Indie Hacker's Surprise: Document Translator Outperforms Google Translate and DeepL

An amateur programmer built Kintoun, a document translator, in just two weeks of spare time. Surprisingly, it outperforms Google Translate and DeepL in both translation accuracy and layout preservation. The author shares key lessons learned, including the unexpected success of the product, the critical importance of product distribution, and the winning combination of Inertia.js and Svelte. Kintoun excels at handling complex layouts and features like footnotes and Ruby characters. The author stresses the importance of marketing and shares a successful strategy focused on identifying user needs and offering genuine help before promoting the product.