****I spent weeks optimizing: performance Lighthouse scores bundle size lazy loading SEO structure …while completely ignoring the thing users actually saw first: The link preview. Not the website itself. The preview card inside: Telegram Discord LinkedIn X Slack Facebook Reddit And after building more browser-based developer tools, I realized something important: A broken or low-quality Open Graph
Why this list is different The "best" email API depends entirely on what you're building. A side project optimizing for the free tier needs different things than a Series B SaaS sending two million transactional emails a month. This post grades eight providers against the criteria that actually move the needle in production, and tells you which one to pick for which use case. Most roundups in th
Building a News Aggregator Without an Engagement Algorithm I have been building a project called WeSearch: https://wesearch.press It is a free news aggregator that pulls from hundreds of sources, keeps discovery mostly chronological, adds source/bias context where available, preserves permanent daily archives, and allows anonymous discussion on stories. The project started from a simple frustrat
If you want to Automate GitHub PRs, the real goal is not just adding another bot comment to a pull request. The goal is to give reviewers the context they usually have to gather manually: who owns the service, whether it is deployed, whether basic repository standards are in place, and whether the change looks safe to merge. A useful AI pull request workflow can do exactly that. When a PR opens, i
A deep, opinionated, practical guide for the human running a software business alone. Hard-won lessons, decision frameworks, and the actual mechanics of going from idea → first dollar → first $10K MRR → first $1M ARR — without a co-founder, without a team for as long as possible, and without burning out. If you read only one section first, read §2 Mindset, §4 Validation, and §6 Distribution-First.
Three weeks ago I shipped IndieOps — a free invoicing and client management tool built specifically for freelancers. Here's the honest version of how it went. It handles the boring-but-critical stuff that eats freelancer time: creating professional invoices, collecting payments via Stripe, sending automatic payment reminders, and keeping a client directory. All free. No "upgrade to send more than
I used to send out application after application and hear nothing back. Not a single reply. At first, I thought my resume wasn't impressive enough. So I made it fancier. Added columns. Played with layouts. Tossed in some icons. Still nothing. Then I learned about Applicant Tracking Systems. Companies use software like Lever, Greenhouse, and Workday to scan resumes before a human ever sees them. If
I built Clever Deploy because every time I wanted to ship a small side project, the deploy story turned into a project of its own. 1. Surprise bills. I'd push a side project to a "free tier" 2. Complexity. I've setup Jenkins in Kubernetes for clients - believe me, you don't want that kind of complexity. What I wanted was simplicity and no unexpected bills. A deploy platform with two rules: Click D