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Now, read the article below!

Open Twitter, Product Hunt, or Indie Hackers.

What do you see?

• “Notion clone but for X”
• “Stripe + AI + Chat”
• “Simple CRM for freelancers”

Sound familiar?
Everyone's building apps, but almost no one is building tools.

Apps solve broad problems. Tools solve one sharp pain.
Tools are faster to build, easier to sell, and better for solo devs.

🛠 What Is a Developer Tool (And Why Should You Care)?

Think about these:

• 🔎 jsoncrack.com – Just visualizes JSON
• 🧪 regex101.com – Tests regex
• 🎨 ui.shadcn.com – Component pastebin
• 📅 cronhub.io – Cron job monitoring
• 💬 webhook.site – Catch webhooks in dev

All of these:

• Solve one job really well
• Are used by thousands of devs daily
• Take weeks not months to build
• Don’t require constant support

Tools don’t need dashboards.
They don’t need fancy UIs.
They just need to work.

💡 New Mindset: Think Like a Problem Solver, Not a Startup Founder

Instead of thinking:

“What’s a big market I can serve?”

Think:

“What’s a boring pain I can automate or simplify?”

You don’t need a unicorn idea.
You need an annoying bug in someone’s workflow.

Ask:

• What’s a 5-minute task I do 100 times a week?
• What’s a script I copy-paste between projects?
• What’s a dev tool I wish existed but haven’t found?

🚀 3 Developer Tool Ideas (You Can Build This Weekend)

1. Webhook Inspector with Replay

• Problem: Testing webhooks is painful.
• Build: A UI to receive/test/replay webhooks.
• Stack: Next.js + SQLite + Stripe CLI
• Monetize: \$5/mo for saved history + email alerts

2. Open Graph Image Generator (CLI + Web UI)

• Problem: Blog posts look boring without OG images.
• Build: Upload markdown → Generate branded OG image.
• Stack: AstroJS (marketing) + Next.js (upload logic) + Satori
• Monetize: Lifetime deal on Gumroad

3. JWT Debugger + Token Viewer

• Problem: Decoding JWTs manually is annoying.
• Build: JWT in → claims out (secure, no logging).
• Stack: Astro + Serverless functions (Edge runtime)
• Monetize: Offer VSCode extension + team plan

🧰 Resources to Build Tools, Fast

Template to Start Fast:

npx create-next-app mytool
pnpm add tailwindcss next-auth stripe

🎯 How to Sell a Dev Tool

You don’t need a startup. You need:

• ✅ A sharp hook
• ✅ A free demo
• ✅ A paid tier with just one killer feature

Example:

Platforms to Sell On:

• Gumroad (simple & fast)
• Lemon Squeezy (EU VAT friendly)
• Sell.app (crypto + fiat)
• Self-host with Stripe

🧠 Think Like a Solo Hacker

Stop thinking “SaaS = business.”
Think “tool = leverage.”

You don’t need:

• Cold emails
• VC funding
• A team

You need:

• 1 sharp problem
• 1 useful solution
• 1-click deployment

🔥 TL;DR

Build tools, not just apps.
Tools solve boring problems. Boring problems pay.
Use Astro + Next to build fast, deploy faster.

🤪 Bonus Dev Memes

😵 “Let’s build a CRM that takes 6 months to launch.”
😌 “Let’s build a JWT decoder this weekend.”

💰 “No one pays for tiny tools.”
🧠 jsoncrack.com says hi.

💬 What Tiny Tool Will You Build?

Drop your tool ideas below.
Let’s make dev life 10x smoother — one sharp utility at a time. 🛠👇

💬 Over to You!

Have you tried combining Astro and Next.js before?
Or built a SaaS with a split-stack like this?
Share your pain. Or your gain.👇

💬 Tired of Building for Likes Instead of Income?

I was too. So I started creating simple digital tools and kits that actually make money — without needing a big audience, fancy code, or endless hustle.

🔓 Premium Bundles for Devs. Who Want to Break Free

These are shortcuts to doing your own thing and making it pay:

• 🌍 I built a simple website for a local biz and got $500+ — No design skills. Just solved a real problem.

• 🚀 Launched a SaaS in 7 days — no code, no audience — It’s messy but it works.

• 🔌 Used public APIs to build tiny tools people paid $997 for — Took what was already out there and made it useful.

• 📦 $300 in 3 days from a simple resource vault — Just organized links + tools. That’s it.

• 📈 Ranked a local site without writing a single blog post — SEO doesn’t have to be hard if you do it differently.

🔧 Quick Kits (Take 1 Product That Actually Works for You)

These are personal wins turned into plug-and-play kits — short instruction guides:

• ⚡ $1K in a week using APIs I didn’t even build — Copy-paste logic, add polish, publish.

• 🔥 My $0 dev setup now earns $97+ daily — Took years to build. Now it runs quietly in the background.

• 💼 This SaaS starter kit sells itself for $499 — Turns out, people love skipping setup pain.

• 📚 I turned academic papers into real products — It’s all just buried gold if you know where to look.

• 💡 My dev portfolio became a $297 product — I just told my story and sold the assets I made along the way.

👉 Browse all tools and micro-business kits here
👉 Browse all blueprints here