Show HN: I built a tool to send you daily digest of your saved bookmarks

65 pointsmarcinem5y ago23 comments

Bookmarks which you wanted to read, but simply forgot...

It happened to me all the time. I bookmarked the articles to read later and simply forgot about them. Forever.

I built Mailist to help with that. Already 2350 users enjoy their "weekly digests" composed from their bookmarks. It makes me super happy!

So now, https://mailist.app Pro account allows you to send an email newsletter every day, built from your bookmarks.

Does it sound interesting? The free version (weekly email) is available for everyone!

Let me know what you think.

PS. Unlike other tools, we care about your privacy and don't suggest promo content based on your saved links.

23 comments

sciencewolf5y ago

I remember https://www.linkdrop.co/ tried to do this and the Show HN (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19960313) appears to be this exact idea. However, it looks like they shifted to using an extension as opposed to a bookmark. Any idea why?

Also, curious how many pro subscribers you currently have? I imagine it's pretty difficult to get people on board with a $4/mo tool for personal consumption, unless you market it as a "productivity" tool.

kirubakaran5y ago

As a data point, https://histre.com/ (Effortless Knowledge Base) that I'm bootstrapping, includes features around bookmarks - so it is in a way in the same space fwiw. Histre has a "solo plan" currently at $3/month. People who use it for "personal consumption", as you put it, sign up for that plan. When I talk to them, they say that at $3/month, they don't even have to think about it. You're definitely getting several multiples of that in value and it's a great way to support the startup be independent.

Otherwise all we'll have in the world is different flavors of VC funded adtech companies providing "free" services.

marcinemOP5y ago

We have 35 pro users right now. But yes, it’s been a tough journey to get them subscribe and most of them have either lifetime access or discounted price.

Still learning here, what price would you suggest?

brudgers5y ago

Just to throw numbers around:

  4x engineers @ $10k/month
  50% overhead
  25% net revenue

Is $75k/month. At $4/month that’s about 18,000 paid users. So 4500 paid users/engineer. Without a free tier and without prepaid lifetime plans.

Twenty dollars a month gets users per engineer down to 1000. A hundred bucks a month gets it down to 200 users per month and then there’s time to develop features and such.

Again, I am just throwing numbers around to provide an example of one way of establishing price. The important thing is that prices close to zero dollars are hard to make work at modest scale because there are a lot of users and not very much money for operating and growing the business.

On the other hand, 1000 users at $4/month is not bad as passive income for a person. That’s a different kind of business model.

Good luck.

1 more reply

butz5y ago

How about skipping email and displaying digest right in browser? It could be implemented as extension, and you could even take actions on read bookmarks, e.g. move to storage folder or delete.

marcinemOP5y ago

Each digest is also available in shareable web format. Here is an example: https://my.mailist.app/share/JHqkkGfFxc

I am working on a personal archive of these for a quick access.

kerrybright30005y ago

I use time filters in Bookmark OS for this. You can view only bookmarks created in the last week and it keeps folder intact. https://bookmarkos.com

newman3145y ago

I would love a related tool.

Content search engine for my open tabs / bookmarked. Oftentimes, I bookmark or leave a tab open for something to read later but I can't find it later.

To be clear, it would index and search said URL.

kirubakaran5y ago

Please try my https://histre.com/ for this. My email is in my profile if you have any questions.

newman3145y ago

Will try it out when I have some time... Thanks.

ashishb5y ago

I recently build a similar one to read books - https://ten-pages-a-day.ashishb.net/

marcinemOP5y ago

Nice! Love the idea :)

raveenb5y ago

this looks like a cool tool.

My problem was that i had collected a lot of such links and simply wasnt able to go thru all. So I had built this app that took all the links in the bookmark and summarized it.

