1. Introduction: Why I Needed Focero in My Life It started with a simple frustration: my attention was scattered. I was jumping between tasks, endlessly switching tabs, and letting distractions control my day. I’d tried all the usual suspects—Todoist, Notion, Focus To-Do—but they all felt either bloated or gamified. I wanted something quiet. Just a timer. Minimal. Zen. That's when I asked myself: "What if I built my own Pomodoro timer? Just for me, just for focus." "What if I built my own Pomodoro timer? Just for me, just for focus." I’m not a senior software engineer. I’m not a YC-backed founder. But I had one powerful tool: Cursor, the AI-first code editor. And with it, I created Focero.com—a minimalist, multilingual Pomodoro timer for people like me. Cursor Focero.com This is the full story of how it happened, what I learned, and how you can do the same. 2. The Idea: Focus + Zero = Focero Before I ever wrote a line of code, I needed to answer some tough product questions: Who is this for? What problem am I solving? How will this be different from other Pomodoro apps? Who is this for? What problem am I solving? How will this be different from other Pomodoro apps? Here’s what I came up with: Feature My Focus Other Apps Distraction-free UI ✅ ❌ Often noisy Multilingual ✅ ❌ Rarely global 100% Free & No Login ✅ ❌ Many have paywalls Fast & Lightweight ✅ ❌ Framework-heavy Feature My Focus Other Apps Distraction-free UI ✅ ❌ Often noisy Multilingual ✅ ❌ Rarely global 100% Free & No Login ✅ ❌ Many have paywalls Fast & Lightweight ✅ ❌ Framework-heavy Feature My Focus Other Apps Feature Feature My Focus My Focus Other Apps Other Apps Distraction-free UI ✅ ❌ Often noisy Distraction-free UI Distraction-free UI ✅ ✅ ❌ Often noisy ❌ Often noisy Multilingual ✅ ❌ Rarely global Multilingual Multilingual ✅ ✅ ❌ Rarely global ❌ Rarely global 100% Free & No Login ✅ ❌ Many have paywalls 100% Free & No Login 100% Free & No Login ✅ ✅ ❌ Many have paywalls ❌ Many have paywalls Fast & Lightweight ✅ ❌ Framework-heavy Fast & Lightweight Fast & Lightweight ✅ ✅ ❌ Framework-heavy ❌ Framework-heavy I decided to name it Focero—a blend of focus and zero distractions. Focero focus zero distractions My goal: ship something useful to at least 1,000 people, and do it solo. 3. The Stack: Cursor, Tailwind, JavaScript, and AI To build Focero, I needed a modern stack that was: AI-friendly (for speed and prototyping) Developer-light (because I was working alone) SEO-ready (I wanted organic traffic) Simple enough to maintain AI-friendly (for speed and prototyping) Developer-light (because I was working alone) SEO-ready (I wanted organic traffic) Simple enough to maintain Here’s what I chose: 🧠 Cursor — for AI pair programming and generation 🎨 Tailwind CSS — for design without the overhead 📟 Vanilla JS — for pure control over the Pomodoro logic 🌐 Vercel — for instant deployment and global CDN 📚 Static i18n Files — to handle multilingual content without a CMS 🧠 Cursor — for AI pair programming and generation Cursor 🎨 Tailwind CSS — for design without the overhead Tailwind CSS 📟 Vanilla JS — for pure control over the Pomodoro logic Vanilla JS 🌐 Vercel — for instant deployment and global CDN Vercel 📚 Static i18n Files — to handle multilingual content without a CMS Static i18n Files I didn’t use React or Next.js because I wanted a zero-JS bundle where possible. Simplicity was a feature. 4. The Build: From Blank Canvas to Working Timer 4.1. Timer Core Logic (with Cursor's help) I started with the Pomodoro core: 25 minutes focus 5 minutes break Repeat 25 minutes focus 5 minutes break Repeat I asked Cursor: "Write a JavaScript Pomodoro timer with pause, resume, and reset buttons. Use setInterval." "Write a JavaScript Pomodoro timer with pause, resume, and reset buttons. Use setInterval." It gave me a clean starting point. I edited, tested, and refined. Cursor even fixed bugs when I fed it error messages. let timeLeft = 25 * 60; // in seconds const interval = setInterval(() => { timeLeft--; updateDisplay(); if (timeLeft <= 0) { clearInterval(interval); alert("Time’s up!"); } }, 1000); let timeLeft = 25 * 60; // in seconds const interval = setInterval(() => { timeLeft--; updateDisplay(); if (timeLeft <= 0) { clearInterval(interval); alert("Time’s up!"); } }, 1000); Cursor helped me modularize it, handle user controls, and manage states with minimal effort. 4.2. UI with Tailwind (and AI-generated layout) I’m not a designer. But with Tailwind and AI prompts, I built a responsive, clean layout in minutes. I prompted: "Create a centered timer UI with large font and start/pause buttons, using Tailwind." "Create a centered timer UI with large font and start/pause buttons, using Tailwind." It even suggested dark mode variants, mobile breakpoints, and CSS transitions. 