Building Features and Handling Customer Conversations
00:18:38 Building Business Trust
00:26:38 Building in Public and Unexpected Success
00:38:36 "Hackathon Launch Strategies and Productivity Mindset"
00:43:55 The Value of Reading and Accessibility
00:53:41 The Impact of Writing Tools
Louis on Twitter: https://twitter.com/louispereira/
Louis' website: https://louispereira.xyz/
AudioPen: https://tbf.link/audiopen
The blog post: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/louis-pereira-when-an-indie-hacker-strikes-gold/
The podcast episode: https://share.transistor.fm/s/ad81b535
You'll find my weekly article on my blog: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com
Newsletter: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/newsletter
My book Zero to Sold: https://zerotosold.com/
My book The Embedded Entrepreneur: https://embeddedentrepreneur.com/
My course Find Your Following: https://findyourfollowing.com
This episode is sponsored by Acquire.com
- (00:01) - Indie Founder Discusses Building Successful Startup
- (10:30) - Building Features and Handling Customer Conversations
- (18:38) - Building Business Trust
- (26:38) - Building in Public and Unexpected Success
- (38:36) - "Hackathon Launch Strategies and Productivity Mindset"
- (43:55) - The Value of Reading and Accessibility
- (53:41) - The Impact of Writing Tools
Creators & Guests
What is The Bootstrapped Founder?
Arvid Kahl talks about starting and bootstrapping businesses, how to build an audience, and how to build in public.
Arvid Kahl: Welcome to The
Bootstrapped Founder. Today, I'm
talking to Louis Pereira. He's
the maker behind the audio
transcription product, Audio
Pen, which recently became very
successful after many not so
great attempts at building other
businesses. Louis shares his
insights into how he approached
pricing and subscriptions to
validate demand early on. And
then he dives into the
importance of building and
launching products in public to
grow an audience and gain early
traction, the true indie hacker
way. And I use his product every
week. It's really cool. And the
story of it is even cooler.
Before we dive into our chat, a
quick thank you to our sponsor,
acquire.com. More on that later.
Now, here's Louis.
It rarely happens that an indie
hacker makes it into TechCrunch
with their product, but you did
and your product Audio Pen is
seeing massive success at this
point. And it looks like you
came out of nowhere. It's
really, really cool. Big
congratulations on that. And
before we dive into how you
perform that miracle of getting
into TechCrunch and having an
amazing product that people
really like, let me ask you
this. How does it feel to hit it
this big? Was it a surprise?
Like how are you feeling right now?
Louis Pereira: Feeling pretty
good. Although like, it's like,
I would have expected it to have
happened sooner. Like I've been
at it for a while now. It's not
that it was my first swing and
you know, it was a hit. I've
swung 10 to 15 times maybe more.
And it was quite a difficult
journey throughout, you know,
difficult in the sense like
lacking monetary success. It was
enjoyable for sure. And I think
that's why sort of managed to
make these whatever 10-15 swings
until one finally, you know,
struck whatever gold. But it
feels good. Like, I know that
it's rare because at least for
me, it's rare because I've tried
so many times and I've finally
gotten one product that seems to
be doing quite well,
unexpectedly, that too. So
definitely feels good, feels
extremely grateful, you know,
that it happened. But like
having said that, like I feel
like if you keep swinging,
eventually, like you will hit
six, right? Like if you've got a
dice and you just keep rolling
it, it's gonna hit six at some
point. The game is to figure out
what dice you want to keep
rolling and what dice can you
keep rolling without getting
bored?
Arvid Kahl: Yeah, I do wonder
because I looked into your
previous project. You do list
them on your website and
everything, which is really
cool. You've tried a lot of
different things, right? You've
went into, I think niche lists
the blogging microblogging
platform. You had a like read
something great. You had a
curated articles. Do nothing for
a minute, that's one of my
favorites. So I just encourage
people to do nothing. But I feel
like with this product, in
particular, you have found like
what I would call product market
fit. There's a real need for
what you're currently providing
with Audio Pen. So I would like
to ask you about what do you see
being different about this
particular product? Or maybe not
even the product, but how you
approached it that resulted in a
much, much bigger kind of
audience for and customer base
of the product?
Louis Pereira: Yeah, I mean, I
don't want to take credit for,
you know, discovering this
untapped need of finding product
market fit through some sort of
rigorous procedure of feedback
and stuff because it. Like it
wasn't very intentional. I've
said this before. I think most
people that follow me will know
that I've said, Audio Pen was
quite an accident. I was just
building. I built about five
tools that week on my own
website, like tiny tools on my
own website without any
intention of making them
standalone tools or commercial
tools. I wanted to just learn
how to use open API's. And I was
trying to use them in a slightly
more novel way rather than you
know, try and you know, just use
one API and go from A to B. I
wanted to see what if I combined
a couple, you know, do a couple
of interesting things, see what
happens. And because I'd been in
the space, it was a bunch of
factors that came together. Like
I'd been in the space building
for a few years. I had a
relevant sort of Twitter
audience, not very large but
quite relevant. I had been
building publicly for a while.
People had used my products
before. And while I was doing
these experiments, I used to
talk about them on Twitter. Like
I just tweet about each one of
these tiny tools that week. And
I managed to hit some sort of a
chord with Audio Pen that I
didn't expect, like I got a lot
of sudden positive feedback from
people in my DMs and not too
much of it but enough of it to
make me sort of think twice
because I personally I'm not an
audio you know, notes sort of
person. I don't take voice notes
very often. Now I do but before
that I didn't. So I was like
okay, a bit taken aback as to
like this seems to have hit some
sort of a chord with people,
struck some sort of a chord with
people. Like maybe I should just
sort of zoom in and see if I can
build something out of this. So
I mean, I don't want to seem
like I'm some sort of Steve Jobs
that, you know, figure out what
the customer wants without the
customer knowing it. I stumbled
upon it. But I had been playing
the game long enough that, you
know, it worked in my favor.
Stumbled upon it, but it was a
function of taking so many
swings that, you know, I got
lucky in one of them. So yeah,
product market fit for me was if
I've reached it and maybe I
have. I don't know. If I've
reached it, it's not for my
genius or anything. It's just a
function of playing multiple
rounds and hitting one.
Arvid Kahl: Yeah, that does make
sense. It's a nice and humble
perspective on being at the
right place at the right time
with the right not just idea,
but also with the willingness to
just execute it to see if it
sticks, right? That's a big
difference because everybody has
cool ideas, but building it,
even if it's just a prototype,
that is too much for most. So
just having that and other
things that didn't work. And
seeing what the market resonates
with is an interesting approach.
It is a scattershot approach,
though, right? It's kind of you
try all these things and you see
what sticks. That tends to waste
a lot of energy and time. And
but since you did it, the time
that you invested and the other
things is not wasted. It's just
you know, it's now being
hopefully pulled into the
product that is actually working
out the bet that is going well.
So tell me more about like how
well Audio Pen actually is doing
if you're willing to divulge
these numbers? How many
customers or users do you
currently have with the product?
Louis Pereira: At the moment in
terms of registered users about
30,000, including free.
