9 ms·

Show HN: I built a site where strangers leave kind voice notes for each other

59 points by thepaulthomson 6mo ago

larsmosr 6mo ago
This is one of those projects where the benefits outweighs the risks
- thepaulthomson 6mo ago
  Thanks for the support! I sure hope so :)
thepaulthomson 6mo ago
Hey! So the backstory here is pretty simple. I was going through a rough patch earlier this year and I kept thinking about how weird it is that we have all this technology for connecting people but most of it makes you feel worse not better. And I had this moment where a friend left me a voice note, just a short one, and it genuinely shifted my whole day. Something about hearing someone’s actual voice, the tone and the pauses and all that, it just lands differently than text. So I built this. You record a voice note between 5 and 60 seconds saying something kind, and it goes into a pool. A stranger somewhere presses play and hears you. Thats it. No accounts, no profiles, no sign up. Completely anonymous. The moderation side was the interesting engineering problem. Every note gets transcribed by Whisper then a second model classifies it into kind/unsure/unkind/not_a_note. Only “kind” notes ever get served to listeners. I made the decision to run moderation inline during upload rather than batching it, so theres never a window where unmoderated audio is just sitting around waiting. The whole lifecycle gets logged in an append-only event table with request IDs so if something weird slips through I can trace exactly what happend. Its a pretty standard Next.js + Postgres + S3 setup otherwise. Nothing too clever on the infra side, the interesting stuff is all in the moderation pipeline and figuring out what “kind” actually means when you’re trying to get a model to judge it reliably. One thing I’m really curious to get feedback on: after you record you get a “ripple link” which is basically your only receipt. You can come back and see how many people heard your note and any anonymous reactions they left. I’m not sure yet if this is compelling enough or if I need to build more of a feedback loop there. The site is live, you can record or listen right now. Zero friction. Would really love this community’s feedback on the product and the technical approach.
dokdev 6mo ago
Nice Project! You can also keep track of the recordings that the user already listened and pick the random from the ones user hasn't listened yet.
- thepaulthomson 6mo ago
  Thanks! That’s a great addition. I’ll work on adding that. Appreciate the feedback.
yodon 6mo ago
Pretty sure if this gets any traction at all, it will immediately turn into a mix of Chatroulette and crypto scams. See also Mythic Quest's discussion of TTP.[0] User Generated Content is only your friend if you have the resources to moderate it. [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_xqyIMwbew https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_xqyIMwbew
- thepaulthomson 6mo ago
  I figured there was quite a big surface here for misuse. But I've done my best to curb that. You're right, that if this scales, the compute to oversee moderation would be inaccessible for a solo hobbyist like me. I don't have a huge audience, so I think for now, at least, the moderation is in scope. Also MQ is one of my all-time favourite shows (mainly first seasons, it kinda lost steam in the later ones).
- whoamii 6mo ago
  Perfect use case for an LLM
- Bender 6mo ago
  And assorted AI learning and mimicking peoples voices for nefarious purposes.
  - thepaulthomson 6mo ago
    Good callout
Yestas 6mo ago
Cool project! It would be nice to have a way to listen to more recordings of specific persons. And maybe have personal profile with little bio.
- harvenstar 6mo ago
  Maybe a middle ground — let people pick a pseudonym and a one-line tagline, but no real identity. You keep the warmth of anonymity while still letting listeners find voices they connected with.
  - thepaulthomson 6mo ago
    That's actually quite classy! I guess reddit/HN is similar. Pseudonym on the front end with email auth. That could work here too. Thank you for the nudge, what a great idea.
    - harvenstar 6mo ago
      Glad it clicked! Good luck with the project.
- thepaulthomson 6mo ago
  Yeah, I'm thinking through some kind of profile creation (not the right wording). My concern is if I start to strip away some of the anonymity, then it might detract from the sentiment. But I'm open to ideas!
  - Yestas 6mo ago
    I understand you I think you should go with YOUR vision. This is very important to stay creative and have a authentic product
    - thepaulthomson 6mo ago
      Good callout. Will definitely keep that in mind. Thanks!
AI-viewer-un 6mo ago
[dead]
efilife 6mo ago
This desperately needs more publicity. Commenting in hopes it somehow influences the HN algorithm
- thepaulthomson 6mo ago
  THANK YOU for the support
andrewstuart 6mo ago
A bit like… Https://www.crowdwave.com
- thepaulthomson 6mo ago
  haha this aesthetic is very cool! Love the project, thanks for sharing. Lots of ideas in there that I could see potentially working really well for V2 or V3 of Kind Voice Notes!
Sat_P 6mo ago
I love this because when I've been down in various periods of my life, after sharing a problem with someone close, one thing they said made all the difference. This has happened to me many times after getting kind words from family and friends. I agree that this will be ruined if it gains traction, but it should be great if it remains not too well known (ironically).
- thepaulthomson 6mo ago
  Wow, thanks for sharing. Yeah, it's amazing how much of an impact a little pick-me-up can have. As this continues to gain traction, I'll just keep chipping away at keep it safe and people protected. All I can do for now is take it one step at a time and keep solving problems as they appear. Again, thanks a ton for checking it out!!
dxdm 6mo ago
The first "Show HN" submission I've seen that has made me feel good. I wish more people would see it.
- thepaulthomson 6mo ago
  This made my day! Thanks for the kind support and I'm glad it landed for you. Hope you continue to enjoy it!
richarlidad 6mo ago
This is so good! How did you get the first messages onboard?
- thepaulthomson 6mo ago
  Wow, thanks for the support! To get the first few voice notes, I sent it to family and some colleagues. It was a smoke test to see if anyone would actually record without me literally begging them haha.. and they did! After that, I was confident to start sharing the project more widely and here we are today.
deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
bitbybit_ch 6mo ago
Very nice project. I hope it will not be misused by bad actors.
- thepaulthomson 6mo ago
  Thanks! So far, the checks and balances I have in place to protect users and prevent abuse are holding. I hope it stays that way!
mandubird 6mo ago
This is a surprisingly wholesome idea. I'm curious do people tend to leave longer messages, or mostly short encouragements?
- thepaulthomson 6mo ago
  It's been a mix so far! I just ran the numbers and the average is 29.4 seconds. Glad you liked the idea. I appreciate the kind words.
qsudip 6mo ago
Nice one. I was working on something similar, but then dropped it. The idea was to create a database of diverse voices for AI voice tools to train their models. Of course, it will have user consent. Only those who want to see their voices used in AI models can submit a voice sample.
- thepaulthomson 6mo ago
  Oh cool! I can imagine one day 12 months later I'd be talking to the voice agent of my plumber and hearing ME scheduling in a time to get my shower fixed haha
lmhansen 6mo ago
Fantastic. So nice to hear kind words from a stranger.
- thepaulthomson 6mo ago
  Thanks for the kind support. Glad this project found you!
gelfunde 6mo ago
It doesn’t play rn on iOS 16 safari („tap to hear their words“ might also just confuse me to the degree of non-usability)
- thepaulthomson 6mo ago
  Thanks for the heads up! I'm not sure I have the scope to support iOS versions that far back, but I'll definitely dig into it for you. Sorry for the hassles!
wr639 6mo ago
I wonder how much a thing like this get abused by kids playing around
- thepaulthomson 6mo ago
  Actually not as much as you would think (according to the recordings I'm getting). Though, I admit, this probably hasn't made it to "delinquent teens making farting noises" audience yet haha

