04 — Case Study
NoteWise
A second brain for students — semantic search across every lecture you've ever taken.
- Year
- 2024
- Role
- Solo Developer
- Status
- Shipped
01
The Problem
Students accumulate hundreds of pages of notes across courses, but keyword search fails the moment you can't remember the exact phrase. Knowledge becomes write-only.
02
The Solution
A note-taking app with a rich markdown editor where every block is embedded on save. Ask a question in natural language and NoteWise retrieves and synthesizes an answer from your own notes, with citations back to the source block.
03
The Result
Grew to 1,200+ student users at AIU through word of mouth. Average retrieval answer rated 4.6/5 for usefulness in an in-app survey.
Engineering highlights
- Block-level embeddings with incremental re-indexing on edit
- Streaming answers with inline source citations
- Offline-first editor with conflict-free sync
- Keyboard-first UX — every action reachable without a mouse
Stack
- React
- Node.js
- MongoDB
- OpenAI API
- IndexedDB
- Express
- Framer Motion
