Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Why did my free tools site with 600 tools make almost $0 after 2 years?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–23 of 23 posts

Re: Ask HN: Why did my free tools site with 600 tools make almost $0 after 2 years?

#21

Post by KodyBerns99 »

tacostakohashi wrote: post #12

I think online tools is not a bad idea, but a lot of the tools there are low quality and gimmicky, like anything that can be done in your head, or using a pocket calculator / trivial spreadsheet: https://www.kodytools.com/commission-calculator https://www.kodytools.com/half-your-age-plus-seven-calculato... etc... Perhaps it would be better to split out the financial tools (bonds, cagr, interest) from the programmer/t…

Thanks for the great advice! I’ll focus on quality and niche tools.

Re: Ask HN: Why did my free tools site with 600 tools make almost $0 after 2 years?

#22

Post by KodyBerns99 »

bhag2066 wrote: post #13

Cool site. Have you considered building your own paid tools that align with the problem customers are solving with your free tools, and keeping all the advertising slots for yourself? For example, you would own Focus Flux (the advertiser I see on the site) and use Kody Tools as lead gen for it.

Thanks for the idea! I'll definitely consider building some paid tools and using that site as medium for marketing.
Post reply on HN