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One Developer Got Thousands of Users Before His App Launched

Overview

Shownote

Highlights

Transcript

Chapters

Pins

One Developer Got Thousands of Users Before His App Launched

AI & I

Sep 17
AI & I

AI & I

Sep 17
OverviewShownoteHighlightsTranscriptChaptersPins

Shownote

Naveen Naidu built an app that found product-market fit backwards. Most apps launch first and then try to find users. Monologue, Naveen’s AI voice dictation app that came out of beta yesterday, did the opposite. It built a following of thousands of users ...

Highlights

Naveen Naidu, a solo developer, has defied conventional startup wisdom by building a successful AI-powered voice dictation app not through massive funding or a large team, but through rapid iteration, deep user engagement, and strategic use of AI tools. Monologue emerged quietly within the Every community and gained traction long before its public launch, proving that product-market fit can be achieved without traditional go-to-market campaigns.
02:15
Monologue has over $1,000 in monthly recurring revenue
03:56
Monologue transcribes speech into a well-formatted email, self-corrects, and includes a calendar link
09:26
Made $5k a month with a one-time fee Mac app requiring user-provided API keys
12:31
Using your own product is key to successful launches.
23:52
Naveen released Monologue's first version in just two days after starting development.
26:11
Kieran got excited about the app and asked for local whisper models
29:53
The speaker submitted a PR that Kieran denied.
37:35
Monologue achieved 7,000 daily uses before launch with less than $20,000 investment.
43:18
Lucas came up with the name Monologue and led the creative vision
47:50
GPT-5 generates code that feels like it was written by a senior engineer.

Chapters

Building an AI App Solo
00:00
Introduction
01:27
A live demo of Monologue
03:51
Hard lessons from Naveen’s years in the wilderness
06:27
Building a muscle to ship fast
12:29
The spark that became Monologue
21:11
Dogfooding your way to a killer feature
26:09
Why the harshest product feedback is the most valuable
29:45
Every’s strategy for launching an app in a crowded space
31:47
Giving Monologue the Every “smell”
40:08
Naveen’s one-person AI stack to build beautiful apps
45:09

Transcript

Dan Shipper: We built an AI app that had 1,000 daily active users and 2,000 in MRR before it even launched. It's called Monologue, and it's a text-to-speech app built by Every entrepreneur in residence, Naveen Naidu. Naveen built Monologue by himself, end ...