9
45 Comments

Roast my idea! It's called Splitrr 💌

Hey IH 👋

Just from looking at the dummy landing page https://splitrr.co (and without me saying anything), keen to know:

  1. Do you understand what https://splitrr.co does?
  2. Would you use Splitrr?
  3. Would you pay for Splitrr?

Had a lot of success with a very small group of academics who said they finished reading more papers, but I want to know if it would have wider appeal.

Thanks in advance!

posted to Icon for group Ideas and Validation
Ideas and Validation
on May 25, 2020
  1. 4

    I get it, but I wouldn't pay for it in the form I think it's in. It's a good idea just not something that I would pay for.

    1. 1

      Thanks for your feedback!

  2. 2

    I think you're solving the right problem in the wrong way.

    I don't want more emails. I want less emails.

    I don't want more to read I want less.

    I don't want low value fluff but high value nuggets.

    I don't want to drip feed content but mine for the gold and recommend or augment with other Nuggets.

    I can see why it might resonate with academics but as it stands it's not for me.

    1. 1

      Thanks this is really useful.

  3. 2

    I'm going to give a contrarian (maybe helpful) opinion. I think this might be useful in both a different medium from email and different way of 'splitting'.

    When I saw this, I'm not sure why, but I thought of Gary V. I imagine something like this might be useful to marketers if they have long form content (a blog post) and it could split and pull out quotes to then be added to twitter or something like that.

    I wouldn't pay for it because I don't have need for it. Just offering another way of attacking the same problem.

    1. 1

      Very interesting thoughts, thank you! Let’s hope Gary V picks this up and runs with it 🤣

  4. 2

    I totally get the problem you're trying to solve. I have a whole bunch of long blog posts and books on my to-do list that I've either half read or want to read eventually.

    To be honest, I don't think consuming the content via bite sized emails would solve it for me. I'd rather just have a better way to keep track of where I'm up to in each and some sort of easy to access list when I've got time to read something.

    Ironically, physical books solve this problem better. It's far easier to pick up a physical book and flip to the page you've previously bookmarked to continue reading. This is something you can't do particularly easily with long blog posts most of the time.

    Now that I think about it the same problem applies to other media as well. I've got half finished YouTube videos and podcasts that I've been meaning to get back to eventually. These are not as bad because they tend to remember your position within the stream. However, it's still a little painful to have lots of these things scattered across platforms.

  5. 2

    Hi Solomon,

    1. Not 100% sure. I think it chops long blogs/articles into separate mails over multiple days.
    2. If I'm correct at point 1, then not. It would bother me read it in multiple mails if it's the same subject. Then I'd rather have the blog in my mail, and save it to finish later.
    3. Not me - perhaps others.

    I like your idea, I like the way you're solving an existing problem. But perhaps I'm not your audience.

    1. 1

      Thank you so much for your time, really appreciate it.

      1. 2

        Actually, what @Jp84nl mentioned is a good point. About the fact that people might want to go through the full read if it seems interesting. So you might want to include a link at the end of the email to allow poeple read the rest.

  6. 1

    Like the idea @solomon_teach

    Would be awesome to see some examples before taking further action.

  7. 1

    I get it, but i don't know how you will do it :) how good it will? Need example.

  8. 1

    Do you understand what https://splitrr.co does?

    Yes, but I think you still work on your landing page because it is still too simple. Maybe explain how the splitting works and display an example of what we would receive in terms of design for instance. I know it is still at an early stage, but you have my opinion anyway.

    Would you use Splitrr?

    I won't because I would be afraid of being a bit lost if I have to read a piece of content in 3 or 4 days. I'd prefer a system that split what I have to read (one article per day for instance) than splitting large content into smaller pieces.

    Would you pay for Splitrr?

    With just that functionality, I don't think I would.

    1. 1

      Thank you, this is useful feedback and much appreciated!

  9. 1

    The idea is too basic, limited market. As it is I would pay not to use it ;-(
    But, if you really like it, you can build up on it and develop a useful tool. You are solving a problem that many people have: unfinished reading of long reeds. I have probably hundreds of PDFs in my 2read folder. Many of them I've started to read and never came back to read.

    Who is with me? 🤣

    Solve this problem in an elegant way. Analyze how people read and WHY they cannot finish reading an electronic book.

    My problem, in my case, is that I don't even remember where I stopped. If I had a facility (an app, or even better google drive plugin) where I could have my PDFs, all what I am reading or planning to read and I could have clear indication where I am in every document (where I left on the page) that would be great for me.
    You could indicate % and let me sort. This way, if I see I have a reed with 2% left, I would finish that document first. Can I mark books with labels? Great. Then I can do a collection with those documents I need to read for a particular project, for self-development e t.c. Can I put my reeds in a queue? Can I mark them as read/to read?

    You can build a cool tool and I'll be your first paying customer.

    1. 2

      'I would pay not to use it' 😂 can I put that on my testimonials page??

      Thank you for your feedback. Another idea I had was a Chrome extension that would allow you to create your own summaries by clipping whatever you highlight as you read.

      One of my problems is finding stuff I know I read and not being able to remember the interesting parts. This would give you an organised library of summaries of the most important points of the article.

      What do you think?

  10. 1

    Do you understand what https://splitrr.co does?

    Splits long articles into smaller chunks for digestibility.

    Would you use Splitrr?

    Interesting, although not sure if I'd try it. The length of an article is not much of a problem for me. The bigger problem is finding the right content or collection of content in the sea of content, if that makes sense.

    Would you pay for Splitrr?

