I built an AI tool discovery platform at 18 with zero budget. Here's the honest 3-month report.

Harsha Kumar — Sat, 16 May 2026 08:22:59 +0000

Three months ago I launched XEdge — a platform that helps founders discover and stack AI tools for their specific goals.
The stack: Vanilla JS, Firebase Firestore, Firebase Hosting, Cloudflare CDN. Total monthly cost: ~$0.
Why vanilla JS over React? Zero build step. Instant deploys. I can read and debug every single line myself. For a content and discovery platform it's been the right call.
The numbers after 3 months:
500 users. $0 revenue. $0 marketing spend. 1 developer (me, 18, still in college).
What actually got me to 500 users:
— Being genuinely helpful in Discord servers before ever mentioning XEdge
— Build in public posts outperforming every promotional post
— One tweet that hit 1K views: "Your competition isn't AI. It's someone using AI better than you."
What's not working:
— Posting on 6 platforms with no team
— Exit intent popup took 3 days to debug (Mailchimp + Vanilla JS SPA = painful)
— No consistent traffic source outside of posting
This week I launched 15 AI business execution playbooks on Gumroad. First product. First chance at revenue.
Building this in public from here. Every week I'll post the real numbers — what worked, what broke, what I'm changing.
If you're building something solo with zero budget — follow along. xedge.tech

DEV Community: Harsha Kumar

I built an AI tool discovery platform at 18 with zero budget. Here's the honest 3-month report.