This is one of those projects where the benefits outweighs the risks

thepaulthomson 6mo ago
Thanks for the support! I sure hope so :)

Hey! So the backstory here is pretty simple. I was going through a rough patch earlier this year and I kept thinking about how weird it is that we have all this technology for connecting people but most of it makes you feel worse not better. And I had this moment where a friend left me a voice note, just a short one, and it genuinely shifted my whole day. Something about hearing someone’s actual voice, the tone and the pauses and all that, it just lands differently than text. So I built this. You record a voice note between 5 and 60 seconds saying something kind, and it goes into a pool. A stranger somewhere presses play and hears you. Thats it. No accounts, no profiles, no sign up. Completely anonymous. The moderation side was the interesting engineering problem. Every note gets transcribed by Whisper then a second model classifies it into kind/unsure/unkind/not_a_note. Only “kind” notes ever get served to listeners. I made the decision to run moderation inline during upload rather than batching it, so theres never a window where unmoderated audio is just sitting around waiting. The whole lifecycle gets logged in an append-only event table with request IDs so if something weird slips through I can trace exactly what happend. Its a pretty standard Next.js + Postgres + S3 setup otherwise. Nothing too clever on the infra side, the interesting stuff is all in the moderation pipeline and figuring out what “kind” actually means when you’re trying to get a model to judge it reliably. One thing I’m really curious to get feedback on: after you record you get a “ripple link” which is basically your only receipt. You can come back and see how many people heard your note and any anonymous reactions they left. I’m not sure yet if this is compelling enough or if I need to build more of a feedback loop there. The site is live, you can record or listen right now. Zero friction. Would really love this community’s feedback on the product and the technical approach.

dokdev 6mo ago

Nice Project! You can also keep track of the recordings that the user already listened and pick the random from the ones user hasn't listened yet.

thepaulthomson 6mo ago
Thanks! That’s a great addition. I’ll work on adding that. Appreciate the feedback.

