I created 6 (six) side-projects over this weekend 😮‍💨

1/6 https://uploadfile.click

It is a single-page web app that uploads your file and gives you a direct URL. That’s all!

I often need this tool when I work: to embed an image to product hunt or indie hackers (both require a direct link) or to embed a video on a web page. I will use this app to solve the problem of hosting videos online for the clients of Paracast.io as well. So I hope to earn money from it indirectly, by helping the users of my SaaS.

Problems: It is a super risky project. I know that the file hosting business is hard for 2 reasons:

1. costs
2. malice

I solved problem 1) (costs) by hosting the files on Cloudflare R2 which offers generous $0 traffic costs. But I know that Cloudflare can turn into a bitch anytime and force me to pay.

This is why I moved the project to a separate Cloudflare to protect my other projects. I charge users nothing because I do not want to have full responsibility for the files' uptime. I will keep the service alive and pay for the storage costs, but if it begins to cost me thousands I will just shut it down.

The 2) problem is more tricky. Some odd ones may want to upload DMCA-protected files or pictures of naked persons or viruses. It may nuke the project overnight as well. I supplied a captcha, a nude pictures/video detector (try it!) and a virus detector to protect the project. Let’s see how it will go.

Code: the whole project was coded by Sonnet 3.5. Tech stack: next js, react, vercel, cvs file as a database.

2/6 https://makeimagetransparent.com/

A single page app that removes background from an image. The purpose of this side project is to drive traffic from SEO.

Code: I forked the repository of another maker. I was doubting a lot because it feels unfair. Technically, I just stole the code. It is not what I used to do. I create, not steal.

But I did this intentionally. I want to become less artist and more businessman. I want to have less emotion-driven decisions in my maker’s career. I found a keyword opportunity. I found an open-source code. I made it work for me, strictly following the license agreements. Sounds fine.

If you want to blame me for non-ethical maker behavior, please go on. I’m ready!

3/6 awspricingcalculator.dev

A simple calculator app that helps people to find out how much AWS EC2 and S3 will cost them.

Problem: I needed to launch an ec2 instance for my new project: Startups Wiki. I opened the ec2 pricing page but I was not able to figure out the cost because AWS shows prices PER HOUR 🫠🫠

Like this: $0.0042/h.

It is impossible to get the full picture of your future costs. They do it intentionally I suppose. A typical corp's trick. OK... SEO opportunity: I plan this project to bring me 10,000 visitors per month in a year from Google. Then I will send the visitors to the relevant SaaS.

Code: Vanilla JS generated by Sonnet 3.5.

4/6 aivideo.tools

It is a directory of all AI video editors, generators, and clip makers. Tech: the directory is made on the marvelous @unicornplatform. If you haven’t checked it since I sold it in 2022, you should do it.

John Rush is turning it from a landing page generator to a website builder, an actual platform. The purpose of this project is to drive traffic from SEO and obviously promote my own AI video tool. The keywords have “medium” difficulty but I will still try to fight and get the traffic.

5/6 seoai.tools

seoai.tools is a directory of all SEO tools that use the power of AI.

AI SEO is a rising trend now. And it is not only about content writers and blog generators such as @seobotai. Some companies create AI tools for link building, internal linking, keyword research, and schema generation.

I’m super curious to watch the SEO scene these days because AI seems to remove the boring part of it.

Tech stack: Unicorn Platform.

6/6 opensourceai.software

A directory of AI open source github repositories. AI is booming now. The fastest players in a booming niche are people with money. This is why there is not much open sourced (free) AI projects right now. But as time goes the niche will evolve and more and more enthusiasts will create OS AI projects. I believe this keyword has the potential of bringing me 5k monthly views over the next 3-5 years.

Tech stack: Unicorn Platform.

Thanks for reading about my little weekend adventure! If you like posts like this, subscribe to my newsletter. Ciao!

P.S.: This post is based on my viral tweet 👇🙂