Arvid Kahl: Right. Okay, well,
yeah, it sounds like to me, I've
been thinking a little bit about
this being a user of the
product, I obviously want it to
keep succeeding and sticking
around, right? That's kind of my
interest as well. And I've been
thinking about it from a
developer perspective, from a
business owners perspective,
too. And I was wondering, like
how you deal with platform risk
because there is obviously risk
in building features and
building the wrong features or
going onto native platforms and
building this and that and
whatnot, that that's one of the
features that are one kind of
risks that I guess that you have
to think about. But the other
side is the actual platform that
you're building on, which is
open API's API, how are you
protecting your your business or
your product from your depending
too heavily on that particular
API and those with the platform
underneath it?
Louis Pereira: See at the
moment, I'm trying to get like
backups for it. So for instance,
for instead of whisper, which is
the voice model, I also have a
couple of others that I've got
access to deep Graham, assembly,
etc. They're not as good in
they're as good in certain
respects, but not in others. As
a package, I think opening eyes
is still the best. But I do have
those backups if you know,
things change. As far as like
GBD photo is concerned. I'm
like, I still don't have a very
strong backup I have. I have
like I'm on the waitlist for
Claude hoping to get that soon.
I don't think any others come
close to GBD for yet. But yeah,
hopefully that gets sorted. I
mean, fingers crossed. Until
then, worst case scenario, I'll
just get like another person's
API access or something for a
bit. But I mean, so far, I
haven't heard of any cases
where, you know, folks who've
had API keys revoked or
whatever.
Arvid Kahl: Yeah. Well, that's,
that's kind of, I'm really
hoping for these these models to
be able to be used on the edge,
like on our own self hosted
systems eventually, I mean, that
is always going to be more
expensive, I guess, than just
you know, accessing the API, but
to be able to run a GPT four
model somewhere, right and you
know, own on your own datacenter
on your own Kubernetes cluster
or whatever that would be really
cool. A whisper is an is an
example of this, I use whisper
for my own podcast for this very
podcast. In fact, I, I use it to
get like a preliminary
transcript from which then I
generate potential, you know,
like descriptions for the video,
or tags for the video, all of
this stuff comes from whisper
that I run over the the actual,
you know, the final video files.
So and that is local, that is
just a local installation of
that AI, if you can call it
right, which is just a machine
learned the system there. So
this being available is really
cool. And having that as a
backup option is an interesting
idea. How much of your time do
you spend on a front end or you
know, like feature work compared
to making the business more
stable or more resilient against
platform risk? And what's what's
the split there right now for
you?
Louis Pereira: It depends from
week to week, man, like I'm
looking I'm a solo builder with
no team. So like, for instance,
this week has been terrible
because I wanted to build a
bunch of features. A couple of
days ago, I just like found out
that like audio Ben had been
like blacklisted from a couple
of by a couple of like antivirus
sites, just because there was
like a surge in traffic from a
couple of countries in the
Middle East. That was very
unexpected for me. So I don't
know what sort of traffic it
was. But I spent the past couple
of days just like reaching out
to these people and, you know,
creating false positive reports.
And they've just been like, oh,
sorry, you know, our bad. Like,
here you go. It's clean. Now.
We're like, I spent the better,
half better part of like, what,
48 hours, just frantically
responding and trying to clear
this thing out, like, it's
almost done now, for no fault of
mine, like I can't, like I
didn't do anything wrong. It
just happened. So like on a week
to week basis, like, if there's
no crisis to handle, I would
prefer spending my time building
features because that's what I
genuinely enjoy doing. Of
course, sometimes I have to
force myself to sort of create
content as well, about those
features. Like I've learned the
hard way that if you build too
many features, and customers
don't know that the features
exist, it's pointless having
built those features. So I spent
some time sort of creating
videos, you know, text content,
FAQs, etc, etc. Some tweets
maybe, so that people can sort
of get educated about what I've
what I've built for them. But
otherwise, if I have the time,
and if you left me alone, I
would I would just I would just
build out build from Warrington,
I love it.
Arvid Kahl: Yeah, that's that's
the the in the hacker life,
right? If you could just like
wake up, build cool stuff, go to
bed and repeat. That's fine. I
love it. How much? How much
customer service? Do you have?
How much conversations or how
many conversations do you have
with, with customers or
prospective customers right now?
Louis Pereira: Mostly with
customers. So I don't have a
chatbot. On the website. I
almost actually stumbled upon
this idea as well. And it worked
out quite well for me, where
when I launched the MVP, I think
soon after, or maybe on that day
itself, I didn't have the time
to sort of figure out what
chatbot to kind of add to the
site and, and stuff. So I just
created like a simple little
message box with a button. And
when somebody sends me in a
message, it comes to me as an
email along with that person's
email id that they've registered
with. So you need to be logged
in, in order to chat with or not
to chat, but to email me. And
that's been great. Like, I
don't, I'm not expected to
reply, instantaneously, I get
better responses from people,
like I get better feedback
longer, rather than just a high
or, you know, one or two lines.
Yeah. It's not front and center
on the app. It's not like, you
know, on the first page, you
need to click on the Account
tab, and then you see it. So
it's only people that have
reached a particular threshold
that they feel like, okay, I
need to contact this guy that
contact me. And of course,
besides that people reply to all
of the emails, I send them as
well. So on a weekly basis, I
send emails to to the users, I
get a bunch of replies. On
average, I would say I reply to
maybe 20 people a day, 25 people
a day. And that goes up and
down. depending on you know, if
I've sent out an email today,
then that number might become
you know, 100 for a day or two.
But otherwise 2025
Arvid Kahl: How many of these
are feature requests over
actual, like bug reports?
Louis Pereira: 5050? That's
really, yeah. Because so the
feature requests always come
from from Prime users, because
they've got access to the entire
feature set. And then they know
what they want. So that's it's,
it's sort of limited. If
everybody had access to
everything, I'd probably get
more. And bulk requests usually
come from like the free users
because they aren't like sure
exactly how to do certain
things, or you know, some things
at scale, of course, you end up
getting more bugs than than what
the Prime users experience. But
so far, like, yeah, so far,
there haven't been any like
crazy bugs, a bunch of minor
ones, the start the day, I think
I've sorted out on a couple of
like recurring ones that I know,
I can't sort out until I sort of
go native. Those aren't bugs,
those are actually just just
features that people think are
bugs.
Arvid Kahl: That's that's also a
product education thing, right?
We have to just teach people how
to use the product. Right?
That's, that's always that's
actually
Louis Pereira: an interesting,
that's an interesting thing to
think about, like I spent the
last week trying to think about
what sort of content to create
for people. And then, you know,
I went, I went on this tangent
of thinking, Maybe I should
create a page of like how tos,
you know, and tell people how to
do different things on the app,
like how to, let's say, Change
Your writing style, how to
download a note, etc, etc. And I
almost got started on it. And
then I was like, you know, if I
do this, it's going to encourage
me to create a less intuitive
app, then I start, depending on
this page, to teach users what
to do. That should not be the
case, I should be reworking the
app to make it intuitive enough
for people not to need this page
in the first place. Maybe Of
course, I can build it at a
later date when you have a lot
of users and they don't have
time or whatever. But like at
this URL in the product, like I
should not be needing that page.
I should suffer if my product is
not intuitive enough. And I
should maybe talk to customers
directly to explain it to them.
So at least to have some sort of
interaction with them to
understand what they don't
understand. So I've held off
from that for now.
Arvid Kahl: That's great. That
is a wonderful perspective.
