A startup shut down. I rebuilt their core product in two weekend evenings.
Ito.ai was a voice transcription app I used daily - hold a key, speak, get text. They just announced they're winding down Dec 31.
Open source from day one. But looking at the repo: full Electron app plus server component. Way more than I needed.
I'd been building FnKey on the side. Same concept, 600 lines of Rust. Problem was, my transcription quality was noticeably worse.
So I pointed Claude Code at their codebase: "Why is their output better than mine?"
First try. It found the exact differences - not vague suggestions, but the specific implementation choices that mattered.
One coding session later, FnKey matches their quality. Same API (Whisper via Groq), same results.
Three takeaways for founders
Commodity APIs don't create moats
Both apps call the same Whisper model. The "magic" was implementation details - not defensible IP.
AI assistants compress analysis time dramatically
Reading an unfamiliar codebase used to take days. Now you extract relevant patterns in minutes.
Complexity is not a feature
I don't need their Electron wrapper, server component, or 99% of their code. I need: press key, transcribe, paste.
No shade at Ito.ai - most startups fail. But their shutdown is a clean example of building on commoditized infrastructure without a distribution moat.
The moat in 2025 isn't the API call. It's habits, switching costs, ecosystem lock-in. The technical implementation? That's a weekend project now.
Links:
Top comments (0)