I started Nucelo five months ago and am actively building it now. This article is about why it was made and the whole process.

Idea

I was looking for a place where I could share both my articles and projects. I looked at some blog platforms, including Medium. But Medium wasn't what it used to be. The paywalls were getting annoying. On the other hand, there was SubStack and Beehiiv. But they didn't appeal to me. Accordingly, I decided to make my website. Everything was already easy, I could solve everything in a day. But I thought that many people like me would want to do this. So I could create a blogging platform and also help others too.

Plan

I needed a design that was minimal and focused on readability. The first idea was started as a personal blog, but then I decided to add projects too. Then I saw that some personal blogs share bookmarks and this is common in many of them, so I added bookmarks section too. I wanted to see analytics on every shared post, even how many people clicked on a bookmark. But detailed analytics are only available in the Pro plan. I originally wanted everything to be free, but I added a Pro plan due to project costs. Finally, I made it as an open-source project on Github.

Launch

I added everything that was in the plan and it was ready to be launched. First, I shared the project on Product Hunt and Hacker News. But Product Hunt didn’t do well. I got tired of reporting comments written by bots. Hacker News worked as I wanted. Most of the traffic and customers who bought the Pro plan came from there. But to be honest, the interest in the project did not meet my expectations.

Now

There are currently close to 400 registered users in Nucelo. It would be a lie to say that most of the users are active, but at least there are a few users who bought the Pro plan. Even if that doesn't cover the cost of the project, I'm happy that they use Nucelo. It's not about money, it's about people blogging on a platform without annoying paywalls. Will it end with this? Of course not, I'm actively maintaining Nucelo.

If you want to contribute to the project, you can do so on GitHub. If you have any questions or problems with the project, feel free to contact me. Currently there are about 30 new things on the to-do list, so stay tuned.