Thanks for sharing it so
eloquently. I think the idea of
having a usable product is so
much stronger than having a good
documentation for an unusable
product, right? Obviously, it's
just, you know, one level
further down the complexity
hatch, right doing the you don't
want the things to be so complex
that you need documentation. I
agree with this, I think that
the problem there is usually
that the moment you change you,
if somebody gets upset, either
somebody who's already used to
the old stuff, or somebody who
wants it differently, like
everybody will get upset about
something at some point, which
is, it's not a solution for the
for the documentation usability
problem, but you that people
tend to not want their UI to
change once they used to it,
which is I think, why most
founders add documentation
rather than making big changes
in the interface. But I guess
you're at a stage where that is
still Yeah.
Louis Pereira: I think I might
have made one or two big changes
in terms of like moving buttons
around and stuff. But so far,
like I've not received, like,
I've received maybe a couple of
complaints about it being like,
Hey, I can't find this. But but
I'm guessing the others have
figured it out.
Arvid Kahl: Yeah, I guess I
guess they must have. One thing
that really interests me is the
subscription level that you have
to prime users, right? You You
have paying customers, which is
great for any any indie hacker
that actually makes money off
their product that is already
quite the accomplishment. When
did you integrate the
subscription level? Was it there
from the start? Or did you add
it at a later point?
Louis Pereira: So I actually
built the first version of the
product during a hackathon that
I organized once every two
months, called half day build.
And the goal of that Hackathon
was is rather to go from idea to
revenue within 12 hours. So I
was forced to have, you know, a
payment link on the website, the
day it went live, like the
minute it went live. So yeah, I
mean, I built it on that. And on
that during our hackathon. And
it was, in fact, I had invited a
bunch of beta users from
Twitter. All right, I just
tweeted out saying, hey, you
know, this product seems like
it's ready to launch. Does
anyone want to be a beta tester?
So I got like, you know, 1015
people that are like, Yeah, I'll
do it. So I gave them access.
And a few of them bought it,
like, it wasn't even live yet. A
few of them bought it. And
that's when I was like, Okay,
I'm gonna, there's something
here, like, I got to double down
on this, and keep making it
better.
Arvid Kahl: That's cool. Yeah,
that's a great, great way to
start, I think, a big lesson
here, put put a payment link
into even the first prototype of
your project, if you want to see
if people find it even valuable
enough at that point, right? To
pay for it. Pricing. How did you
deal with pricing? How did you
set the prices, and you earlier
said that you, you started a bit
too cheap, and you made it more
expensive. So tell me more about
the pricing journey of audio
PIN?
Louis Pereira: Cool. Like, I
like keeping things extremely
simple. When I started off, I
wanted to, like I want I thought
I'd do like a whole
subscription, you know, monthly
thing and stuff. And then I was
just I think I just ran out of
time to like build a whole
subscription thing during that
12 hour. Hackathon. So I said,
let me just do a lifetime deal
for early users. And I priced it
like dirt cheap, it was like $19
for lifetime, with like, GPD for
access and stuff, or whatever I
would pay for at that time.
Maybe it was GPA 3.5. I don't
remember. Service, it is very
cheap. But I was basically
validating demand. And I know
people have this, like there's
this whole debate of like,
should you have a lifetime deal
if you have recurring costs. And
I spent a lot of time thinking
about it. Because of course,
like I have recurring costs,
right? Like every time somebody
uses the product, I pay a small
amount. And my solution to that
was twofold. One is, as I
increase the number of features
in a product, or increase the
amount of ways that a person can
use or wants to use this
product, and if I have a
lifetime deal, I keep increasing
the price of that lifetime. So
for context, the lifetime deal
at once was $19. At the start is
now 150. And people are still
buying it because I've increased
the number of features that I
offered as compared to what it
was at launch. And the second
thing I do is I include an
annual deal as well. And I play
with the pricing with the
pricing ratio of the two until I
get a split that I'm happy with
that is sustainable. So for
instance, right now the annual
pricing is at $75. And the
lifetime deal is at one $50. And
I'm happy with the split the
number of people picking this
over that or that over this. So
I want it to be sustainable like
at any point of time. I need to
be able to service people, at
least morally if you're paying
for a lifetime deal that is
worth twice as much as an annual
deal. I need to be able to
assure you that I will give you
at least two years if not More
at any point of time, if you buy
today, I have to guarantee you
two years are not I mean, I'm
not explicitly guaranteeing it
to people. But like, morally, I
feel that responsibility. So I
make sure that that ratio is
correct for my costs to sort of
be sustainable. And of course,
I'll probably end the lifetime
deal soon, in a couple of
months. But until then, I think
it's a great way to get like
early supporters on board, get
people who, once they've bought
a lifetime deal for your product
become like vocal advocates of
it, because they feel like
they're part of the journey.
They're not just here for a
month, or a year, or whatever,
they're here for life. They want
to see the product get better.
So they give you better
feedback. They want other people
to know that, hey, you know, I
was an early believer in this
product. And I'm part of his
journey. They tell other people
about it. So it's, it's got a
lot of benefits that that I
think are worth considering,
even if you have recurring
costs.
Arvid Kahl: Yeah. Yeah, great
idea. I think the lifetime deals
subsidizes the first, you know,
the first couple months and
years of building this business
where you need to you still you
have pay, you have to pay your
expenses, or anything has to
come from somewhere, and you
have to be able to invest into
it. And at a certain point, you
kind of have to either really
increase the price, as you said,
to make it still valuable, or
just turn off the lifetime
stuff. Now, now turn it off for
people who have it, but turn it
off for new potential customers.
I do wonder what this lifetime
mean to you? Because I think
there's like three or four
different lifetimes that we
could talk about your lifetime,
your products, customers
lifetime, which one which one,
Louis Pereira: if you if you try
to buy a lifetime deal on audio
panel, very explicitly written
in multiple places that you will
have access to the product for
as long as the product is alive.
I don't know how long I'll be
around. Maybe I'm here for 100
years. I don't know if the
product could be around for 100
years, I don't know, maybe you
will be around for 100 years, I
can't guarantee you to be there
for 100 years. If it is great,
like you'll have access
throughout. If it isn't then
like, you know it isn't. But
I've made made sure that that
front and center lifetime is
lifetime of the product. But I
mean, that's important. Yeah.
Arvid Kahl: Do a good job, I
think you have, I think a lot of
people who run lifetime deals
are not that specific. And that
leads to a lot of problems,
right lifetime, it could also
just be of that version of the
product. And I've seen this a
lot recently in the wizard like
video and audio tools that, you
know, like filmora was one of
them. They had a lifetime deal.
And for one version up to like
version 12 or 14, and they
released version 15. And
wouldn't honor lifetime anymore.
And there was this whole outcry
in the community for a pretty
established product, right? It's
a competitor to the DaVinci, or
Premiere Adobe product. So you,
you have a sizable community,
and they were not happy. Like
there was this whole YouTube
outrage about this. And you
don't want to be on the
receiving end of this for as a
business, particularly not as an
indie hacker. So being very
clear with this, that's, that's
great. I'm really happy you made
this very, very clear from the
start for our lifetime. Yeah,
Louis Pereira: I mean, the way I
think about it, like not only
for this decision, but like for
anything I decide with the
product, whatever it may be, I
really like doing this stuff,
right? Like I really like
building like, I've done a lot
of stuff, like I've
experimented, you know, I've
played around, I've done a few
things in life. And I found this
one thing that I really liked
doing actually like building
stuff, you know, like showing it
to the world, sharing it to the
world on the internet. If given
a choice, I want to do this for
the rest of my life. Now, if I
want to do this for the rest of
my life, I cannot afford to lose
people's trust, I cannot just
have them say, Hey, this guy is
a cheat, right? Like, that's the
last day, if that happens, I
stopped being able to do the one
thing that I really like to do.
