Dear PDF2Anki users,
Hello everyone, this is Jason, the co-founder of Memo (formerly PDF2Anki).
We're excited to announce that PDF2Anki is now called Memo. It is the same great tool you know and love, with powerful new features and a new branding.
Our domain has changed from pdf2anki.com to memo.cards. By visiting the new site, you'll be redirected to memo.cards automatically. Please note that for the first time, you will need to login again. The same account credentials will apply and your data and payment plans are still the same.
Story be told, PDF2Anki started as a weekend project in a library as an internal tool for ourselves and our friends at HKU medical school. Calvin (my growth co-founder) and I were both pre-clinical medical students at the time and met in our first semester's PBL (Problem Based Learning) class.
During our first year of medical school, we had to dabble with learning and memorizing huge amounts of knowledge to be stuffed into our cerebral cortex. This includes a lot of different subjects, including anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, pharmacology, pathology, and clinical medicine etc.
Personally, I have been using Anki ever since high school biology and chemistry which has proven to be a game changer for me and ultimately Anki is the one I should thank for getting into medical school and passing my year 1 summative examinations.
However, as we progressed through medical school, we realized that manually creating flashcards was a tedious and time-consuming process. After every lecture, e.g. let's say after gastrointestinal microbiology, we would spend like 4 to 6 hours upon hours creating flashcards for ourselves.
The spaced repetition system is something that is crucial for us and Anki is really the only solution in the market that is effective for us.
Recommending Anki to our friends and classmates was always a challenge, as it was not as easy to use as it should be. In addition, we found, after asking many of our peers, the #1 problem is that it is just too time-consuming to create flashcards.
After our first year's summative exams, we had lunch and thought of the idea if AI can help expedite the process. At that time, ChatGPT was recently released and we thought whether or not we can leverage this technology to solve this exact problem for us. Surprisingly, at that time at least, not many solutions existed that can help us with this problem.
I started to code and build a prototype and after a few weeks, I got something working. I asked my friends to try it out and they were amazed at how much better it was compared to the manual process.
Calvin started making videos and sharing it via social media and it grew exponentially from there to a point our servers kept crashing - our database and website was not prepared for the amount of traffic. Mind you, the first version was a super scrappy Python web app meant to be used just for the few of us only.
We started by creating flashcards for ourselves, and then we shared them with our friends. Before we knew it, we had a community of over 100,000 users.
Our Journey: From Medical Students to Learning Innovators
As medical students, we intimately understood the challenges of managing vast amounts of information. We created PDF2Anki to solve a problem we faced ourselves: the need for efficient, effective learning tools.
Why Memo?
What started as a weekend project in a library has grown beyond our wildest dreams. In just one year, our amazing community of 180,000 users from over 30 different academic disciplines has generated over 10 million flashcards. We've seen adoption from students at prestigious institutions like Oxford and Cambridge, and even received heartfelt messages from users in conflict zones who found our tool invaluable.
We grew out of the name of "PDF2Anki" - frankly, it was a bit of a mouthful, people would always ask us what it stands for. In particular, we under-estimated how many people don't know what Anki is (especially out side of the medical student community).
As I continued to work on PDF2Anki, I continued to expand the capabilities of the app including Notion-like flashcard editing, built in spaced-repetition review, shared decks and library etc.
People would say that PDF2Anki sounds like those online conversion tools like mp3 to wav etc. However, we wanted to be more than just an PDF to flashcard conversion tool. We wanted to be the smarter and more efficient way for students to learn around the world.
Our mission is to build the future of human cognition and knowledge and we are working super hard to increase the number of super learners in the world.
Memo is our answer to these evolving needs. The name "Memo" embodies our expanded vision in two key ways:
- It's short for "memory," reflecting our commitment to enhancing your learning and retention across all disciplines.
- It evokes the idea of a "memo card" or flashcard, paying homage to our roots while signaling our expansion beyond just flashcard creation.
- It is short and easy to remember and pronounce and our goal is to build a great product in public such that referring your friends to Memo is as easy as possible. We know we still have a lot to work on and it is a very long way to go and we are working super hard to get there.
This dual meaning encapsulates our goal: to be your comprehensive memory and learning companion, supporting students and learners worldwide in their quest for knowledge.
What's New with Memo?
- Learn Mode - Our Spaced Repetition System: Optimize your study schedule based on scientific principles, ensuring long-term retention and efficient learning.
- Multi-format Learning: Create and interact with study materials from various sources, adapting to your preferred learning style and content type.
- Memo Cats: Our friendly AI assistants provide personalized guidance, answering questions and offering study tips tailored to your needs.
- Faster, More Intuitive Interface: Experience a seamless learning journey with our redesigned platform, optimized for speed and ease of use.
And this is just the beginning. We're committed to building in public, listening to your feedback, and continuously improving Memo to meet your evolving needs.
Our Vision for the Future
We believe learning is the key to human progress. With Memo, we're not just creating a product; we're fostering a community of super learners capable of quickly acquiring and applying knowledge.
As we look to the future, we're excited to:
- Expand our AI capabilities to provide personalized learning experiences, including adaptive quizzes and custom study plans
- Introduce gamification elements to make learning more engaging and rewarding, including achievements, leaderboards, and study streaks
- Develop social features to connect learners, enabling study groups, peer-to-peer support, and collaborative learning experiences
- Integrate with popular learning management systems and educational platforms to streamline your study workflow
- Develop advanced analytics to give you deeper insights into your learning patterns, helping you identify strengths and areas for improvement
- Collaborate with educational institutions and researchers to continually refine our learning methodologies
Join Us on This Journey
You've been with us from the start, from our scrappy MVP to the sleek, powerful tool Memo is today. We couldn't have done it without you, and we can't wait to see what we'll achieve together in the future.
Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to build in public. Thank you for being part of our community. Here's to the future of learning!
Jason
Co-founder of Memo (formerly PDF2Anki)
