Summr.io - The Beginning
In 2022, I loved reading Medium blogs. I enjoyed reading about the latest tech trends and interesting stories. Then, in December, I discovered OpenAI’s GPT-3. I was amazed by what these language models (LLMs) could do—like writing text, answering questions, and much more.
I started experimenting with the GPT-3 API, just for fun. Soon, I noticed people were using LLMs to pull information from PDFs to answer questions. That gave me an idea: what if I used this technology to make summaries of long blog posts? It would save readers a lot of time.
So, I decided to build something. I called it Summr.io. I worked on it during weekends, and after a few months, I had a basic version that could summarize articles. I launched it quietly, without any big marketing or promotion. My goal was simple: I just wanted to see if it worked and if anyone found it useful.
Like MJ from Spider-Man once said:
“Expect disappointment, and you won’t be disappointed.”
To my surprise, about 25 people started using Summr.io! I was happy with the response. Then, I moved on to other projects and forgot that OpenAI’s free credits would run out. Eventually, the Summr.io Chrome Extension stopped working. But despite this, people were still installing it, and it reached around 56 users.
That was my sign to fix it. I started working on it again, making sure it worked properly. It’s running smoothly now, and I could even add a pricing plan to make some money from it—but I’m holding off on that idea for now.
Summr.io started as a small, fun project, but seeing people use it (even when it wasn’t working!) has been rewarding. For now, I’m just excited to see where it goes.