So like priority above whatever
else, you know, money, whatever
is just customer trust. Because
I like like, I lose if I lose
trust. It's not only that, you
know, I can run away with the
money tomorrow. Like, what will
I do then? Like, I'm going to do
things I don't enjoy that
stupid, why would I want to do
that? So that's like, that's the
lens I look at all of this stuff
from so yeah, I mean, just one
thing that makes me
Arvid Kahl: makes me so happy to
hear this. Like this is such a
such a kind of empowerment focus
perspective. And also it's it's
selfish in the best way you want
to do the thing you love. So you
will not risk like cheating
people. Or the you won't cheat
people just to just to get
something short term, you want
to do this long term. It's a
it's the infinite game theory,
right? You want to play the
infinite game of indie hacking,
instead of just getting short
term.
Louis Pereira: It's very, it's
very difficult. Like I I know
this because like I've tried a
bunch of things in life, right?
I've tried different types of
products, different types of
experiments, etc. And it's not
very easy. Like I have friends
and you know, family, etc, who
haven't yet they're still
trying, they still haven't found
the one thing they like to do.
So I know it's not easy to
stumble upon the thing that you
want to do, or to even have the
opportunity to try and find it.
Like yeah, I'm 30 years old, you
know, I've spent whatever the
past, let's say 10 years of my
career, trying different things.
And now I found something maybe
you know, a year ago so I found
two years So I found something
that I really liked doing. The
very fact that I was able to do
it for two, two and a half years
without any, you know, major win
or any major income is because I
like doing it. Like if if audio
pen did work, I would still be
building things online, I would
still just be building random
shit and sharing it, because
that's what I want to do. Like,
I don't want to not be doing
that, because it's not paying,
like the fact that it's paying
me is like the cherry on the
cake. I'm like, Great, I'm
making money from it amazing.
But if I wasn't, I'd still be
playing. So yeah, I mean, it's,
it's, it doesn't have to be
building, it doesn't have to be,
you know, writing, it can be
anything, like whatever you like
to do, if you find out that
you'd like to do it, and you
really enjoy it, you should do
everything in your power to make
sure that you can keep doing
that till the day.
Arvid Kahl: Yeah, and that's and
that's where community comes in.
Right? Because the community is
the place where you find
prospective customers where you
find peers that help you with
your business decisions or with
your design decisions are your
UX decisions, that's where the
other people come in. And that's
the thing, why I'm really really
applaud your choice to put trust
over anything else over money or
fame, over wealth, whatever,
that because if the trust does
not exist, the community does
not exist for you. You are an
unknown untrustable entity in
the community, and you're doing
the opposite. You're building in
public, you're sharing
everything you do, you're very,
very open like this, this
conversation is an example of
this. You talk about the things
that you enjoy, and how much you
enjoy them. And it's really
noticeable. I'm really happy
that you're doing this building
and public has just been
something that you've that
you've done for a long time, or
have you only recently found
this to be something useful for
your business building efforts.
Louis Pereira: I think for as
long as I've been building on
the internet, I've built in
public, mostly influenced by by
KP show, you know him. I had
actually. So I think back in
2020, during the pandemic, I had
just stumbled upon Twitter, I
think and you know, see, like
seen a couple of things there.
And I was like, this was this
was a couple of years after I
had moved back home from the
city. So I now live in a town
called Goa, small state in
India. And I had moved from
Delhi, which is where I studied
and worked for a bit. So I had
seen like my social circle sort
of shrinking, at least I'd seen
the interestingness of the
conversations I was having also
sort of dropped because most of
my friends are, you know, all
over the place in the cities of
the country and the world. And
I'd found Twitter as this like
one new outlet. That was Oh,
interesting. People are talking
about interesting stuff. That's
nice. And then I decided in 2020
Have I not decided right? I
thought to myself, Okay, let's
let's try and do something on
the internet. Because the
offline world I like I work with
my family business during the
day in the offline world. And I
I enjoy building things there.
But it's very high friction,
right? Like it's everything
requires permissions and
investments. And it's
complicated. You can't go from
idea to revenue in 12 hours like
you can on the internet. So I
decided in 2020, okay, let me
try and do something online. And
I decided to start with like
writing, because that seemed
like the right or the easiest
way to enter. Had some moderate
success, etc. But then I
realized very quickly that, hey,
you know, this never gets
easier. Like you can have 1000
subscribers, you can have 10,000
subscribers, it doesn't matter.
Like you still have to write for
20 hours a week to put out a
good post. And it's still hard.
Like, every time no matter how
much of an established writer
you are, you will still want to
tear your head out your hair
out. Every time sure you want to
write a post, it's horrible.
It's good after you've done it,
you know, after you've published
something, you feel good, but
the process is pretty grueling.
And I learned that the hard way.
And I you know, I figured that
that just wasn't sustainable for
me. Because although I enjoyed,
you know, becoming you know, a
writer and creating stuff
online, I have a full time job,
like I don't have 20 hours a
week, every week that I can sit
and suffer through. So then the
next best thing was to start
building. Coming back to my
first point, which is why I then
joined the ondeck they had a a
no code Fellowship, which KP was
heading back in, I think 2021 I
was part of the first cohort and
it gave me like this nice entry
point into the indie hacking, or
the world of people building
things online, and chatting them
as well. So that ethos of just
sharing things online initially
to not much response kind of was
born there. But the fact that I
had that community around me to
make sure that hey, I would at
least get some response. It's
not that I was tweeting into the
void, like, like three of my
friends from my focus group
would would like my tweet, or
like, share it or something. So
it was nice, got started. And
then enjoy the process of just
building and like building in
public like I I don't take it
to, like I don't I don't I don't
know what the word is. But like,
I don't try to make it very
performative. Right? Like I just
say what I'm doing, like, if I'm
building something, I just say
that I'm building this and like,
Hey, here's what I'm doing. Like
here's how I'm doing it. Here's
my rationale behind Let's see
this decision Oh, that's that
decision. I like, like most of
my tweets are just like tweeting
off the cuff or like a small
screen recording with a some
text that's just off the cuff.
But yeah, I try not to make it
like another chore. It's just
like, it's like an update. It's
like a, it's like a stream of
consciousness sort of update.
And it seems to work like people
seem to like it so far.
Arvid Kahl: That's great that
you already had a couple of
people to interact with around
this, that makes it so much
easier to write a cohort, if
anything, I could be the on deck
fellowship, or, you know,
another little community just
with people that are all
building at the same time,
right? People who are just
sharing their work in progress
kind of stuff, that makes such a
big difference. And I love your
non performative approach to
what is always kind of a
performance. Because it is a
thing you act out in public,
right? You write about a thing,
like if you just were building
and not talking about it to
anybody, you would never think
about sharing this particular
step. So there is this kind of
conscious choice about its
intentionality. But it's still
not an act, you're not not
changing anything, you're just
sharing the reality of it, which
is what building a public is,
I'm really happy you're doing
this, you're a great example of
this with the product that
you're building, the products
that you have been building, I'm
really, really happy to see you
do this. And the consequence is
you meet a lot of cool people,
right? You get a lot of
opportunities just from sharing
those stories. So is there any
particular story about building
in public that you want to
share? That was really
interesting to you?