    In its current state, no. Hopefully my answer to #2 is constructive enough.

    1. 1

      Yes very constructive, thanks so much.

  11. 1

    Like it, but the Try and Sing in aren't working so, I can't see how good your AI is.

    1. 1

      Thanks, it's just a dummy page to test the concept. There is an alpha version but it's incredibly ugly, not safe for public consumption!

  12. 1
    1. I think so.
    2. No, not as I understand the concept. I can't recall many recent cases of me reading something suitabel for it. Also I value a clean inbox.

    Going back a few years, when I was reading academic papers, some kind of tool to split up the reading would be nice. But the way I read academic articles, I would need note-taking/highlighting functionality, and some way to keep track of my progress. It would also have to support PDFs. Add some gamification and I might would have bought such a tool.

    1. 1

      Interesting point about gamification. Thanks for your time

  13. 1

    Oh, this is cool! I'm not sure if I would pay for it personally. However, if I could convince my department to pay for it (I work at a university) then I would make the case... But you could actually turn this into something that allows people who already have a big text corpus (eg academics) to automatically generate an email chain that others could sign up to. So, for example, if I have 100,000 words (eg a thesis) and I wanted to split it up into emails and send it to my supervisors or whatever... Interesting idea, and a good place to start.

    1. 2

      That's a really neat idea, thank you!

  14. 1

    Do you understand what https://splitrr.co does?

    I think so.

    Would you use Splitrr?

    Possibly, if I remember it at the right time.

    Would you pay for Splitrr?

    To be 100% honest, most likely no. At least not as a subscription.

    1. 1

      Thanks for your time. I think Splitrr is one to shelf for now!

  15. 1

    I agree with some of the other commenters here - I need ways to reduce email volume, not to increase it.

    I think if you start brainstorming in the other direction you get to a more visceral pain point. People have email fatigue. Quality over quantity is key. This is probably why mailbrew.com has been such a big success as it taps directly into this pain point.

    1. 1

      Thank you for taking the time! Had heard of Mailbrew but never properly checked it out - very cool, thanks for the tip.

  16. 1

    Do you understand what https://splitrr.co does?
    I assume I put in a long piece of content I like and it will send me short snippets each day

    Would you use Splitrr?
    Thinking it through I changed my mind for, academic articles I would use something like this. When I have been studying a specific problem it would have been nice if I could have put in the list of stuff I needed to read and a finish date and then get given bite-sized chunks to help me hit my goal.

    Would you pay for Splitrr?
    I think a freemium would be good for this to get people into a habit, maybe N articles a month free and a paid unlimited tier.

    1. 1

      Thank you for your feedback!

  17. 1

    Hi Solomon, interesting idea.

    1. Yes I think so - it will split a long article or paper into daily bite-sized emails? How often would I get the emails? What happens if I'm really into the article and I want to read more immediately? Would i have to wait for the next email? Is email the right format?

    2. I personally wouldn't use it, but I'm not your target audience, so don't necessarily get discouraged over that. I use Pocket, but to be honest, I love the idea of Pocket but my list on there just gets un-manageable and then it just sits there. Every now and again I do a massive clean out.

    3. No, but again not your target.

    Good luck with your idea!

  18. 1

    Really minor, but you've got a typo in your CTA, assuming you want two R's in Splitrr.

    1. Yep. I wonder how these articles are split, but I get the concept.
    2. Not for me personally, but I think the niche of building a tiny reading habit for technical readings etc is compelling.
    3. No, but again, I like the behavioural design element of this.
    1. 1

      Thanks for the feedback (and finding the typo!)

    2. 1

      Thank you! Whole idea was a bit spur of the moment, good to get the feedback before making any silly decisions!

  19. 1

    Hi Solomon...

    1. yes, I think you expressed the idea in just a few words
    2. not sure, I already receive too many emails. However I might give it a try with articles that are in my reading backlog for some time
    3. probably not
      Probably I'm not your target group (?)
      Cheers, Thomas
    1. 1

      Thank you for taking the time to reply. Appreciated.

  20. 1

    Hi Solomon,

    1. I... think so?
    2. Most likely not. If anything, I'd like to receivefewer emails ;) and, assuming I got the idea, I'm also not sure why you would want to read fractions of a longer text
    3. No, because of 2)

    Hope this is helpful!
    Cheers, Daniel

    1. 1

      Very helpful, thank you!

    1. 1

      Link not working for me?

      1. 1

        The link works for me, it just takes ages to load. Here's PH link https://www.producthunt.com/posts/bookman

  21. 1

    I like the idea!

    I understand what it does, I would use it, but personally I don't think I'd pay for it.

    I don't read academic papers enough to be worth paying for it. I read e-books on my kindle, which already keeps track of what part of the book I'm up to, so I don't need the content split up. I would use it for large articles, but:

    1. I don't need to be reading those articles in the first place, I just enjoy it,
    2. I'm okay trying to find what part of the article I was up to, this isn't a huge pain point for me
    3. I don't read these frequently. So I don't feel the need to pay for long articles to be split up.

    What I found unclear from the landing page is whether you keep track of the articles I'm reading, or if you just split up the text and I need to store it somewhere. If you also keep track of the articles I'm reading (like https://getpocket.com/), then I'd be much more inclined to pay.

    1. 1

      Thanks so much for the feedback! So it wouldn’t keep a track of where you are as it’s just a way for time-strapped people of turning a long-read into your own daily newsletter - you choose how many emails to split it into.

      Don’t worry, it’s just a silly side project rather than the master plan. Very useful feedback thanks!

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