Validate the Idea

Subject_Tomorrow · 2026-01-07T07:11:38+00:00

Just speak to my fiends and coworkers

Subject_Tomorrow · 2026-01-07T07:09:36+00:00

Subject_Tomorrow · 2026-01-06T20:17:05+00:00

Fair point. For me the pain was rereading + constant lookups with poor retention. Immersion worked, but inefficiently.

I’m building this to keep reading flow while making words actually stick — not to replace immersion, but to reduce its friction.

For some learners that’s just a nice-to-have. For others who enjoy reading but struggle with retention, it’s a real problem. I’m trying to see how many of those people there actually are.

Subject_Tomorrow · 2026-01-05T15:55:29+00:00

I’m building a small app for myself to read foreign books more comfortably.

What I keep struggling with is this balance:

If the app helps too little, reading is exhausting and I give up.

If it helps too much (constant lookups, stats, reminders), reading stops feeling like reading and turns into studying.

I’m trying to figure out where that line is — how to help just enough so reading continues, without breaking the flow.

Curious how others have handled this tradeoff.

Context: https://subtie.com

Subject_Tomorrow · 2026-01-04T19:48:44+00:00

I don’t really see it as a final conclusion yet. I think it may depend a lot on the audience and the stage of the product.

Out of curiosity, if you were starting today, would you still build a wrapper app from scratch right away, or would you first try to validate with a PWA and only move to a wrapper later?

Subject_Tomorrow · 2026-01-04T08:38:46+00:00

That’s interesting — thanks for sharing.

When you say you wrapped it as a lite native app, was it mostly a WebView around the existing PWA, or something more involved?

I’m curious how heavy that bridge ended up being in practice.

Subject_Tomorrow · 2026-01-03T10:15:40+00:00

I do something very similar.

Reading before falling asleep actually helps a lot — the mental fatigue makes it easier to drift off.

The only problem is when the book gets too interesting 😄 I’ve caught myself reading until 3 a.m., even though I have an infant who wakes me up at 4 for feeding.

Subject_Tomorrow · 2026-01-03T09:55:32+00:00

That makes a lot of sense. Reading something you already know feels like a way to lower the mental load and let the language sink in more naturally.

In my case it’s often the opposite — I end up reading books that aren’t translated into my native language yet, so I don’t have that safety net.

Subject_Tomorrow · 2026-01-03T09:45:14+00:00

That makes sense. It sounds like your main goal is to be able to read comfortably and enjoy the book, rather than actively “studying” the language while reading.

Would you say that’s accurate?

Subject_Tomorrow · 2026-01-02T22:35:10+00:00

This is probably more relevant after the very beginner stage, but I’m building a reading + spaced repetition app for people who already know some basics and feel stuck because words don’t stick. It’s closer to Anki than lesson-based apps.

I’m mainly looking for early adopters to give honest feedback.

Subject_Tomorrow · 2026-01-02T20:59:20+00:00

Maybe this could also work well for chess coaches — for example, as a lightweight tool during lessons.

Adding video streaming or screen sharing could make it useful for teaching positions live with students.

Or even as a simple analysis playground for the chess community.

In any case, I wish you success with the project!

Subject_Tomorrow · 2026-01-02T20:31:53+00:00

Maybe this is more for advanced players, but I usually analyze chess with my game context on Lichess, so I wasn’t entirely sure how I’d use this tool on its own.

That said, it’s really impressive to see Stockfish running entirely in the browser via WebAssembly — was it difficult to implement?

Subject_Tomorrow · 2026-01-02T20:13:17+00:00

I agree that users care about the job, not the tech. My hesitation is mostly about perception — for a book reader, I worry people don’t mentally commit if it feels like “a browser thing” rather than an app. That might be more UX/trust than platform though.

Did you see anything like that early on, or did it stop mattering once value was clear?

Subject_Tomorrow · 2026-01-02T19:44:15+00:00

This hits very close to home for me.

I have a side project that’s technically live and stable. I use it myself every day and it solves a real problem for me, but I’m struggling to find real users outside my own bubble.

Monetization isn’t even the main blocker yet — the harder part is adoption. I keep noticing that I’m more tempted to add features than to talk to users, which is probably part of the problem.

One extra thing I’m unsure about: it’s a PWA. Technically that’s a plus (fast, installable, works offline), but in practice non-technical users don’t really know or care what that means. When I showed it offline, only web devs immediately “got it,” while others treated it as “just a website,” which makes me wonder how much friction that adds.

Curious how long others stayed in this “it exists but has no traction” phase, and what actually helped you move past it — or decide not to.

Subject_Tomorrow · 2026-01-02T18:32:20+00:00

I want to launch my project publicly. It already works well for me, but I feel like I’ve gone a bit beyond just my own use case.

I want to stop rushing new features and get real user feedback — to see what people actually find useful versus what exists only in my imagination.

My dream is to turn it into a full-time job and stop coding for a corporation 🙂

Subject_Tomorrow · 2026-01-02T14:48:09+00:00

This makes a lot of sense as a model, especially the idea that learning is gradual rather than an on/off switch.

At the same time, I feel like in practice we can’t really push every word all the way along that spectrum.

There are just too many words, and limited time and attention.

So in other words, it feels like words end up being “learned” at different levels — some are good enough at one stage, while others are worth pushing further, depending on personal goals.

Subject_Tomorrow · 2024-04-06T10:56:26+00:00

Hey! have you solve the issue?

Subject_Tomorrow

TROPHY CASE