4.3. Page Structure and Routing Cursor helped scaffold the entire site with: index.html → Main Timer locales/ → JSON translation files scripts/ → timer.js, i18n.js meta tags → generated by AI for SEO index.html → Main Timer index.html locales/ → JSON translation files locales/ scripts/ → timer.js, i18n.js scripts/ meta tags → generated by AI for SEO meta 5. i18n with AI: Translation at Scale I wanted Focero to be accessible globally from day one. That meant localization in at least 10+ languages. Normally, this would be painful. But with AI, it was delightfully fast. How I Did It: Wrote one en.json file with all the UI strings. Prompted ChatGPT: "Translate this JSON file into Spanish, Japanese, Hindi, and French. Keep the same structure." Used navigator.language in JS to detect browser locale. Loaded the right file dynamically and rendered the page accordingly. Wrote one en.json file with all the UI strings. Wrote one en.json file with all the UI strings. en.json Prompted ChatGPT: "Translate this JSON file into Spanish, Japanese, Hindi, and French. Keep the same structure." Prompted ChatGPT: "Translate this JSON file into Spanish, Japanese, Hindi, and French. Keep the same structure." "Translate this JSON file into Spanish, Japanese, Hindi, and French. Keep the same structure." Used navigator.language in JS to detect browser locale. Used navigator.language in JS to detect browser locale. navigator.language Loaded the right file dynamically and rendered the page accordingly. Loaded the right file dynamically and rendered the page accordingly. I now support 20+ languages thanks to GPT’s bulk translation ability. That would have taken weeks manually. 6. SEO and Performance Even a small tool deserves to be found. I spent time (with AI help) optimizing: Meta tags Page titles Descriptions per locale Schema markup Page speed (no JS frameworks, zero analytics, no trackers) Meta tags Page titles Descriptions per locale Schema markup Page speed (no JS frameworks, zero analytics, no trackers) All of this helped the site get indexed and ranked. Focero now appears on the first page of Google for several "Pomodoro in [language]" queries. 7. Deployment and Launch Vercel made deployment a breeze. But I still wanted to make sure: Load time was under 1 second globally. No broken translations. It worked offline (added a simple Service Worker). Load time was under 1 second globally. No broken translations. It worked offline (added a simple Service Worker). I launched quietly. Then submitted it to: Reddit r/productivity Indie Hackers Hacker News (Show HN) LinkedIn (with a post on my AI journey) Reddit r/productivity Indie Hackers Hacker News (Show HN) LinkedIn (with a post on my AI journey) Traffic picked up. Feedback came in. I added a mute button. Then dark mode. Then translations people requested. 8. Life as a Solo Builder with AI Focero changed my perspective. I used to think: "You need a team to build something polished." "You need a team to build something polished." Now I know: "You just need leverage." "You just need leverage." AI gave me that. I didn’t write 100% of the code. But I reviewed, iterated, and improved everything the AI gave me. It was my co-pilot. My assistant. My intern. My debugger. 9. What I Learned AI accelerates solo builders like nothing else. Simplicity wins. One page. One function. One use case. International users matter. Language = love. SEO is still powerful. Don't ignore it. Cursor is the fastest dev environment I've ever used. AI accelerates solo builders like nothing else. Simplicity wins. One page. One function. One use case. International users matter. Language = love. SEO is still powerful. Don't ignore it. Cursor is the fastest dev environment I've ever used. 10. What's Next? I plan to: Add account-free analytics Support keyboard shortcuts Let users customize session length Make the timer embeddable (for blogs or Notion) Explore open-sourcing the code Add account-free analytics Support keyboard shortcuts Let users customize session length Make the timer embeddable (for blogs or Notion) Explore open-sourcing the code 11. Final Thoughts If you have an idea, build it. Not tomorrow. Not when you learn React. Now. You don’t need to be a senior dev. You don’t need a startup. You don’t need funding. You just need: An idea that solves your own problem Cursor (or any AI IDE) A willingness to ship before you're ready An idea that solves your own problem Cursor (or any AI IDE) A willingness to ship before you're ready That’s how I built Focero.com. And maybe you’ll build something even better. 12. Links 🌐 Site: https://focero.com ⚙️ Tech: Cursor, JS, Tailwind, Vercel 📊 Open to feedback / collab: https://x.com/lovfingermonkey 🌐 Site: https://focero.com https://focero.com ⚙️ Tech: Cursor, JS, Tailwind, Vercel 📊 Open to feedback / collab: https://x.com/lovfingermonkey https://x.com/lovfingermonkey
