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 founder Laurentiu-Victor Balasa
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!
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