Talk into it and get clean, rewritten text.
Build a voice-note AI app in 12 hours: AudioPen, about $15K a month
Shipping several tiny tools and doubling down on the one people react to beats years on one idea.
Figures as told to Starter Story (self-reported by the founder) · source
From Starter Story · Dec 2025
The Short Version
How Louis Pereira (AudioPen) made ~$15K a month, according to Starter Story (self-reported).
- What: Louis Pereira, a part-time indie hacker in India who also works in his family business, had built 15 to 20 products that failed.
- Result: He told Starter Story AudioPen makes about $15,000 a month, with about 200,000 users and over 5,000 paying customers, and that beta testers paid on launch day without being asked (Starter Story, Dec 2025.
| Who | Louis Pereira (AudioPen) |
|---|---|
| Tool | Not named in the source |
| Money | ~$15K a month |
| Timeframe | Dec 2025 |
| Source | Starter Story |
| Self-reported | Yes |
The workflow
Where & With What
What They Did
- 1The moveLouis Pereira, a part-time indie hacker in India who also works in his family business, had built 15 to 20 products that failed.
- 2Step 2Build several tiny tools
- 3Step 3Share each one publicly
- 4ResultHe told Starter Story AudioPen makes about $15,000 a month, with about 200,000 users and over 5,000 paying customers, and that beta testers paid on launch day without being asked (Starter Story, Dec 2025; his written interview, May 2024, also says $15K a month).
Quick Answers
What tools do you need?
Just the platform account.
How much does it cost?
No paid tools needed: this case uses only the platform itself, which is free to join.
Is it allowed?
Follow the platform rules and disclose ads.
Watch out: Self-reported. He says luck played a part after 15 to 20 earlier failures.
Try It Yourself
(Our template, not the creator's prompt.) Give me 5 tiny AI tool ideas I could each build in a day for [audience], the one-line demo for each and the post I would share to test which one gets a reaction.
Your first step
Paste the prompt into your AI assistant and swap the [brackets] for your own niche.
Full write-up & sources
More detail: In one week he built four or five tiny AI tools and shared them on Twitter; AudioPen, which transcribes voice notes and rewrites them, got the most interest. He designed the screens in Figma, then built the full version in about 12 hours at Half Day Build, a hackathon he ran, live-tweeting the build and opening a waitlist about 10 hours in. He built it with Bubble, a no-code tool.
Source: Starter Story · Dec 2025. Summarised in our own words; figures as told to Starter Story (self-reported by the founder). Updated .