Louis Pereira: Well, I don't
know if I have a particular
story off the top of my head,
but like, I think in general,
like the kind of people that you
know, I've interacted with
through Twitter, like you, for
example, like, yeah, actually
one story like man product on
that launch for audio open my
mind. Like, I didn't know what
was happening there. Like, I was
like, What the hell like, I
don't know why it happened. I
think a function of it might
have been that, you know, I had
been around for long enough that
people sort of recognized my,
my, you know, profile picture,
maybe they sort of knew, Okay,
this guy's around. He's building
stuff. Maybe some people, I
don't know, maybe they're just
nice human beings. Maybe some
people just liked the product.
Maybe they just felt good on
that day. I don't know what it
was. I had no, like I had
expectations of let's say, three
400 upvotes. That was my goal
for the day and it crossed 1000.
Because like you said it a bunch
of other bigger concerto. I was
just like, What the hell is
happening here? Like, this is
mad. Because like, you don't
expect that kind of stuff,
right? Like, you go into this
stuff, as like a solo guy saying
like, Okay, I'm gonna give it my
best up against like, funded
teams that are putting out their
products. And let's see what
happens. You know, like, worst
case scenario, I'll get some
traffic on the website, maybe a
few people will buy my product
and whatever, that's fine. But
yeah, that was definitely like,
a big big moment. I don't I
don't know what how to express
it. But like, it was a win very
big. Like, it's something I'll
never forget the fact that
people I did not know, people
that just saw my stuff on
Twitter, not only like upvoted
it but like shared it, like,
wrote stuff about it. commented
on the product and page. Like to
that volume with that much like
love. Like, yeah, it was, it was
wild, like very, very grateful.
Arvid Kahl: That launch was so
cool. I remember it too. And
it's not even my product. It was
so cool. Because they you know,
that's the thing. Like we have
this established relationship.
And I think that's how many
people feel who follow you on
Twitter, they see you succeed,
and they are invested in you.
And a little bit of your success
kind of comes back to them
because they know they've been
pushing they've been helping
they've been supporting you
wherever they are, whenever you
need a like or retweet or just
input right? They were there.
And I was said to and I saw you
saw that being launched. And I
saw Wow, product of the day. And
then second of the week and
fourth of the month like Dude,
you just exploded. That was so
cool. Yeah, it's crazy. I was
gonna ask you if you had any
cool strategy, but apparently
the strategy is to just make
friends with a lot of people and
build cool stuff.
Louis Pereira: Right? So I did,
like I did prepare for the
launch in the sense like, you
know, I created a nice page, I
spent a lot of time on the copy
for it. You know, I spent a lot
of time creating, like images
and stuff. I don't know if that
helped. Maybe did like, I
definitely gave it my best
before I launched. I spoke to
Chris Messina, like he had a
conversation with me. He gave me
like a few strategies here and
there. Which I think like I
don't remember off the top of my
head, but I've shared them on
Twitter somewhere. So I had
prepared for it as best I could.
But like in no way did I
anticipate like that what
happened would happen? Like I
thought, okay, best case
scenario, maybe you know, for
500 votes, not not what
happened. But yeah, I think it's
a function of just being like I
don't think that would have
happened if I had just joined
Twitter that day and said, Hey,
guys, as a school product, it
wasn't about the product. It was
about the product that people
liked and had seen being built
for a month and a half. Some of
them had used it. And they had
maybe seen me around that I
can't see but
Arvid Kahl: yes, yeah, that is
better grateful. Yeah. 100% my
my impression of ProductHunt To
Product Hunt is not a product
display case, it's an audience
amplification machine. Right? If
you have an audience already,
they will come and applaud. And
I think like India plays a big
role there, too. I remember both
of my launches of the books, and
I don't think they even launched
books or product. But I had a
strong enough audience. So that
my stuff made it there and was
not immediately bad, which is
really cool. And I think the
biggest push that I always had
was from my, my friends in
India, because they are the ones
that are awake the most, when
it's when it's midnight pm on
the west coast in the US, and
they're the first ones and if my
Indian people by Indian friends,
if they start uploading you
shoot up in India is such a
pivotal thing. Like it's most
people don't seem to understand
how important India is for
Product Hunt, because they are
the
Louis Pereira: 12 Noon. Yeah,
it's like 30 or something in the
afternoon. That's exactly right.
Arvid Kahl: It makes a big
difference. That's something
that most people don't really
seem to understand. Because they
like wake up at nine in the
morning. And then they start
like, or eight or six or
whatever, and then they activate
their existing audience. But
that is already six, if not, you
know, four or five hours,
depending where you live in the
States, if you do it into the
day, where a lot of people had a
lot of opportunity to upload
already. So yeah, that's really
cool. That's important. Yeah,
for a long time, it's
Louis Pereira: an interesting
space, though, I still don't
think it's a good place to
launch a brand new product, I
think it's a good place to find
more customers. Once you have a
product that you know, works.
Like once you have a product
that has a monetization model
has a set of like core users
that like it, and then you go
then amplified, it's not it's
not a place to launch a brand.
No, it's
Arvid Kahl: and that's, it's
called, it's called Product
Hunt. It's not prototype hunt,
or idea hunt, or, you know, like
this business idea, maybe let's
see where this goes hunt. But
it's really for for things that
are established and valuable
enough for people to immediately
use that are not buggy that are
that are bug free, hopefully, or
at least they have social proof
already around them. Right
Product Hunt itself has social
proof, but on product and you
also need social proof to get
anywhere up in the list. So
you're absolutely right. It's an
advanced late stage launch
thing.
Louis Pereira: I learned that
the hard way as well. Like, this
was my second launch the
previous product I launched,
which was read something great.
I launched it on Twitter on like
a Monday and like I think in
like 24 hours somebody DM me
saying, Hey, I've hunted your
product on product and and I was
like, okay, cool. Like, I don't
know what that is. But like, go
for it, man. I'm gonna, I'm
gonna see what happens. And a
few friends were like, Dude,
don't do it. You know, wait till
the products like whatever, more
mature. But I was like, hey,
like, you know, let it be this
guy seems legit. Let's just do
it. It did. Alright, it finished
at like number four, after a lot
of hustling, but it was like 24
hours old or something like 48
hours maybe. But then like from
then I was like, Okay, this is
not a place to like, I didn't
have a monetization model or
anything. It was just a bunch of
traffic that came and then went.
So yeah, I learned I learned
then that like, okay, don't do
this again, do it when you when
you have a more settled product.
Arvid Kahl: There are also
certain things that that won't
perform on Product Hunt that are
so niche, so specific to one
particular group of people that
getting the full attention of
the tech community, which is I
guess, who goes to Product Hunt.
That's that's just a lot of
attention. That doesn't really
resonate with the product. Do
you see this a lot, a lot of if
you just scroll down, if you
don't look at the top 10. But if
you look at the bottom 500,
that's good launch every day.
Most of these are really cool
products, just for a really
small group of people. That is
not necessarily the audience
that goes to Product Hunt,
right? And that's also a thing,
you have to go where your
audience is to launch the thing.
