FindAlert
Never miss a rare find across 19 marketplaces
3 days post-launch. 0 users. 0 signups.
I'd be lying if I said it didn't sting a little.
But the panic was useful — it forced me to be honest about what's actually broken.
The product works. I built FindAlert because I lost a rare Joni Mitchell pressing on eBay UK at 4am Tokyo time. Twice. Other people lose stuff like that every day.
What's broken isn't the code. It's that the people who need this don't know it exists yet.
So this week wasn't about features. It was about the distance between FindAlert and its audience:
- Filed W-8BEN with eBay Partner Network. Turned 30% withholding into 0% via the US-Japan tax treaty. Boring but it unlocks affiliate revenue.
- Posted my first Milestone on IH. Left 3 comments on threads where I had something real to say.
- Mapped 7 subreddits where collectors actually live — r/vinyl, r/PokemonTCG, r/flipping, r/Watches, r/cameras, r/comicbookcollecting, r/discogs.
Not a user yet. But each of these is a lever I can pull.
Next week:
- Show IH post, Tuesday JST evening
- First Reddit comment in r/vinyl (lurking and learning the culture first)
- Chrome extension polish
If you crossed the 0-to-1 chasm — what cracked it open?
I kept losing rare auctions on eBay while sleeping in a different timezone. By the time I woke up, the listing was gone.
So I built FindAlert.
Set a keyword, pick your marketplaces and countries, get an email the moment something matches. No scoring, no recommendations — just raw data. Price, watcher count, seller rating. You decide.
What it covers: eBay (18 countries), Reverb, Discogs, Gumtree, Marktplaats, Etsy. 19 marketplaces total.
Stack: Cloudflare Workers + D1 + Hono + Queues + Cron. Effectively zero infra cost.
Business model: Free tier (1 watch, daily digest). Paid plans $19.99–$199/mo.
Just launched. Looking for feedback from anyone who hunts rare items across borders.
Comment