Tony Dinh - 2023 Recap
Hello everyone, Tony here 👋 Here’s another update from me in December 2023. Turned 30 years oldMy career milestones in the last ten years (from 20yo to 30yo):
As with almost everyone else, the 20 to 30 period is probably the most “eventful” decade of my career. Not saying it will be all boring from now on, but I have a feeling it’ll be hard to beat 😂 New appIn December, I built a new app for fun: voicedual.com It allows you to change your voice using AI. The demo tweet got 1000+ likes, which was a good sign! I was hoping this could be my next successful app, but it turns out not. I built the initial version using a private API from ElevenLabs (speech-to-speech). At the time, I tried the speech-to-speech feature and got the idea that ElevenLabs didn’t have a public API yet, but I decided to build the app anyway, hoping that they would release the API around the same time I finished. Turns out they still haven’t released it. So, I modified the app to use another similar API from resemble.ai. The app is now live on voicedual.com. You can give it a try! Later, I added payment. The business model was simple: $5 to remove the watermark. In about a week, ~900 videos were created. I made $0 😂 Actually, I’m at a loss of -$200 or something for API fees and servers. I guess this app is fun but not quite enough for people to buy. Anyway, I’ll keep the app running for a while more. I may still need it to impress my friends at the bar and library when needed 😂 I also learned a few more things building this app:
Updates in Typing MindTyping Mind remains my primary focus. In December, I cleaned up the UI, added new features, and fixed many bugs. The B2B version (Typing Mind Custom) also received a lot of great features, like Single Sign-On (as requested by my business customers). I’m thinking about being more aggressive with the marketing and could reach out for Typing Mind Custom. Like hiring salespeople and letting them get more business customers somehow. Maybe I’ll do it myself first. There are some good learning opportunities in the process: generating leads, cold outreach, doing demo calls, following up, and closing the deal. I’ve never done this myself, so part of me wants to do it. The only thing is that “doing a demo call” conflicts with my current “no meeting policy.” And I heard only 10% of the demo calls end up being a successful deal, so that’s discouraging. 2023 RecapOnly a few days left in 2023. Here is the recap with some highlights:
Overall, this was a great year.
That’s all for now!Thank you for reading my updates. I wish you and your family a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year (soon)! See you in 2024 👋 - Tony |
Older messages
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Oct 2023: side project, interview on Indie Hackers
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Monday, August 7, 2023
small updates from me in July 2023
Jun 2023: How I work with employees
Thursday, July 6, 2023
Some quick updates from me in June 2023
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