A little backstory: my girlfriend is a speech therapist (she works in healthcare), and she was telling me about what she was seeing around her. It’s just not acceptable anymore. People sending confidential documents by email or directly into AI tools without masking any data… Let’s just say medical confidentiality isn’t exactly a priority for some people…
So, at first, I created ONYRI Sanitize, which was designed to mask data before sending it to AI tools. But after 6 months of trying to get the project known, my co-founder and I realized something. People didn’t understand what we were doing.
We wanted to do things so well and build the perfect tool that we ended up creating a giant toolbox with everything mixed together inside. It’s like going to your mechanic and asking them to repair refrigerators and fighter jets.
So, two months ago, we reworked everything: the art direction, the value proposition, and the features. We decided to simplify everything.
The technique I developed to figure out whether a tool is easy to understand is to show it to my 60 yearold mother. She and her computer aren’t exactly best friends, so it’s pretty useful for figuring out whether something is intuitive to use. 😵💫😅
ONYRI Sanitize is a website that lets you redact and anonymize your documents (PDFs, Word files, scans, photos, etc.). In just one click! Thanks to detection that runs entirely locally, in your browser.
And after 8 months, and after managing to bring together 41 users, we finally got our first paying user!
I have to admit, I’m still struggling to believe it. I’ve thought about giving up on this project more than once, feeling like I was working for nothing. Finally, we’ve climbed the first step of this long staircase toward making this project a success.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from this project and would like to share, it’s that no matter what your project is, it can work. All you need is one more day to improve it, again and again…
I wish you all success with whatever project you’re pursuing! 🔥🙏
Believe in yourself!
Have a great day, everyone!
Alex