And you do this so well on
Twitter. How did you launch
audio pen? Did you just kind of
just throw it out there and see
what happens, like after your
hackathon? Or was it more of an
elaborate launch on Twitter for
you.
Louis Pereira: So I was building
those those tiny tools on my
website the week before the
hackathon. And like every day or
so I would launch one of them.
And the launch would be like
just basically a tweet saying,
Hey, I built this thing, you can
do this thing with it. Go check
it out. So audio pens initial
launch, like the one that still
lives on my website, which if
you go to Luis Pereira dot XYZ
you can still find was just a
link with like, I think maybe a
couple of lines of of what it
does. And then after that, the
Hackathon was about five days
later. So I kept that hype up,
where I kept tweeting about
like, Hey, okay, I'm going to be
building this for half day
build, which is the hackathon.
And then like a day before the
hackathon, I tweeted out a few
figma files that I had created
with like preliminary designs,
saying, Hey, this is what it's
going to look like, I spent some
time thinking blah, blah, blah.
And then on the day of the
hackathon, of course, it helped
me because the community of
people that were building
alongside me like as part of
this hackathon, like all of us
amplify each other's work. So
like, that's the purpose of the
hackathon. It's like, give you
this short term community that
comes together for a day or half
a day. And just like booths,
each other to build something in
public and try and go to
revenue. If you don't go to
revenue. It's fine, but you got
to try. Everyone sort of amplify
As each other's tweets or
whatever, so that happened as
well. And I had that community,
I had a bunch of people that had
already sort of followed me on
Twitter. Prior to, to audio,
Ben, and I had been building a
little bit of whatever hype or
anticipation or whatever you
want to call it. And then yeah,
and then then on the day of the
hackathon, typically, what I
tell participants is create like
a running Twitter thread of your
progress. So like, announce your
product into each one. And then
as you're building it, tweet
about your progress, where
you've reached what you're
doing, why you're doing it, how
long it's going to take you how
much time you have left, you
know, like ask people if they
want to be your beta testers,
within that thread, maybe
retweet a particular like a
particular tweet, and ask people
if they would pay for it, etc,
etc. So that kind of builds its
own hype, because every few
hours, you have like an upgrade
coming up. And yeah, I mean,
that's, that's basically what I
did for the launch.
Arvid Kahl: Awesome. How often
do you run these hackathons? Do
you still run them? Is that
still happening?
Louis Pereira: Yep, yep, every
two months. I think the next one
is on this. I do the 17th or the
ninth of September if you go to
half day build.com You'll see it
I can I can check later but
yeah,
Arvid Kahl: link in the show
notes this episode at out way
before that. So you know, it's
not like it's not
Louis Pereira: a very like
formal hackathon. It's just
literally a discord 17
September's when the next one is
it's literally a temporary
discord that I create, like
three or four days before the
hackathon. With a few like
resources, you know, a place for
people to interact etc. On the
day people just help each other
either in discord help each
other on Twitter by by sharing
the link, sharing each other's
tweets. And then two or three
days after the hackathon, I
delete the discord. So people
don't have like discord bloat.
They just it feels like a
sprint. They come in, they make
friends they build, and then
they leave. And if they want to
keep friends, you know, they can
follow each other on on on
Twitter or wherever.
Arvid Kahl: That's cool. Like
indie hacker speed dating.
That's awesome. That's really
cool. Yeah, it's really nice.
And to, to think that such a
revenue generating and attention
generating product came out of
it. Hmm, isn't? Isn't that
awesome? What a what a glorious
example of what can come? Yeah,
Louis Pereira: I mean, I went a
couple people. I've been doing
it for what, I don't know, over
a year now, two years, maybe?
Every initially it used to be
every month, then I switched it
to every two months, because
like, it just got too hectic.
But yeah, like most of the
products I built during these
half a bills of like all of them
have died. Not maybe there's one
that survived. All of the others
have died. But yeah, I mean, you
gotta enjoy the process of
swinging, right? Like, it's, it
shouldn't feel like hard work.
Like, you know, people say
grind, grind, grind, and you
will finally make it. But like,
that's not the point. Because
then even if you make it, you're
still going to be grinding on
the thing that you were grinding
on. Which, by definition, it
means that you don't enjoy it,
you're grinding because you
don't enjoy it. So you shouldn't
be wanting to grind. Yeah, you
shouldn't be wanting to do that
you should want something that's
smooth, like something that you
enjoy doing effortlessly.
Arvid Kahl: That you know what
that reminds me of? You recently
tweeted about productivity porn,
that was something that you were
talking about. Because, you
know, Peter levels posted this
picture of all these books, like
the self help books, these are
books that founders would read
to learn how to be more
productive, and you thought
about it. And you just want to
say what, what you were thinking
and maybe the discussion around
that, that that came out of it?
Yeah.
Louis Pereira: Yeah. So for
context, I mean, there was a,
there was a picture of, you
know, a very aesthetic picture
with a bunch of books that were
all white in color, for some
reason, most of which was self
help books. And the context that
was shared by the person who
tweeted out was that, you know,
you don't need to be reading. If
you you know, you just go and do
stuff, like you should just go
and build. And I agreed with
that. On first glance, I was
like, yeah, like, a lot of these
books are, you know, just, they
should have been a blog post.
But there are a couple of
reasons why I later sort of went
back on my own thoughts, and
thought that maybe I was wrong
with that initial thought. One
was that I believe in this
concept of, for I called Bridge
books, okay, so it's very easy
for a person who's who's not
read a particular book. It's
very easy for a person who's
read a particular book to feel
that that book was worthless,
because he's already crossed
that bridge is reached the other
side. But for somebody who's on
the other side, on the on the
previous side, that book might
still be useful, right? So like,
I know, a couple of books like
self help books, particularly
get a lot of hate saying, Oh,
this is, you know, a waste of
your time. But you know, what,
maybe you were the person who
read this. And that made you
advance to reading, let's say,
more complex stuff today.
Because you read that, you know,
five years ago, it's not fair
for you to be to be sort of
shitting on someone who's doing
it now. Like, let him go on his
own journey. Let him cross that
bridge. So that was the first
thought I had where I was like,
okay, you know, this stuff might
seem like child's play to
somebody today. But if that
person I To rewind his own life,
it might not have been the case
back then. That was one. And
then there was like a very meta
thought I had, which was just
like we live in a world of
abundance, right? Like we have
all of our basic needs met,
we've got food, we've got
shelter, etc, at least most of
us, at least those of us on the
internet, trying to build
things. And the purpose of our
lives right now are what we're
trying to find is we're trying
to find meaning, meaning, we're
trying to feel good about
ourselves, we're trying to wake
up and feel like we're doing
something useful. We're trying
to, you know, in other words,
we're trying to optimize for our
emotional states, at any point
of time. And if reading a book
that is about, say,
productivity, helps you feel
productive, or helps you feel
good, even if you don't act on
it. And you start to say, you
don't end up being productive,
or you don't end up implementing
what that book told you to
implement. If you felt good
during the process of reading
that book, and then you just
went and picked up another
productivity book, and you felt
good again, and you repeated
this, you know, all the way for
the rest of your life, until you
died. And you just felt great.
You had all of your needs taken
care of by default, because you
had a day job or whatever. And
in your free time, you felt
good, because you read these
books, you didn't have to go and
start building stuff online. If
you didn't want to, then there's
nothing wrong with that. Like,
why what who am I to judge that
this person is reading
productivity porn and not doing
anything? If he's feeling good,
let him feel good. Like, maybe
he's reading productivity porn,
and he's not doing anything but
feeling good. It's probably
better than him say, going out
and, you know, drinking by
himself by a river or something.
