Voki.study

After identifying a pain point in Quizlet’s paywalls, I built Voki.study to provide free study tools for students. It’s a web application that offers flashcards, clozes, and smart study modes. Users can create and share their own study sets, import them from Quizlet PDFs or generate them using built-in AI tools.

Why was Voki.study created?

The key idea was to keep the product free for students and monetize through teacher features that require a subscription — providing value to students while generating revenue from educators who want to enhance their teaching with our tools. Introducing ads or paywalls were a no-go as they would compromise the user experience and limit access to educational resources. The goal was to create a platform that is accessible to all students, regardless of their financial situation, while still ensuring the sustainability of the project through teacher subscriptions.

Privacy and sustainability

While designing voki.study, I focused on privacy-first approach and sustainability, as both are very important to me. The application is built with Next.js and hosted on Hetzner. Hetzner is GDPR compliant and is based in the EU, where strong privacy laws are in place. The database and backend are hosted in Switzerland, known for its strong data protection laws. Additionally, no PDF files are uploaded or stored on the server, as it is processed directly in the browser, ensuring that user data remains private and secure. When using AI features, no user prompts or data are stored.

The AI compute is powered by Infomaniak, a Swiss company based in Geneva, which uses 100% renewable energy, outdoor air to cool their servers without water usage, heat generated to warm households around the data centers and offsets generated carbon emissions by 200%. This aligns with my commitment to environmental responsibility and ethical data practices.