yodon 6mo ago

Pretty sure if this gets any traction at all, it will immediately turn into a mix of Chatroulette and crypto scams. See also Mythic Quest's discussion of TTP.[0] User Generated Content is only your friend if you have the resources to moderate it. [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_xqyIMwbew https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_xqyIMwbew

thepaulthomson 6mo ago
I figured there was quite a big surface here for misuse. But I've done my best to curb that. You're right, that if this scales, the compute to oversee moderation would be inaccessible for a solo hobbyist like me. I don't have a huge audience, so I think for now, at least, the moderation is in scope. Also MQ is one of my all-time favourite shows (mainly first seasons, it kinda lost steam in the later ones).
whoamii 6mo ago
Perfect use case for an LLM
Bender 6mo ago
And assorted AI learning and mimicking peoples voices for nefarious purposes.
- thepaulthomson 6mo ago
  Good callout

Yestas 6mo ago

Cool project! It would be nice to have a way to listen to more recordings of specific persons. And maybe have personal profile with little bio.

harvenstar 6mo ago
Maybe a middle ground — let people pick a pseudonym and a one-line tagline, but no real identity. You keep the warmth of anonymity while still letting listeners find voices they connected with.
- thepaulthomson 6mo ago
  That's actually quite classy! I guess reddit/HN is similar. Pseudonym on the front end with email auth. That could work here too. Thank you for the nudge, what a great idea.
  - harvenstar 6mo ago
    Glad it clicked! Good luck with the project.
thepaulthomson 6mo ago
Yeah, I'm thinking through some kind of profile creation (not the right wording). My concern is if I start to strip away some of the anonymity, then it might detract from the sentiment. But I'm open to ideas!
- Yestas 6mo ago
  I understand you I think you should go with YOUR vision. This is very important to stay creative and have a authentic product
  - thepaulthomson 6mo ago
    Good callout. Will definitely keep that in mind. Thanks!

AI-viewer-un 6mo ago

[dead]

efilife 6mo ago

This desperately needs more publicity. Commenting in hopes it somehow influences the HN algorithm

thepaulthomson 6mo ago
THANK YOU for the support

andrewstuart 6mo ago

A bit like… Https://www.crowdwave.com

thepaulthomson 6mo ago
haha this aesthetic is very cool! Love the project, thanks for sharing. Lots of ideas in there that I could see potentially working really well for V2 or V3 of Kind Voice Notes!

Sat_P 6mo ago

I love this because when I've been down in various periods of my life, after sharing a problem with someone close, one thing they said made all the difference. This has happened to me many times after getting kind words from family and friends. I agree that this will be ruined if it gains traction, but it should be great if it remains not too well known (ironically).

thepaulthomson 6mo ago
Wow, thanks for sharing. Yeah, it's amazing how much of an impact a little pick-me-up can have. As this continues to gain traction, I'll just keep chipping away at keep it safe and people protected. All I can do for now is take it one step at a time and keep solving problems as they appear. Again, thanks a ton for checking it out!!

dxdm 6mo ago

The first "Show HN" submission I've seen that has made me feel good. I wish more people would see it.

thepaulthomson 6mo ago
This made my day! Thanks for the kind support and I'm glad it landed for you. Hope you continue to enjoy it!

richarlidad 6mo ago

This is so good! How did you get the first messages onboard?

thepaulthomson 6mo ago
Wow, thanks for the support! To get the first few voice notes, I sent it to family and some colleagues. It was a smoke test to see if anyone would actually record without me literally begging them haha.. and they did! After that, I was confident to start sharing the project more widely and here we are today.

deleted 6mo ago

[deleted]

bitbybit_ch 6mo ago

Very nice project. I hope it will not be misused by bad actors.

thepaulthomson 6mo ago
Thanks! So far, the checks and balances I have in place to protect users and prevent abuse are holding. I hope it stays that way!

mandubird 6mo ago

This is a surprisingly wholesome idea. I'm curious do people tend to leave longer messages, or mostly short encouragements?

thepaulthomson 6mo ago
It's been a mix so far! I just ran the numbers and the average is 29.4 seconds. Glad you liked the idea. I appreciate the kind words.

qsudip 6mo ago

Nice one. I was working on something similar, but then dropped it. The idea was to create a database of diverse voices for AI voice tools to train their models. Of course, it will have user consent. Only those who want to see their voices used in AI models can submit a voice sample.

thepaulthomson 6mo ago
Oh cool! I can imagine one day 12 months later I'd be talking to the voice agent of my plumber and hearing ME scheduling in a time to get my shower fixed haha

lmhansen 6mo ago

Fantastic. So nice to hear kind words from a stranger.

thepaulthomson 6mo ago
Thanks for the kind support. Glad this project found you!

gelfunde 6mo ago

It doesn’t play rn on iOS 16 safari („tap to hear their words“ might also just confuse me to the degree of non-usability)

thepaulthomson 6mo ago
Thanks for the heads up! I'm not sure I have the scope to support iOS versions that far back, but I'll definitely dig into it for you. Sorry for the hassles!

wr639 6mo ago

I wonder how much a thing like this get abused by kids playing around

thepaulthomson 6mo ago
Actually not as much as you would think (according to the recordings I'm getting). Though, I admit, this probably hasn't made it to "delinquent teens making farting noises" audience yet haha