🛠️ frontend @speechifyai (best Chrome Extension 2023) 🇮🇩 previously Indonesia founding eng @stripe ✨ built Flutter Layout Explorer @google
Indonesia
Joined February 2014
- Tweets2.9K
- Following2.9K
- Followers3K
- Likes7.8K
Albertus Angga Raharja retweeted
oh what a curse to my fellow brothers!
he might speak english but never an englishman,
might write and speak chinese but never truly accepted as chineseman,
perfect indonesian and maybe an impeccable javanese, but still get told to go back to a country he's never lived in.
Albertus Angga Raharja retweeted
Only start up if you have no other choice.
Six years ago, when I returned to Finland from San Francisco, I started working out of Maria 01, the largest startup hub in the Nordics.
Coming from the intense Bay Area scene, I was surprised by how relaxed everyone was. These companies had little to no funding, or maybe a couple years of runway at best. But every Monday, people would show up around 10, spend ages chatting about their weekends over coffee, and head out early for lunch. By 5 p.m., I'd be the only one left in the office.
At first, I figured it was culture shock. Finland is known for its strong work-life balance. Shorter hours, plenty of vacation, and a focus on well-being rather than grinding yourself down. But the more I thought about it, the more it puzzled me: Why weren't these teams working harder? They were on the edge, with limited resources and time. Shouldn't that trigger a survival mode of late nights and total focus?
Looking back at co-founding Linear, the difference was stark. In those first years, I was working nonstop. Not because I was pushing myself through willpower, but because I loved every part of it. Working on the underlying tech stack and sync engine, it was all I wanted to do. There wasn't anything else I'd rather spend my time on. Weekends just blended into the work. I felt I was working on something big that would change the way software gets created if we ever succeeded, and that consumed all of my attention.
That level of focus wasn't the only reason we succeeded, nor can it be sustained. Team, timing, and luck all mattered too. But it was a big one. We pulled together a strong product through raw dedication in the early days when everything was make-or-break.
So yeah: only start up if you have no other choice, because you are fully drawn into it. Identifying a market opportunity or need isn't good enough. You need to feel like there's nothing else in the world you'd rather do. As Elon Musk put it, “If you need encouragement to start a company, don’t do it.” It's needs to be something that consumes you. If it doesn't, cards are stacked against you in a game that you're already loosing 9 out of 10 times with default odds.
Albertus Angga Raharja retweeted
I wrote about my LLM workflow, what could be better and thoughts for the future.
cpojer.net/posts/you-are-abs…
Albertus Angga Raharja retweeted
Repost or comment “Speechify” to get Voice Typing for free for 3 months
@SpeechifyAI has over 1 million five star reviews across platforms, and dozens of high quality features: Today, we are launching a feature I've been pushing for over 7 years and is finally going live to production (I've been using it internally for more than 4 years) Speechify Voice Typing in our Chrome Extension!
You can download the Speechify Chrome Extension, start talking casually, and let Speechify type for you across Google Docs, Gmail, and anywhere else you write. No matter how fast you type you can get a 2-4x lift in typing speed this way just click the button or keyboard shortcut.
It also polishes your writing for you.
We’re also launching the ability to Talk to Speechify super fast about any website!
Speechify is like your own personal assistant who has already read everything you see and can answer your questions as you talk.
You can ask Speechify for advice on how to respond to emails for work, to quiz you on a school reading, and to summarize key takeaways from an article without having to read the whole thing.
Over the last year, Speechify has evolved into your go-to Voice AI Assistant.
As an applied Al research lab that's the largest consumer Voice Al company in the Apple, Google Chrome, and Android App Stores, we’ve doubled down on more ways to be useful to our users.
Speechify now reads anything out loud to you, creates hyper-personalized podcasts perfectly tailored to you based on your prompts, docs, or recommendations, and now it can also type for you and answer your questions.
ChatGPT and Gemini are great. But we know that our users, and a large segment of the population, want Voice AI to be front-and-center in their user experience – not hidden behind an extra tab or an afterthought.
Speechify is building the voice operating system to meet their needs.
Voice typing & our Voice AI Assistant will soon be available on iOS/Android, our Mac App, Windows, and more.
We’ll also soon be adding additional Voice AI agentic workflows. Our vision is for Speechify to make a doctor's appointment and then follow up if they don't pick up for you or call a store and ask if they have a certain item in stock.
There are so many people working on Voice AI for customer support right now – Speechify is empowering everyone in the world to have their own Voice AI assistant on the other end who works for you.
❤️
#Speechify #VoiceAI #VoiceAgents #VoiceTyping #Dictation #AI
Albertus Angga Raharja retweeted
I’ve sold 2 startups for $8m & I now run a $6m+ arr company. people think that's success - but I'd disagree
the more I build, the more I realize the real game isn’t just building a great business, it’s building a fulfilling life
a life where I can wake up excited to work on things I actually enjoy, and where my calendar doesn’t decide if I’m happy or not
the moments that really matter most aren’t always on a dashboard, they’re also quiet walks with my wife, messy breakfasts with my kids and sometimes even late-night MarioKart sessions with friends
and don’t get me wrong, I still love what I build and I care deeply about my products & all the people who use them. I show up every day and give it everything I have
I still track the numbers every morning - they matter a lot - but they’re not the only scoreboard
because in the last few years, I’ve realized how much I was missing when I obsessed over just one part of my life
so I stopped chasing the “next big thing” and started optimizing for freedom, time, and energy - for the people and work I love
people call it a “lifestyle business” like it’s a small thing, but to me, it’s the version of success that actually feels sustainable - and real
Albertus Angga Raharja retweeted
It's probably just my feed, but I see a lot of talk about getting married and having kids. Looking back at my life, career vs kids. There is no competition, family is the best. I was raised to basically get married young and have kids. Growing up (in CA) that was not generally accepted and people thought it was strange and often had critical views towards it. All I can say now is that I'm so happy I got married and had kids in my twenties. I recognize everyone is different. But if you can, I recommend it. Of course marriage is hard. Of course kids are hard. And it's expensive. But if you can find someone you love, be truly dedicated to each other, and put everything in it, the rewards are so great. Like anything good, it's hard work.