All right, let him read his
books. Like, who cares? Anyway,
we've, we're not, we're not at a
point where you have to work.
We're at a point where we want
to work where we want to do
things, you don't have to do
things for most of us.
Arvid Kahl: That's fine. Yeah,
it's, it's certainly like most
of us, I think it's the
important term because there
will be people who have to, of
course, but those those are not
part of this conversation,
right? That there are people who
really have to work, they're not
thinking about, Oh, should I
read my productivity book? No,
they, they need a job they need
to work. I very much agree with
this, I found this such a
compelling thought, the idea
that in a world of abundance,
just even considering or, or
simulating productivity is as
good as productivity, at least
in certain under certain
constraints. I really enjoy
enjoy the idea because what
you're what you've said
effectively is an anti
gatekeeping argument. That's
kind of what you made, right?
Because you shouldn't read your
short work is also gatekeeping.
In a way, it's like, oh, no,
don't read those books. Yeah,
better just be, you know, bogged
down and work, work, work, work,
work, and close yourself off to
the potential revelation of that
bridge that the book might
actually take you, it's kind of
keeping you where you are. I am
very much I am a big fan of
reading. Like I'm a writer, I
kind of want people to read for
somewhat selfish reasons, but
also for for selfless reasons. I
want other people to help
themselves. In reading. That's
kind of what reading books is
like. And I love the idea of the
bridge book. That's something
that I think I had conceptually
in my mind, but never put into
words. So thank you for giving
me this. This idea. It's kind of
Crossing the Chasm by just
putting putting like, literally
a gigantic book over it. Right,
and then walking over the book
on the other side, that's that's
such a cool idea. And the
keeping people away from books,
that should have been a blog
post, I liked that phrase as
well. Well, the good thing is,
some people love blog posts. And
for them, it probably there is a
blog post out there summarizing
the book. And other people
really need it slow and steady.
And for them, the blog post
would not have been enough for
them, the book needs to read the
book, right? So there's, there
are all kinds of gatekeeping
arguments in this you shouldn't
read but work. So I'm glad
Louis Pereira: to sort of expand
on the last point you've made
like, like, very often I think,
Okay, this book should have been
a blog post. But the fact that
you spent six hours reading
about the same idea over and
over again, even if it could
have been shortened, has meant
that that idea has had more time
to kind of, you know, percolate
into your brain. So even if you
feel like it was, you know, the
same idea repeated, you've given
yourself more time to understand
the idea, or to kind of flirt
with its, you know, whatever its
potential 100%.
Arvid Kahl: That's why I love
books that are like really
thematically focused on one
idea, and look at it from all
different angles. Because if
when I write about something in
my own articles, I try to look
at it from at least two or three
different perspectives, so that
anybody who has that
perspective, or that other
perspective, finds an accessible
way into my thinking into my
thoughts into the idea that I
want to convey, because I know
that we are living in a very
diverse, diverse world of many
people from different
backgrounds, some things are
just not gonna resonate with
certain kinds of people. But if
I give myself the space and time
to look at it from all these
different angles, I can make it
easier for people to absorb the
knowledge write a blog post will
always be opinionated. That's
the kind of idea of a blog to
begin with. But a book doesn't
have to be a book can be quite
accessible. So in fact, it's
about accessibility.
Louis Pereira: Yeah, I mean,
maybe in the future, you know,
like just thinking out loud,
like we might have, you know, AI
versions of books now. Yeah, but
like personalized versions of
books, right? Like, for
instance, I love if you have
five angles that you want to,
you want to kind of cover for
each of the five different types
of people. Maybe you buy a book
on your Kindle, and the Kindle
knows what angle you deserve to
read from what angle is best
suited to you. And it just gives
you that angle. It doesn't serve
you the other four, and itself
someone else differently as
well. Maybe that'll happen. I
don't know. But yeah,
Arvid Kahl: I mean, if there's
any technology that might make
this happen, that's the one
you're currently working with.
Right? That's, that's what you
GPT for and all these things are
doing. They're like contextually
rephrasing things to sound
differently, but still say the
same thing. That is what this
stuff is really good at. Man I'm
so I'm so excited about the
world of like generative AI. And
the tools that have come through
it, like audio pen is a great
example of this, it's a to me,
just a really small, tiny little
step on top of existing steps,
but into the absolute right
direction. They're making,
making things easier and making
things more accessible. I think
accessibility, that's also an
important part of taking audio
and converting it into text
where people who can't write
well or who don't enjoy writing
can still write because what
you're doing is effectively, you
allowed me to write with my
voice. That's what a good audio
plan is. And this is not an
advertising for audio. But
although it might just as well
be because it's a good product,
and I use it, my affiliate link
will be down below. But no, but
what I'm, what I'm trying to say
is it is it is so empowering.
That's the thing that you build
in this half day, Hackathon is
opening up writing to people who
are not necessarily primarily
good writers. That is what this
technology can do.
Louis Pereira: I love this
again, through my dad, like he
is exactly what you described,
like he's a very deep thinker,
but English is not his primary
language. So he would always
write like, he would always, you
know, type on his his Google
Keep and send us these long
essays. But they will always not
be very well framed, right? Like
there will be typos, they would
be, you know, grammatical errors
here or there. And he would
still, like share it, he would
share it, you know, maybe within
the family because it's like a
smaller group. Now with audio,
and he just talks to his phone,
he gets what he wants. And he's
more confident to be able to
share that with anybody. Because
it's grammatically correct. It's
well structured. It's easy to
read, and just ready to share
from like, the get go. So he's
probably like power user. Number
one, the list of users have the
moment where like, every time is
every day, creates an order,
like shares it to everyone.
Well, he was quite proud of you
for that. Like that's, that's
the best gift you could give,
right? Yeah, accidental again,
but like great, great, concise,
Arvid Kahl: I guess you'll take
it though. The cool thing about
all human let me let me throw
this one at is the translation
stuff as well. Like you can you
can talk to it in any language
you want, which is hopefully
your your, your native tongue.
And the thing that comes out of
it can be in any language that
you like, which is that's also
what an empowering move this is.
Now all of a sudden, you're
turning this into a globally
critical communication tool is
kind of like the the
communicator in Star Trek,
that's what you're doing. Like,
you know, the communicator
between,
Louis Pereira: I'm just
facilitating it like GPD for and
I'm opening eyes, like, doing
most of the work, but like,
Yeah, I'm glad to facilitate
that. Glad to be a channel for
people to be able to. And it's I
mean, it's, it's great. It's
great to be building something
that like people use that way.
And like it impacts them. Like,
you know, forget the money but
like when when I get like a user
telling me hey, you know, you
changed my life because of this.
I'm like, Oh my God, that's,
that's crazy. That's crazy to
hear.
Arvid Kahl: Yeah, my my example
here, and I hope this story is
something that you like a couple
of weeks ago, I was in a just in
a thinking mood. And I just
wanted to write but I didn't
want to write you know what I
mean? So I just I think I
dictated 510 15 minutes, ideas
into audio pen. And I had had
five articles done. I took the
transcripts, I put them into my
notion documents were headed and
like within just a couple hours,
not even, I think, what three
hours, two hours, it was super,
super quick. I had to a month's
worth of writing work. mostly
done. And that was so cool.
