Underline – The first social platform for book lovers

The Story of Underline

Underline is the first social platform for book lovers.

The platform helps people extract notes from physical and digital and then share those book notes with friends and followers. It’s a great way to remember more from each book you read and share your knowledge with other learners.

Founder Laurențiu-Victor Bălașa launched Underline in 2018.

He came up with the idea for Underline as a solution to a problem he had previously encountered. While reading Measure what matters, a brilliant book by John Doerr, he realized there were so much value and knowledge he could implement in his own companies, so he began writing down ideas inside the Google Keep, the app he used to take notes. He would take photos of book pages, add them to the book note, and then manually add the text next to them. Soon the note became very long and difficult to follow. The entire process was very annoying, time-consuming and inconvenient – a real nuisance! On top of that, after he was done, if he were to share his notes with his colleagues, he couldn’t – the app didn’t allow that.

Laurențiu began looking for a solution to this problem, but he didn’t find any.

He believed there should be an app to help folks with this specific case of book note-taking so he set out to create it himself. That’s how Underline came to life.

Underline by numbers

50,000 active users monthly
100,000 downloads
200,000 notes
Up to 40% audience growth on a monthly basis
Euros 475K total funding amount to date

What technology is Underline based on?

Underline is based on Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology. The team developing Underline has improved this technology to help users scan a book to read digitally, fast and easy.

Here’s what can you do with Underline:

1. Join a book-loving community

The platform’s community is comprised of reading and writing enthusiasts such as bloggers, published authors, marketers, copywriters and other content creators.

2. Follow other book-lovers and creators

Discover other members of the Underline community, follow them and let yourself be inspired by their ideas.

3. Read book summaries for your self-improvement & self-help

Explore the Underline platform to discover and read book notes and summaries from real people.

4. Write summaries

It’s easy to remember books if you write the summaries yourself.

5. Save highlights/ideas

Save highlights and ideas from print and digital books in one place.

6. Share your ideas in the form of stories on your social media accounts

Why share other people’s quotes and smart ideas when you can share yours? Underline helps you share your highlights on your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn accounts.

7. Speech to text

Underline also works as a voice-to-text book writer. Just talk and the app transforms your voice notes into text. If you are the kind of writer who doesn’t need much editing or is more comfortable talking than writing, this app is for you.

8. Scan text

Take highlights from physical books by taking a photo of your desired page or paragraph and have Underline extract the text.

9. Sync Underline with your Kindle

Sync Underline with your Kindle and all your highlights will become organized and searchable.

10. Read books offline

If you don’t have time to read your chosen book, scan its pages, save the images and read them whenever it’s convenient for you or when you are offline.

Why you should download Underline

When was the last time you took notes? It was probably in your student years when you employed the old pen-to-paper technique. It worked great then, but now you read your book while commuting, on a train or the subway. As much as you would like to, taking notes by pen while holding the book in one hand and the bar with the other is just impossible (you are not expecting to grow a third arm anytime soon, are you?).

Underline solves this problem by allowing you to take notes anywhere, with your smartphone.

• 100% free. Underline book summaries are all 100% free.
• Easy to use. The app uses your smartphone’s camera, you don’t need anything else.
• Convenient. You can take notes anywhere.
• Saves time. If you are pressed for time, you can read book summaries. Underline is a great resource of free book summaries.
• Remember more. Go over your notes and highlights to fight the forgetting curve.
• Learn better. Writing down your notes is the best way to learn.
• Save it now, read it later. Read your chosen book whenever it’s convenient for you.
• Improve your reading habits. Create reading lists and keep track of all your favourite reads.
• Record your thoughts about the book you’re reading. Inspiration doesn’t come twice. Grab your phone and record your ideas before they disappear.
• Check out ideas and quotes taken by other users. Every one of us has a different outlook on life. It’s interesting to see the ideas other Underline users discover in the same book.
• Gain knowledge fast. Use Underline to gain knowledge fast from the most popular books & best authors in the world.

Underline is a fast-growing social platform with many more surprises in store for its users.

Share your book summaries and your ideas and become an influencer with Underline!

Join the Conversation

We’d love to hear what you have to say.

Get in touch with us on our LinkedIn Group, Facebook Group or Twitter.

Underline app – remember more from the books you read

What is the Underline app and how it can help you remember more from the books you read? 

A big part of what makes you the person you are today is your memory. Memory is a brain function that protects your brain from information overload, a risk we run daily now, in the digital age. Your memory acts as a filter and keeps you sane and a functioning human being. It’s the reason why we forget.

The Ebbinghaus forgetting curve hypothesizes the decline of memory retention in time. This curve shows how information is lost over time when there is no attempt to retain it.

If you are an avid reader, wouldn’t you like to remember more?

How does the forgetting curve change when you practise repeating it?

As you can see in the graphic below, repeating the newly-learned information is the best way to increase memory retention.

Underline helps you remember more from the books you read

Underline is a book-to-text scanning app. With the Underline app, you can make the most of reading.

What technology is Underline based on?

Underline is based on Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology. The team developing Underline has improved this technology to help users scan a book to read digitally, fast and easy.

Underline app features

Here’s what can you do with Underline:

1. Scan text

Take highlights from physical books by taking a photo of your desired page or paragraph and have Underline extract the text.

