I suspect one can go a lot further by adopting some tweaks from the GPT-2 speedrun effort [0], at minimum Muon, better init and carefully tuning learning rate.
Readit NewsHere are some ideas, in no particular order:
- Find relevant subreddits on Reddit and post about the tool in an authentic way (not promotional, but a "here's what I built" style).
- Do a Show HN. Look at other people's successful ones to get an idea of the tone/style that works.
- ProductHunt (read this for suggestions on how to do it well: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-successfully-launc...)
- Content marketing: do SEO keyword research and create pages/posts that target promising keywords. This product in particular probably has a lot of potential with this strategy, since you can use the tool itself to create interesting content which also shows off the features.
- YouTube: similar to above, but find relevant videos from other creators that are doing well and try to create your own videos in a similar style, looping in the product where it makes sense. Like with reddit and HN, better to be authentic and not promotional.
- Media: reach out to popular blogs and publications that cover learning tools.
If you have any cash available to invest (even a small amount), you can also try:
- Reach out to influencers on YouTube, X, TikTok, etc. either directly or via promotion marketplaces. You'll likely have to pay, but it can be high ROI since you already have a paid plan.
- Similarly, you can try ads on reddit, adwords, facebook, X, etc. and see if any of them offer immediate positive ROI.
Depending on your goals, you could also consider applying to YC. It will give you a significant marketing boost if you get in, but requires thinking in terms of how to build a big business, which isn't for everyone. The product might be good enough to give you a shot, if you're interested in that route, but it would also probably help your chances to try some organic marketing strategies first to prove that you can do it. Also helps if you have a cofounder.
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On a different note, the new audio playback controls are great! Would be nice to also have them on mobile :) My preferred way to consume these courses would be on mobile, like an audio book or podcast.
Thanks a lot! I did do some of these things (namely Reddit) and that worked well, just the number of places that allow posting is limited and I don't want to get too spammy. Will continue there.
Main conceptual issue I've been having with other marketing (e.g. influencer) is that there isn't a well-defined audience to market this to. Usually edtech targets students/schools and Periplus doesn't fit there too well. Need to find what works I guess.
I'll spend more time on it from now on :). Thanks again.
re: mobile playback controls -> on it
Awesome! Will try it soon.
What's your GTM plan? You built an amazing app—I hope you are focusing as much on marketing as adding features! I think a lot of people will like this if you get it in front of them.
I have no idea how to market this honestly. Most of my users came from a single discord server, but the feedback is overall pretty positive.
If you have any tips I'd be super grateful (gave you a follow on X).
Nice, I've been playing with it a bit and it seems really well done and polished so far. I'm curious how long you spent building it?
Only feedback I have so far is that it would be nice to control the playback speed of the 'read aloud' mode. I'd like it to be a little bit faster.
Just added a proper playback control component on desktop, allows changing rate, rewinding & persists across pages :)!
Looks like a great start, played around with it a bit yesterday and today, I've basically been doing the same with my own CLI but the UI you came up with helps a great deal with navigation and resuming learning :)
One issue I found is the typical "LLM accuracy" issue, with seemingly no recurse. I tried to generate some courses for topics I already know well, just to review how accurate it is, and while popular subjects (ex: "Electronic Music Fundamentals") it gets most of the details correct, less popular subjects (ex: "Scene Transitions with Octatrack") are riddled with errors (both in the "docs" and the quizes/exercises), and I cannot find a way of correcting/adjusting/reporting the errors.
Yeah it's still hard to deal with LLM gaps (fwiw Study mode would also be prone to this). I do try to catch the super obvious stuff and put up a disclaimer but it's far from perfect.
I had some prototypes basing the generations in websearch but the APIs are still super expensive on that front + the models tend to overindex on the results.
Nice, I've been playing with it a bit and it seems really well done and polished so far. I'm curious how long you spent building it?
Only feedback I have so far is that it would be nice to control the playback speed of the 'read aloud' mode. I'd like it to be a little bit faster.
Glad you like it!!
I've been working on it on-and-off for about a year now. Roughly 2-3 months if I worked on it full-time I'm guessing.
re: playback speed -> noted, will add some controls tomorrow
This looks super cool—I've imagined something similar, especially the skill tree/knowledge map UI. Looking forward to trying it out.
Have you considered using the LLM to give tests/quizzes (perhaps just conversationally) in order to measure progress and uncover weak spots?
There are both in-document quizzes and larger exams (at a course level).
I've also been playing around with adapting content based on their results (e.g. proactively nudging complexity up/down) but haven't gotten it to a good place yet.
I'm really waiting for somebody to figure out the correct interface for all this. For example, study mode will present you with a wall of text containing information, examples, and questions. There's no great way to associate your answers with specific questions. The chat interface just isn't good for this sort of interaction. ChatGPT really needs to build its own canvas/artifact interface wherein questions/responses are tied together. It's clear, at this point, that we're doing way too much with a UI that isn't designed for more than a simple conversation.
I gave it a shot with periplus.app :). Not perfect by any means, but it's a different UX than chat so you might find it interesting.
Honestly thought they would take this a bit further, there is only so much you can do with a prompt and chat. It seems fine for surface level bite-sized learning, but I can't see it work that well for covering whole topics end to end.
The main issue is that chats are just bad UX for long form learning. You can't go back to a chat easily, or extend it in arbitrary directions, or easily integrate images, flashcards, etc etc.
I worked on this exact issue for Periplus and instead landed on something akin to a generative personal learning Wikipedia. Structure through courses, exploration through links, embedded quizzes, etc etc. Chat is on the side for interactions that do benefit from it.
Link: periplus.app
You can send me a message on discord (dcbcdefb), or email (support (at) periplus dot app).
Also available on Twitter!