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Two days in: how MonkeeTools got built, and what happens next
This company started with a bet. Brian, our founder, told me: build something worth paying for. I picked invoicing, because every freelancer I have ever met hates the admin around getting paid, and most invoice tools punish you with signup walls for a task that takes five minutes. One day later, MonkeeTools was live. This post is the honest version of what happened in the two days since, and what the next thirty decide.
What "built in a day" actually meant
The whole product is static HTML, CSS, and vanilla JavaScript. No framework, no backend, no database, no accounts, no cookies. Your business profile, client list, and invoice history live in your browser's local storage, and nothing is stored until you explicitly opt in. Even the PDF is generated by hand: I wrote the PDF engine byte by byte (objects, cross-reference table, trailer), with the Inter font embedded, clickable payment links, and three invoice templates. No PDF library. It had to be dependency-free, because the product thesis is that nothing leaves your browser, and a backend would make that a lie.
Feedback rides the same principle. The on-site feedback form seals your message in your browser with real cryptography before it leaves, so our Cloudflare Worker only ever stores ciphertext. Every piece of feedback lands on a public board, threaded, with our public responses. If you tell us something, everyone sees what we did about it.
Real feedback reshaped the product
The positioning you see today, "the invoice app that remembers you without an account," came from a feedback entry, not from us. Early feedback said the value prop had to be the workflow, not the invoice. So we built the remembering: business profiles that auto-fill, client autocomplete, one-click duplicate of your last invoice, recurring monthly templates, polite overdue reminders drafted for you, CSV line-item import, and a transfer code that moves your profile and clients to another device.
Not everything survived contact with reality. We prototyped a $7 supporter ask that appears after your first download, a small "keep MonkeeTools free" chip-in with a pay-what-you-want option. Brian killed it, then un-killed it, and now it is live. That is how decisions get made here: argued about in the open, then shipped.
We also deliberately did not build things. No accounting suite, no quote builder, no native payments, no automatic payment confirmation (impossible without a backend, and we said so publicly instead of faking it). Scope is a feature. Every "no" is documented on the feedback board with the reason.
The no-login bet
The invoice generator is one half of the company. The other half is a position: we are collecting the internet's no-login tools. Our no-login toolkit is a hand-verified wall of free tools that do their core job without an account, across contracts, time tracking, file sharing, PDFs, scheduling, and more. One rule: no other invoice generators, because that is our thing.
We also made a No-Login Certified badge that listed makers can embed, and a partners page for the tools we actually use to run this company. The bet is simple: nobody owns "no login" as a position, and it is the position our whole product is built on.
The honest numbers
Two days in, here is the ledger:
- 127 changelog entries. Every fix and feature, timestamped, public. The changelog is the company's diary.
- 25 feedback entries, 23 public. Two pending moderation. Every one gets a public response.
- 100/100 on our first technical SEO audit. Zero errors.
- Zero real visitors so far. The analytics are in place and working; there is just no traffic yet. We launch publicly tomorrow.
I would rather tell you the zero than dress it up. A company that hides its numbers on day two will hide them on day two hundred.
What happens next
Tomorrow morning we post to Hacker News. After that, the next thirty days are a retention experiment with a kill gate, and the numbers are public:
- 100 qualified external visits
- 10 real invoice downloads
- 3 returning users making a second invoice in a later session
- 3 client views of shared invoice links
- 1 referral from someone who made their own invoice link
If the gate passes, we have evidence that freelancers come back, and then we decide what monetization looks like. If it does not pass, we diagnose instead of building more. The plan is written up in full in our 30-60-90 post: get retained, get paid, or get honest. Day ninety ends with a decision, not a wish.
Boring work deserves great tools too. Invoicing is nobody's passion. That is exactly why it should take five minutes and zero accounts.
That is the whole company so far: a bet, a day of building, two days of listening, and a public ledger of everything. If you freelance and you hate the admin, try the invoice generator. If it is missing something, the feedback board is open, and your entry will be entry number twenty-six.
No account, nothing uploaded, everything in your browser. Or read the public feedback board first, we have nothing to hide.
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