Albertus Angga Raharja retweeted
👨🏻💻We needed a way to efficiently ship 100s of important, but non-critical screens in the @Shopify app. But Webviews are slow, janky, and have terrible UX. So, we made them fast, look native, and feel native.
We first made them 6x faster by preloading, caching, and pooling 🏎️.
Albertus Angga Raharja retweeted
"it's not perfect but it's good enough"
the art of great engineering decisions is accepting, even -proposing- compromise because it fits the user/business context
many "great" engineers i have seen become "engineering totalitarians", unwilling to accept anything but the most correct solution. They are expensive in more ways than one.
Albertus Angga Raharja retweeted
Incredible @openai #DevDay singapore talk from Thor!
@supabase continues to make very tasteful, actually useful database tooling for the world, not just crudely shoving an ai chatbot in your face. example of how existing devtools companies can embrace ai for their users and customers!
Albertus Angga Raharja retweeted
Berangkat @idswdev tanpa janjian, malah ketemu Rehan & @albertusdev
Eh dikenalin Albert ke @th_clarence & @lwastuargo
Makan siang & diskusi bareng. Thanks guys 🙌
Key takeaway dari obrolan dgn ko Clarence:
Portfolio & jejak digital penting utk standout dari "eng kebanyakan"!
Albertus Angga Raharja retweeted
This was my experience too, 1 year of indiehacking making zero MRR. I think it's a realistic outcome.
TBH I'm skeptical of newcomers who within a few months on their 1st or 2nd product seem to be making $10k, $50k etc MRR. But maybe that's just sour grapes on my part.
Right, it's time to be honest.
In the last 11 months I've made a whopping $0! 🤑
I've been living entirely off savings.
I'm frustrated, tired, and a little lost 😅
Here are my 4 failures and what's next:
FAILURE #1: TechServia 🧑💻
A software development agency.
- I didn't know what I was doing
- Signed 0 clients
- Closed it down after a month
FAILURE #2: CoachMiro 💪
A platform for connecting coaches with clients.
- Project was overly ambitious
- Spent a month building a landing page
- The site never went live
"FAILURE" #3: Indiedex 🫂
A platform for indie hackers to connect and share growth.
- Built in 3 months
- My first time launching on ProductHunt (#4 of the day)
- 100,000+ impressions on launch day
- 250+ users
- BUT no monetisation, and slow drop off in users
"FAILURE" #4: Pentest List 🛡️
A directory for finding the best pentesting tools and content.
- Built MVP in 2 weeks
- Launched and went all-in on marketing
- 600+ followers on dedicated X account
- 10,000+ SEO impressions in 2 months
- Expected traffic to drive sponsorships
- Decent growth, but no monetisation opportunities
WHAT'S NEXT?
Well, I need to earn some money.
I've been inspired by others like @eter_inquirer and @starwardshar to give launching another go.
If I launch again, I will take a completely different approach:
🥇 Validate first.
🥈 Build second.
But in the meantime, if you know of any contract/project work going, I'm open to offers.
My DMs are always open 📫️
I have 2 years experience working on large and small projects as a full-stack engineer and team lead.
I can do design, SEO, development, marketing, and everything in between.
I'm so grateful for everything this community (that means YOU!) has given me till now.
Much love and positivity ❤️
I'm not going anywhere!
Albertus Angga Raharja retweeted
More guiderails than a guide but extension.js.org/ is a good place to start (or Plasmo, as someone else recommended).
youtube.com/watch?v=QYgKhYbJ… is quite basic but more a walkthrough the basics.
Albertus Angga Raharja retweeted
The DX for extensions is REALLY nice now, with hot reloading with vite and all the nicities of Next.
Albertus Angga Raharja retweeted
Here's what I typically do:
Look at product hunt submissions that are really good as well as behance and dribbble accounts (product/design sense)
Checkout resumes on linked for ppl who work on products I think highly of (math background and CS undergrad are plus but not a must if someone is good we don't need school to show that)
Github & Gitlab accounts that work on interesting projects and have high contributions, volume of work matters and shows ability to learn fast
and if they are good I reach out with a keyboard shortcut and add a line or two about why if ppl do great on technical challenge (especially typescript) I check inside the company to see which team would most like help from this person. I didn't grow up in the u.s and think not all smart ppl happen to live in California so if you are smart and hard working, even if you live in a village like my where my father grew up, I want to get to know you and try working together. My best friends who is now our COO started working at speechify when he was 20 and came from a small country I'd never been to. there are at least 85 other ppl at speechify that have a similar story <3
Albertus Angga Raharja retweeted
I'm excited to announce that the code of Athena Crisis is now open source under the MIT-License.
Check out the announcement:
Albertus Angga Raharja retweeted
i really need to do more of this. hacked on something recently and it was so fun. too much serious coding really does take a lot of the joy out of it
Albertus Angga Raharja retweeted
“Don’t aim at success—the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s dedication…In the long run—in the long run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it.”
— Viktor Frankl