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

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