Why I built Notalia

I've always loved learning. I'm curious by nature, and over the years I've realized I learn best the way school taught me to: by being tested. Not because I enjoy the pressure, but because an assessment is where understanding actually gets proven. You miss a question, read the explanation, try again, and the idea finally sticks. That loop is how things click for me.

The catch is that most learning doesn't happen in a classroom anymore. As I started preparing for my career as a software engineer, I was teaching myself things like system design and LLM engineering on my own time. I took all my notes in Obsidian, and writing them down helped, but something was missing. A lot of the concepts were theoretical, and I had no real way to tell whether I understood them or had simply copied them down.

It clicked one night while I was reading a course on the building blocks of system design, databases of all things. I thought the material was genuinely fascinating, and in the very same breath I knew I would forget most of it. I remember thinking, “I wish I could just quiz myself on every note I take.”

I tried the obvious fixes. I'd paste my notes into ChatGPT or NotebookLM and ask for a quiz, but the questions came back generic, stuck on multiple choice, and impossible to tailor. My notes also lived in a handful of different apps, so every quiz meant digging things up and copying them around. It was tedious, and it drained the momentum that made studying enjoyable in the first place.

So I built a small version in my terminal, just to see if it would work. I was hooked instantly. I'd spent years tinkering with apps and games, but this one felt different, like a project I could pour everything I had into: cloud computing, LLMs, design, and a genuine belief in education. Over the next several months, through countless drafts and a lot of honest feedback from family and friends, it became exactly that.

Along the way Notalia gained a companion. Her name is Maya, after my childhood dog: sweet, clever, and quietly independent. She's here to make the app feel less like software and more like someone in your corner while you learn. The name Notalia is notes meets regalia, the idea of taking something ordinary and giving it a touch of royalty. It's why the app wears indigo and purple, and it's the whole point: your notes, elevated into something that pushes you to truly understand.

That's what I want Notalia to do for students and self-taught learners alike. Whether you're watching a lecture, reading a blog, or working through an online course, I want you to have a reason to take notes that actually matter, and then prove to yourself that they stuck. Meaningful notes become meaningful quizzes, quizzes deepen understanding, and the loop keeps building on itself.

Thank you for being here this early. I hope Notalia helps you learn the way I always wished I could.