Its been over a year since I started building Untools.co and almost 10 months since the launch.Since then, over 182,000 people visited the website, over 4,500 people are subscribed to the newsletter and I made over $3,000 from selling extra products around it.Heres the story from the inside and what I learned from the journey so far.Solve your own problemthen share it with the worldI started building Untools for myself. I had been collecting some useful thinking tools and frameworks but there was no place to bring them together. Having this central place could allow me to go in and grab the tool I needed to solve a problem or make a decision.My collection initially lived in Notion but it dawned on me that this was wasted potential. I decided to build it as a website so that I could share it with the world.Before launching, I had no idea how many people would find this useful. My thinking was: if I help at least one person with this, its worth it. I mean, all of those thinking tools could be found on the web already, right.The act of launching the project publicly unlocked a lot of potential. I suddenly saw how many people shared my problem and how many found these tools so valuable. Just because the content already existed in another form didnt mean my work wouldnt bring value quite the opposite!Let these kind words of one Untools reader be the evidence of that:It can be scary to share your work with the world. The worst case scenario is that nobody notices. The potential for new opportunities when you hit publish, though, is huge.Curation is underratedFrom the beginning, my philosophy for Untools was to keep it small. I launched with about 12 thinking tools. Ive added only 6 since the launch.Same with the newsletter: Ive only sent out 11 emails so far. Thats ~1 email/month. I only send an email when I publish a new tool or when theres a meaningful update to the project that I consider valuable for my subscribers.Ive seen too many maximalist projects: trying to collect or create as much content as possible. Repositories with dozens of categories and hundreds of links. Weekly newsletters that scramble to gather enough content each week. Im not a fan of this.I think that in todays world of information abundance, curation is really important yet underrated. Building Untools has taught me that. People dont need more content. People need less but more quality content.You dont need to be a developer to build somethingI already mentioned I started collecting the content for Untools in Notion. And my very first attempt to build it was with Webflow a no-code tool for building websites.Ironically, I found Webflow too complicated and decided to code it on my own with GatsbyJS. No previous experience with it. I only had a completed Javascript course for beginners going for me.There were some rough moments of frustration and despair before I figured some things out, let me tell you that. Yet it was also a lot of fun and I learned so much! Im not a developer, though. Never have been and certainly dont consider myself to be after this.While I eventually chose the own-code approach, sticking with a no-code tool like Webflow wouldve definitely been a sound option as well. And a lot of people are going that way, which is great.You dont need a title or a ton of experience as a permission to build something. Just start, learn along the way and enjoy it.Make $1 on the internetWhen I launched Untools, I had no intention of monetizing it. I was just happy I could offer the world some value.I never wanted to serve ads on the site or lock the content behind a paywall. And thats still out of the question. But it became clear I needed some revenue stream to support the costs of running the project and the time I was putting in.Jack Butchers message of making $1 on the internet was what nudged me to do it:A tiny goal that will change your life:Make $1 on the internet. pic.twitter.com/wF6gz1x5WV @jackbutcher (@jackbutcher) October 5, 2020 This is why I created Untools for Worksheets and Untools for Notion. I wanted to create something that would help people put the thinking tools to practice and in turn help me run the project.My expectation was that the sales of these would cover the necessary costs like domain and newsletter service. At best, I thought I could make a few dollars here and there.To my surprise, these products have made over $3000 since launching them with fairly little promotion:These are not life-changing numbers, of course. It doesnt mean I can quit my job now. But it means theres value in that content and I see more opportunity here.If I could give my last-year self a piece of advice, it would be: Dont be afraid to monetize what you build. But do it in a way thats meaningful for you and your users.For me, that meant building something of extra value without running any ads or putting content behind a paywall.Whats next for Untools?Ill continue to run the project and occasionally add a new thinking tool that I find to be really valuable.At the same time, I see a big opportunity in making these thinking tools more practical. In enabling people to better take advantage of those tools to really improve their thinking. Thats what Ill be working on now.
We are growing and have been looking for a new and suitable office for quite some time. We are finally happy to announce that we moved to new premises in Prague - from April 2022 you can find as at the MAYHOUSE building in Prague 4. MAYHOUSE building 5.
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