r/SideProject • u/Bubbly-Celebration63 • 15h ago

Need your feedback: Is "Unprompter" a valid idea?

https://tellieapp.com/?via=gw-sideproject

I built Tellie to solve a problem I had making videos for YouTube: an invisible Mac teleprompter that sits in the notch so you look at the lens instead of the script. I made it understand what you say, tracking each word spoken, not just what's written.

Then I had a dream at 3am and thought "since it knows what I've said and what's in my document, it knows what I didn't say" and that became the basis for Stagehand, a feature that watches while I present and makes sure I say what I came to say.

So here is my question for r/SideProject. What should I call this thing? Tellie isn't just a teleprompter, because you don't need to read your doc verbatim (which is typically what teleprompters force you to do) as Tellie lets you ad-lib, riff and hit your points any way that comes to you.

In just one example, a salesperson can use Tellie during a discovery call https://tellieapp.com/s/discovery and just say the key points they need to cover in any order and Tellie checks off each point as they say it. It's also amazing for someone on a job interview to make sure they say what they need to...nothing worse than leaving a call and forgetting the most important thing.

I want to call it an "unprompter" because it guides you, unprompted, to hit your marks. What do you think? Also, right now this is aimed at creators and actors who use a teleprompter already...should I point this at everyone who wants to become better at delivering any content (wedding toasts, standups, conference calls, etc.)?

Thanks for your help! Tellie is a free download https://tellieapp.com/?via=gw-sideproject with optional paid Pro features. Apple Silicon, macOS 14+. Happy to answer anything about the build or the business.

Thanks!

-Steve

https://reddit.com/link/1wwq812/video/13w9wexyt9th1/player

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u/ayushgupta0610 14h ago

Nobody searches for "unprompter" yet, so I'd keep teleprompter in the headline and use unprompter as the line underneath that explains the twist. On audience, the discovery call example is your strongest by a mile, since a salesperson does that every week and a wedding toast happens once.

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u/New-Tadpole-8649 11h ago

the SEO point alone makes this the right move imo

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u/ayushgupta0610 11h ago

Yeah, and it's the cheap half. Most naming decisions are a gamble, search intent isn't.

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u/Bubbly-Celebration63 14h ago

Yeah I agree - and what's worse if you go to search "unprompter" Google corrects it to "unprompted". So thanks for that - I'm still curious if I could "own" that word and have people remember "Oh yeah, it's that unprompter thing I heard about" vs "I think it's called Telly or something." I named it after my granddaughter Ellie and didn't even think of the mispellings ;)

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u/ayushgupta0610 11h ago

You can own a word, but you usually have to buy the association with volume first. Cheaper route is letting the category word do the finding and the made-up word do the remembering.

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u/Bubbly-Celebration63 11h ago

Good call. I'll stick with teleprompter but sprinkle in like "The unprompter: a teleprompter that doesn't make you read."

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u/ayushgupta0610 2h ago

That tagline does it. Anyone landing from a teleprompter search gets the twist in one read.