2. Sync Underline with your Kindle

Sync Underline with your Kindle and all your highlights will become organized and searchable.

3. Save highlights/ideas

Save highlights and ideas from print, digital or audiobooks in one place.

4. Create and share your highlights on social media

Why share other people’s quotes and smart ideas when you can share yours? Underline helps you create and share cool photos from your highlights with your friends on social media.

5. Find and read book summaries

Explore the Underline community to discover and read book notes and summaries from real people.

6. Write summaries

You can also use Underline as a summary writing app. It’s easy to remember books if you write summaries.

7. Take notes by voice

Underline also works as a voice-to-text book writer. Just talk and the app transforms your voice notes into text. If you are the kind of writer who doesn’t need much editing or is more comfortable talking than writing, this app is for you.

8. Read books offline

If you don’t have time to read your chosen book, scan its pages, save the images and read them whenever it’s convenient for you or when you are offline.

Benefits of using Underline

When was the last time you took notes? It was probably in your student years when you employed the old pen-to-paper technique.

It worked great then, but now you read your book while commuting, on a train or the subway. As much as you would like to, taking notes by pen while holding the book in one hand and the bar with the other is just impossible (you are not expecting to grow a third arm anytime soon, are you?).

Underline solves this problem by allowing you to take notes anywhere, with your smartphone.

• Easy to use – the app uses your smartphone’s camera, you don’t need anything else;
• Convenient – you can take notes anywhere;
• Saves time – if you are pressed for time, you can read book summaries. Underline is a great resource of free book summaries;
• Remember more – go over your notes and highlights to fight the forgetting curve;
• Learn better – writing down your notes is the best way to learn;
• Save it now, read it later – Read your chosen book whenever it’s convenient for you.

Join the Conversation

We’d love to hear what you have to say.

Get in touch with us on our LinkedIn Group, Facebook Group or Twitter.

Source: getunderline.com

Laurențiu-Victor Bălașa (founder of Underline): On developing a mobile app for book-lovers

Laurențiu-Victor Bălașa is a successful serial entrepreneur. He co-founded 8 companies and exited 3 of them when he successfully sold them to investors.

He co-founded T-Me Studios, one of the biggest Android mobile publishers in the world with more than 700 million users.

Laurențiu is now building Underline, the mobile app for book-lovers.

The first social note-taking app for books, Underline helps people extract notes from physical, digital and audiobooks, and then share those book notes with friends and followers. It’s a great way to remember more from each book you read and share your knowledge with other learners.

This year, the company raised Euro475000 in funding from Early Game Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm investing in startups that jumpstart new industries in the emerging markets of Europe.

I was curious to know more about Laurențiu’s experience developing Underline so I’ve asked him a few questions.

Find his answers below.

1. Underline, your mobile app has been on the market for a little over a year. The application was released in March and already has more than 1k organic downloads. Tell us the story of Underline.

Last summer, in ’18, I was reading a brilliant book: ‘Measure What Matters’ by John Doerr. I realized there’s so much knowledge there I’d love to see implemented in my own companies, so I started writing down ideas inside the Google Keep app, the place I would usually go to to take notes.

I was taking photos of book pages, adding them to the book note, and then manually adding the text next to them. The note soon became very long and super complicated to follow. The entire process was just very annoying. On top of that, after I was done, a friend messaged me, and I wanted to share my note with him. Imagine that. It was just impossible.

When I see a problem, I usually look for a solution out there. My first thought was that there should be an app to help folks with this specific case of book note-taking.

Most of the problems you encounter in your day-to-day life have some sort of solution offered by some company. So I started looking. But there was no app I could find which focused on this problem.

At first, it seemed like a crazy thing to build, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense this should exist.

It’s just a very big problem for book readers.

[bctt tweet=”Underline app founder Laurentiu-Victor Balasa @laurentiuvictor: Once you hit critical mass, if you’ve got a good market fit, the product starts to move on its own. ” username=”brand_minds”]

2. Name 3 challenges that your team had to overcome while developing Underline.

Thinking long-term. Underline will be an open platform for book lovers. This sort of thing needs time to scale.

Convincing the team/investors/partners to think long-term. We all need to be patient.

Raising money.

3. Build it and they will come. True or false?

Very rarely true.

You need to market yourself, especially if you’re building something new or solving a problem that has never been solved.

You need to explain to people why your solution is better and how it will help them get the job done easier/faster/etc.

Take our case. There are substitute solutions that kinda solve the problem of book note-taking: Evernote, Google Keep, Google Sheets, etc.

But we’re the first to address this problem exclusively, so obviously, our offering is way easier/faster. We need to show people that. We need to market ourselves to reach critical mass. Once you hit critical mass, if you’ve got a good market fit, the product starts to move on its own. But there’s always a certain degree of push that needs to exist.

4. You are a successful serial entrepreneur. What is your advice for mobile app developers starting out?

Don’t do it. Don’t start a mobile company. It’s a pretty red ocean. Do something else.

Look to solve new problems. New markets generate new problems. Look towards new markets.

Mobile has been around for a looong time now. There’s a lot of new markets/niches being created every year. I’m doing a mobile platform because I’ve been lucky enough to start when the market was new.

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