AudioNotes is a macOS menu bar app that helps you record and share audio messages really easily.

Great idea, with an awesome landing page that demonstrates the power and simplicity of the app!

@mubashariqbal +1 for the landing page. Very clever.

@mubashariqbal Thank you Mubs, and thanks for Huntin' the app. That 2 week rule you blogged about literally sparked this all off 💥

@rrhoover @mubashariqbal - cheers Ryan - in the past I've spent way too long fine tuning the wrong areas of a product, very chuffed with this launch 🚀

This is one of the type of Product Hunt launches I really like. @hitdelete launched Audio Notes today and tweeted about it here @rrhoover suggested him to hunt it. @mubashariqbal hunted it for him and here he is, sharing his great and useful side-project with the Product Hunt community 🙌 Congratulations on the launch @hitdelete and good job on Audio Notes 👏 Btw I love the simplicity of the landing page, well done 👌

@mrcalexandre @rrhoover @mubashariqbal - that's community right there! Thanks for the awesome comment Alexandre 🙏

Hey Product Hunters 👋 Wow this initial response has left me all warm inside 🤗 Thanks @mubashariqbal for the Hunt and @rrhover for reaching out on twitter. To answer a few questions about the MVP tech, it's simply a 5 minute AudioNote that expires in 7 days. I experimented a bit with formats and decided on 32kbps @ 44100 Hz - perfect for simple voice audio (and fast uploads). As you hit Stop Recording, the note is transcoded into AAC, then wrapped in MP3 (so there is no funny business playing on browsers) then uploaded to S3. But before any of this happens a share link is generated and copied to clipboard. This was absolutely inspired by how Instagram used to upload in the background while you wrote the caption. So by the time you paste into an email, it's already uploaded and the AudioNote page is ready and playable. **So why 5 min, why 7 days expiry, why 32kbps?** As much as I wanted to get the MVP out quick, I really wanted to have a semi-clear way to monetize before green-lighting the idea. AudioNotes must be sustainable. If 1mil people are recording notes all day, I'm in big trouble, despite Amazon costs relatively low. My monetization plan right now (without overthinking too much) is a recurring model: Free - 5mins, 32kbps (good), 7 day expiry $5/mo Pro - 60mins, 96kbps (better), no expiry Simple. The above also excludes any additional rad features of course eg. drag in an audio file to menubar (well produced, edited, with jingles etc.) and it transcodes for you and creates a share URL. But that's maybe v8 haha 🤓 So yeah, the MVP is to gather real feedback, understand how users are using it, and validate creating a Premium tier if X people are using the app. Shout if you have any questions what-so-ever and thanks for the love ✌️

@hitdelete great work Rob! One suggestion, a big one at that, is to make the audio social network sharable in some type of format like NPR, and others have tried to do. That boils down to something like making the mp3 a mp4 showcasing a companion image or something. Would make for a great upsell in the paid version!

@clarkcovington cheers Clark and great suggestion! Right now the audio is actually AAC wrapped in an MP3 so it plays nicely on majority of browsers. I'll consider NPR for sure, had to look it up TBH 😜 The way I see AudioNotes going is simple user accounts, meaning: - You login on multiple machines/phones and all your AudioNotes are there - Having the AudioNotes assigned to a profile means there is an image, author and perhaps a bio + user link we can add below the playable note within the webpage (this creates a bit more validity to the note as well) - Meaning when you share on any social network, the social meta tags should create a fairly good looking "card" with your info Having the note playable within the social network timelines and emails is definitely an end goal I hope we achieve. Not to overthink things too much but having user accounts on the free tier (and not just Pro) would mean allocating AudioNotes to a user... which lands up being a great upsell to "un-expire" all their AudioNotes by upgrading. Just thoughts for now:)

AudioNotes

Easily record and share audio messages from your Mac menubar

Do you use AudioNotes?

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