How I'm building a free toolbox of 40+ browser tools to level up my dev & SEO skills (Toolivoo)
I'm a solo developer and I've been slowly building Toolivoo – a growing collection of free browser-based tools for PDFs, images, QR codes and text.
It started from a very selfish place: I was constantly bouncing between a dozen sketchy sites just to do tiny tasks like compressing a PDF, generating a QR code, or diffing two text snippets. Most of them were slow, full of ads, gated behind logins, or slapped huge watermarks on everything.
So I thought: what if I just build my own toolbox of simple, fast, privacy-first tools that run in the browser, and treat it as a long-term playground for my dev + SEO skills?
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What Toolivoo is today
Right now Toolivoo is a no-login, no-signup toolbox with dozens of small utilities, including:
- PDF tools: merge, split, compress, convert between formats
- Image tools: resize, compress, convert formats, basic optimizations
- QR/Barcode tools: generate and customize QR codes for links/text
- Text tools: URL encode/decode, text diff checker, case converter, etc.
Everything runs in the browser as much as possible, so I don't have to store your files on a server. The goal: you open the page, do your thing in a few seconds, and close it – no onboarding, no credit card, no friction.
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How the Product Hunt launch went
I launched Toolivoo on Product Hunt on May 5, 2026. It wasn't a front page rocketship launch – more like a quiet soft launch that gave me:
- A handful of early users and some very honest feedback
- A strong backlink and a bit of credibility for the domain
- The realization that just launching once isn't enough; I need a long-term distribution plan
Since then I've been focusing on the boring but important work: cleaning up the homepage, tightening copy, improving performance, and building a repeatable SEO playbook for tool pages.
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My current focus: SEO + directories
Toolivoo is intentionally simple: no accounts, no complex onboarding, no viral loop built-in. So most of the growth will probably come from:
- Ranking individual tools (e.g. "PDF to PNG", "image resizer", "text diff checker")
- Getting listed in high-quality directories and free tools collections
Right now I'm working through a small, curated list of directories like AlternativeTo, ToolDB, FreeToolbox, etc., trying to write descriptions that don't sound like spam but still make people click.
It's slow, and honestly a bit repetitive, but I'm already starting to see early impressions trickling in from Google as more tool pages get indexed and cleaned up.
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What I'm struggling with
The hardest part right now is not the coding; it's distribution:
- How do you promote a genuinely free, utility-style product without it feeling spammy?
- How much time would you spend on directory submissions vs content vs social?
- For tools like this, is there any realistic way to build a business around it without ruining the UX with aggressive upsells/ads?
I'm also wondering whether I should:
- Keep Toolivoo 100% free forever and treat it as a long-term portfolio / playground
- Or add a few pro features later (bulk actions, team features, saved presets, API) while keeping all the basic tools free
Would love to hear from people who have built similar toolbox or utility-style products.
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What I'd love feedback on
If you have a minute, I'd really appreciate honest feedback on:
- The homepage: does it clearly explain what Toolivoo is and why you should care?
- The tools UX: do the pages feel fast and obvious, or are there annoying steps you'd remove?
- Monetization ideas that don't destroy the simple free toolbox feeling
And if you've successfully used Indie Hackers to get traction for a small utility product, I'd love to learn what worked for you.
Thanks for reading – and if you try Toolivoo (https://toolivoo.com), I'd be grateful for any brutally honest feedback!