Knowing that oh, now I can focus
on all the other things I want
to do. I don't need to sit down
for like four days I have done
this in a couple hours. That was
such a such an amazing thing
that I feel I still underpaid
for the product. Let me let me
just say this. You know, it's so
so worth it to have a tool like
this. I'm excited. You know, I'm
Louis Pereira: still I've not
spoken about this to people
before but like I'm still
slightly conflicted about
whether making it easier for
people to think and to write.
Whether it's a good thing on the
whole, like, for instance,
writing is difficult work right?
Like, should people wrestle
their thoughts in order to get
them out on the on paper? Should
they be fighting that blinking
cursor on a blank screen for
their thoughts to you know, for
the for their own? Whatever
structure of that that talks to
be to be improved? Or should it
be easy for them to do it like,
you know, it almost feels like a
cheat code, like you talk to a
phone or your computer and it
creates this stuff for you. I
don't know, like, I'm still, I'm
still conflicted about whether
it's, you know, a net
Arvid Kahl: thing. 100% I very
much understand. I think from a
from a social philosophy
standpoint, you could argue that
every kind of technology, it has
this problem that the typewriter
was effectively a cheat code to
writing, because you could argue
that the hand eye coordination
of long form writing also
creates different thinking and
different sentence structures
and different you know,
different texts than if you were
just typing it. Or if you were
doing it on a computer with
like, automatic suggestions of
words or grammar, correction,
Grammarly, that kind of stuff,
all the tools that have come up,
I think every technology has the
potential to be achieved, in the
sense of that it makes something
that has a certain connection to
your brain slightly different.
And I agree with you, I think
this in particular, just kind of
skips the writing part all in
itself. But maybe its purpose is
not to be a replacement for
writing. That's kind of what
what most AI tools are
misunderstood at as our as
replacements I don't think they
are I think they're
augmentations to the process.
Like in my process. As a writer,
I use your tool, or any kind of
GPT based tool, not as a final
product generator, I use it as a
brainstorming tool, I use it for
the first step that I would do
anyway, in the way I do it by
dictating and then taking a
transcript and writing out
particular parts of it or taking
particular parts of that thing
and turning them into bullet
points or whatever, your tool
just facilitates that more
easily. And I still write the
article from there, I'm not
done. Once I've dictated this
into into audio PIN, I've just
getting a much better interim
result from which to write even
better text. So I think the
moment we take the notion of
tools, replacing processes, and
just look into how tools,
augment processes, I think this
becomes less of a problem,
because you're not replacing
writing. And you're definitely
not replacing thinking, because
thinking still needs to happen
in the process of you know,
people talking into their
microphones. It's just a
different kind of thinking that
happens. It's a more fluent one,
it's less of a wrestling to
type, you know, whether the
actual act of typing comes comes
in. It's a it's a more free
version of thinking. It's
different. And I think that's
all right, you're offering a
different way of thinking. I
like that.
Louis Pereira: Yeah, I mean, I'm
glad I'm glad you you think that
way. Yeah, makes me feel better
as well. Because ultimately, I
want to make sure that I mean, I
want to be creating a net
positive impact, right. So yeah,
I'm glad you feel that way. I
definitely got to stop writing.
I mean, I definitely still want
to, like build out like some of
the features I was mentioning
that I you know, I'm thinking of
like some of the directions I'm
thinking of, I still want to
push people to use this as a
first draft where they can then
edit it within Audio pen as
well, and then maybe even share
it. So for instance, like the
focus mode for writing, where
you go into like a full screen
mode that's like very minimal
and sleek. I want people to use
that to kind of take that first,
you know, draft that they get,
and then physically sort of sit
down and and think through it.
And let's see, maybe I can nudge
people in other ways as well to
use this as a starting point.
And you know, as you said, kind
of take it from there.
Arvid Kahl: Yeah, it's
definitely going to be an
interesting journey to watch
where this product is going. And
let's maybe close it up right
here. Where do people go to
follow that journey? Follow your
products, your thinking and your
cool features that open will get
in the future? Where do you want
people to go?
Louis Pereira: I mean, Twitter
is the best place I have. I have
a website as well. But I would
just say Twitter. I'm just at my
full name. Louis Pereira. No
spaces. No, no dots, no numbers.
Yeah, you can find me on
Twitter. I'm fairly active.
Arvid Kahl: Yeah, I've used
certainly aren't, I hope you
stay that way. I really, really
enjoyed our conversation here.
Today. I'm gonna put all of this
in the show notes, all your
projects, all your your Twitter
handle, and even your website,
which I think is cool. It's cool
that you have one way to just
share all the things you've done
in the past as well, because
that's important for other
people to see, too. Man, Louis,
thanks so much for being here
today and talking to me about
your blazing success story and
your humble perspective on how
this came to be. That was
really, really interesting to
hear. I'm looking forward to
seeing where this goes. And I'm
really, really excited for the
future of your Indie hacking
journey and your products. Thank
you so much for being on the
show today.
Louis Pereira: Thanks for having
me, man. Like it's been a it's
been a pleasure. I didn't think
I would be talking to you. You
know, if you were to tell me
like a few months ago. Yeah,
it's just it's great to actually
be able to speak to I'm very,
very grateful for it. So thanks
for the opportunity.
Arvid Kahl: I feel the exact
same way. Thanks so much. And
that's it for today. Products
like audio pen are incredibly
sellable, right? They're small
scope. They don't need that many
employees, if any at all.
They're completely digital and
ever Anything is automated.
Let's be honest, most indie
hackers want things to stay that
way. They don't want to hire or
build multi year sales
processes. And often that causes
things to slow down. Now imagine
this, your founder who's built a
really solid SAS product, you
acquired all your customers and
you have generated just
consistent monthly recurring
revenue, things are looking
good. But the only problem is
you're not growing for whatever
reason, lack of focus, lack of
skill, or just plain lack of
interest, you feel stuck. And
you might not even know where to
go next. Because it would change
the way that you run the
business. It would change your
lifestyle business, and you
don't know what to do. Well, the
story that I would like to hear
at this point is that you
buckled down and somehow
reignited the fire you got past
yourself and your limitations
and the cliches and you started
working on the business rather
than just in the business and
you start building this audience
and move out of your comfort
zone, do sales and marketing all
these things that six months
down the road have tripled your
revenue. Wouldn't that be great?
Well, reality is not that
simple. And this situation is
different for every founder, it
is facing this particular
crossroad. Too many times
though, this story ends up being
one of inaction and often
stagnation until the business
becomes less valuable or even
worse, worthless. And if you
find yourself here, or you story
is likely headed down a similar
road, I offer you a third
option, consider selling your
business on acquire.com At this
point, because this really about
your time right you capitalizing
on the value of your time is a
pretty smart move. And
acquire.com will help you with
that it's free to list and
they've helped hundreds of
foreigners already. So go to
try.acquire.com/arvid and just
see for yourself if this is the
right option for you right now.
Thank you for listening to The
Bootstrapped Founder today. You
can find me on Twitter
@arvidkahl provided that Twitter
is still around when you listen
to this and you'll find my books
and my Twitter course there too.
And if you want to support me in
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This really, really helps to
show any of this really helps to
show so thank you very much for
listening, and have a wonderful
day. Bye bye