You can check it out at https://www.makemysummary.com anyone is welcome to try it out, it summarizes youtube, podcasts and webpages

If your app has zapier integration then anyone can route their bookmarks via MakeMySummary and get them summarized

hackeratrandom5y ago

@marcinem - FYI, you misspelled "through" as "thorugh" on this page https://www.mailist.app/pro-bookmark-manager.html ... really like this idea for an app :-)

marcinemOP5y ago

Oh, thanks! Will edit this ASAP!

d0m5y ago

It's funny, I had this similar idea just last week. It's been hard for me to read books with a baby but I can afford to read emails here and there.

blaydator5y ago

Very nice. I have built similar tool for Android and iOS to save notes (And webpages) by email so they don’t get lost in another note app. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.boomerang.... https://apps.apple.com/fr/app/boomerang-email-myself/id11544...

fraXis5y ago

I just installed your app. Works great. Been looking for something like this for a long time now. So easy to share myself a link and have it automatically emailed to me. Great job!

blaydator5y ago

I am pleased it suits your need :)

marcinemOP5y ago

Well done!

happppy5y ago

I think its a typo in footer, 'GIve it a try,', 'I' in give is capital.

fock5y ago

looks like wallabag to me

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

23 comments

sciencewolf5y ago

kirubakaran5y ago

Otherwise all we'll have in the world is different flavors of VC funded adtech companies providing "free" services.

marcinemOP5y ago

We have 35 pro users right now. But yes, it’s been a tough journey to get them subscribe and most of them have either lifetime access or discounted price.

Still learning here, what price would you suggest?

brudgers5y ago

Just to throw numbers around:

  4x engineers @ $10k/month
  50% overhead
  25% net revenue

Is $75k/month. At $4/month that’s about 18,000 paid users. So 4500 paid users/engineer. Without a free tier and without prepaid lifetime plans.

Twenty dollars a month gets users per engineer down to 1000. A hundred bucks a month gets it down to 200 users per month and then there’s time to develop features and such.

On the other hand, 1000 users at $4/month is not bad as passive income for a person. That’s a different kind of business model.

Good luck.

1 more reply

butz5y ago

How about skipping email and displaying digest right in browser? It could be implemented as extension, and you could even take actions on read bookmarks, e.g. move to storage folder or delete.

marcinemOP5y ago

Each digest is also available in shareable web format. Here is an example: https://my.mailist.app/share/JHqkkGfFxc

I am working on a personal archive of these for a quick access.

kerrybright30005y ago

I use time filters in Bookmark OS for this. You can view only bookmarks created in the last week and it keeps folder intact. https://bookmarkos.com

newman3145y ago

I would love a related tool.

Content search engine for my open tabs / bookmarked. Oftentimes, I bookmark or leave a tab open for something to read later but I can't find it later.

To be clear, it would index and search said URL.

kirubakaran5y ago

Please try my https://histre.com/ for this. My email is in my profile if you have any questions.

newman3145y ago

Will try it out when I have some time... Thanks.

ashishb5y ago

I recently build a similar one to read books - https://ten-pages-a-day.ashishb.net/

marcinemOP5y ago

Nice! Love the idea :)

raveenb5y ago

this looks like a cool tool.

My problem was that i had collected a lot of such links and simply wasnt able to go thru all. So I had built this app that took all the links in the bookmark and summarized it.

You can check it out at https://www.makemysummary.com anyone is welcome to try it out, it summarizes youtube, podcasts and webpages

If your app has zapier integration then anyone can route their bookmarks via MakeMySummary and get them summarized

hackeratrandom5y ago

@marcinem - FYI, you misspelled "through" as "thorugh" on this page https://www.mailist.app/pro-bookmark-manager.html ... really like this idea for an app :-)

marcinemOP5y ago

Oh, thanks! Will edit this ASAP!

d0m5y ago

It's funny, I had this similar idea just last week. It's been hard for me to read books with a baby but I can afford to read emails here and there.

blaydator5y ago

fraXis5y ago

I just installed your app. Works great. Been looking for something like this for a long time now. So easy to share myself a link and have it automatically emailed to me. Great job!

blaydator5y ago

I am pleased it suits your need :)

marcinemOP5y ago

Well done!

happppy5y ago

I think its a typo in footer, 'GIve it a try,', 'I' in give is capital.

fock5y ago

looks like wallabag to me

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse