How I build a tool out of frustration. Do you?

Jayson Cantones
1 reply
Who is behind Lynkfire? Hi, my name is Jayson and I am the founder of [Lynkfire ] (https://lynkfire.com/) a creative way of creating your landing/bio page. To know a bit about my background. I am a software engineer of a blockchain company here in New Zealand (full-time 9-5) work from home while doing my passion on the sideline (Lynkfire). Everything has a story. Aside from doing all of the software development stuff I also enjoyed drawing, painting, and digital doodles and sharing them on my Instagram after. I started to create my streaming page on Facebook, uploading my art process on my youtube channel, and incorporating all of it into my online portfolio. It was so late that I realize that Instagram only allows one external link in my bio so just as many other creators do, I used Linktree. Yes, Linktree. Linktree is so cool that it helps me quickly build a landing page for all my social medial links and have a working landing page in just minutes and ready to rock and roll. But the more I use it the more I say to myself that this is not for me and this is not exciting anymore and all those cool stuff that time are behind the paywall (I understand this is business). And I find all other alternative applications offer the same stuff, the same boring horizontal link, and I said this is enough. Last January I decided to create a simple MVP version of Lynkfire and at that time everything is so static-like, and the grid systems and all are all fully manual but I am enjoying it and was able to express my art and myself share with my audience a clearer context of what kind of art pieces I do and the style I have with it. It was early February that I started refactoring all the manual parts of the codebase and decided to use Firebase as our database and react/NextJS as our frontend and deploy it on Netlify. There we have our first-ever publicly accessible tool created for everyone (not everyone anymore) to use. Why invite-only? After the day I launched to the public I broke a record number of website visits that made me moved from my free firebase account to a paid account. The spike of users and requests to the website was not what I expected and the bill continues to go up, so as a family man I was so scared to get broke with that sudden crazy spike of usage in the server and the possibility that my wife will kill me if does happen so I moved Lynkfire to an invite-only approach. How do we pay the server bills? Patreon to the rescue! With the growth of users from 100 to 2000, I need to find a way to pay the bills without hurting my wallet. Last May we (my wife) decided to offer PRO user accounts by giving them features like more box grid sizes and branding freedom for $3 per month as our Patreon supporters and opening sponsorships. With all these decisions we're able to fund Lynkfire and give away PRO accounts to our most active users for FREE. What's next? At the moment we are fixing bugs and adding minimal features to the application based on our user's feedback. Just like any other startup, we all aim for growth, and growth is so good. We are aiming to be the most creative portfolio page for all kinds of creators. Lynkfire is not only about links anymore it is more a portfolio page of creativity and positivity. There is so much to say but for now, I think I just leave it from here and wish you all a very good day and always keep safe! If you want to know more reach us through our [Twitter] (https://twitter.com/lynkfire) page

Replies

Linda
That is usually the best way to build a product, as you know there is some demand