A short link tool that earns US$2.6K per month. This developer’s entrepreneurial story is worth listening to
Have you ever been troubled by long URLs? A concise short link not only saves space, but also makes sharing easier. Today, I want to introduce you to a short link browser extension that not only has more than 8 million short URLs and 350,000 active users, but also has a stable monthly income of more than $2,600. This is TLY, a short link management tool created by independent developer team lean.
So, how did team lean come up with this idea? It turned out that he had been engaged in software development for 11 years, during which he was mainly engaged in the development of online payment applications. In his spare time, he likes to work on some small projects of his own. His first side project that gained traction was a weather browser extension, which made him realize the potential of building browser extensions after it was recommended on life hacker.
When Google announced that it would shut down its URL shortening service in March 2019, team lean was keen to capture the opportunity. He saw huge demand for link shortening services and a potential market for link shortening APIs for text messaging applications. So, he came up with the idea of building a short chain API and decided to put this idea into practice.
TLY's success did not happen overnight. In the process of starting a business, team lean encountered many challenges. First, he needed a domain name that was short and easy to type. By contacting the founder of his partner park.io, he successfully obtained the perfect domain name TLY. Next, he had to build an MVP (minimum viable product) to validate his idea. He spent a few days building an MVP that included a shortened link API and stored statistics on click views and locations.
In order to attract users, team lean continuously optimizes and publishes and shares his browser extensions. Soon, he saw 60,000 users using his service through the link shortener extension. By August 2019, TLY had created 100,000 short URLs and tracked millions of clicks. When TLY's short URL was shared on Twitter, he was excited to see people using his service.
So, what attracts and retains these customers? As a link shortener, TLY promotes itself every time a user shares a short URL. As more and more users create short URLs, website traffic increases month by month. The goal of team lean is that when users need a short URL for their marketing campaign or application, they will naturally think of TLY.
In the process of starting a business, team lean learned many valuable experiences. He realized it was crucial to keep the service simple and low-cost. To achieve this, he optimizes the code to keep server costs low and improve performance. Additionally, he developed automated systems to detect malicious URLs and combat spammers to ensure the stability and security of the service.
For other entrepreneurs, Team Lean’s advice is: “Whenever you encounter a problem or something you think could be improved, write down the idea. If this is a problem you have, chances are a group of people have the same problem. problem. Entrepreneurship is about finding a pain point in people’s lives that they are willing to spend money to solve.” He also encouraged entrepreneurs to have the courage to try and verify their ideas, and to continuously improve and optimize products to meet user needs.
Looking back at TLY's entrepreneurial history, we can't help but be impressed by team lean's keen insight and execution capabilities. He successfully seized a market opportunity and created a popular short link management tool through continuous optimization and improvement. If you also want to try to start a business or build your own small product, you might as well start by finding the pain points in life and take the first step bravely!
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