Would you build a second app to market the first one?
I recently built a small PDF editor with AI for myself. That got me wondering about another use for these small apps.
Has anyone here built a free tool specifically to help people discover their main product?
I’m getting Inquir Compute ready to launch. It’s a platform for running apps, databases and background jobs, and it’s where I host the editor. Alongside sharing what I’m building here, I’m looking at other ways to reach developers.
A small tool for the same audience sounds worth trying. But I don’t know how often that turns into customers, rather than a second app you now have to maintain.
What did you build, how did people find it, and did they eventually try your main product?
Share the free tool and the product it was meant to promote. I’d also like to hear about the ones that got popular but brought almost no customers.
Replies
Yes, but I'd build it out of the product, not next to it.
Inside a flashcard tool I build, the paid part is a generator. The free part is a set of format converters (Quizlet to Anki, CSV to Anki and so on) that run fully in the browser, no account. They reuse the same parser and file builder the paid product uses. So they aren't a second app to maintain, they're the same code with the paywall removed.
That's also my worry with the PDF editor. Someone editing a PDF isn't looking for a place to run background jobs. It's nice, but it pulls the wrong crowd. A tool for Inquir would be the small annoying thing your users hit right before they'd need you. A cron expression checker, say, or "paste your docker-compose, see what breaks".
I built a free caption-diff checker alongside PostRoom, which I make for client-caption approvals. The checker spots changed wording and helps write a fresh-approval request, so it sits directly before the review-room step.
I’ve shared it in relevant workflow discussions, but I haven’t verified that it brings customers yet. I’m keeping tool use, review-room visits, signups and genuine payments separate.
For Inquir, I’d test something around a deployment or background-job setup task before a general PDF editor. What do your users struggle with immediately before they need hosting?
The checker: https://getpostroom.com/tools/caption-diff-checker
@al_kub Has anyone found the sweet spot between a useful free tool and accidently building a second SaaS business?
@maksymmalynovskyi05 I think it depends. A side project can always turn into a micro-SaaS or something bigger. In the end, we're just solving problems. That's the main goal.