The Story
Louis Pereira is a part-time indie hacker from India who built AudioPen - a voice-to-text AI tool that transforms fuzzy spoken thoughts into clear, polished text. Users simply speak into the app, and it transcribes and transforms their words into any writing style they choose.
After failing with 15 different projects, Louis decided to try something radical. He joined a "Half Day Build" hackathon where builders try to go from idea to MVP to revenue in just 12 hours. The goal: start at noon, get at least $1 by midnight.
During one hackathon, Louis built 4-5 tiny tools on his personal website. AudioPen was one of them. To his surprise, it got way more love on Twitter than expected. He saw the signal, built a full version, put a price tag on it, and launched.
The results were wild: before the 12 hours was up, Stripe notifications started coming in from beta testers who weren't even asked to pay - they just wanted to support the product. AudioPen now has 200,000 users, 5,000+ paying customers, and generates $15K/month with a simple $99/year pricing model.
Key Insights
The Half Day Build Philosophy
- •The cost of experimentation is incredibly low today
- •Build many things, see what sticks, double down on winners
- •"I was bound to get lucky at some point" after 15-20 failed projects
- •Luck favors those who ship consistently
Why AudioPen Succeeded
- •Very early to market when AI voice tools were new
- •Focuses on doing ONE thing extremely well
- •Resisted temptation to expand into adjacent markets
- •"Slow consistency" - kept improving the core experience
4-Step Playbook for Building Fast
- •Build small things for fun - Test ideas without negative consequences to users
- •Design before you build - Figure out exactly what you want it to look like and why
- •Build in public - Share designs, get feedback, spin up an email list if people resonate
- •Launch the simplest version - Ship early, raise prices as you refine, behave like an indie hacker (not a big company)
Tech Stack
- •Bubble ($130/month for web app)
- •Xano ($260/month for backend/logic)
- •DraftBit ($300/year for native app)
- •Loops ($800/month for email)
- •Plausible Analytics ($19/month)
- •Various AI APIs (variable costs)
Resources
- •Follow Louis: https://x.com/louispereira
- •AudioPen: https://audiopen.ai/