3 Tools to Make Growing and Scaling your Side Projects Easier

My favorite part about side projects comes after the initial build is complete.

This is when I get to put my project out into the wild and watch real users interact with it. But shifting from development to growth can be difficult.

Here are 3 of my go-to tools as a developer to analyze user data, get more signups, and monitor production errors.

Let's start with our own tool first.

View your product metrics in under 5 minutes. Arctype is a collaborative SQL client that allows you to easily connect to a database and start running queries and visualizations.

The product is like if Google Sheets met Tableau, and then it was designed for anybody to be able to use. Some of my favorite features include:

Creating super simple dashboards: I love tracking metrics from day 0 on my side projects. Understanding total users, increase, churn and more is super helpful. Arctype lets you build these dashboards easily with a drag and drop interface.

Collaboration: I often work on side projects with a few friends. We used to share our SQL queries via email, but now with Arctype I can share queries and dashboards directly with my team and give them edit or just view access.

Managing queries: I use Arctype to query specific segments of users and have most of my queries for these segments saved. That way, I don't have to re-write long queries every time I wish to investigate my data.

Best part? It's free!

Waitlist increases sign-ups by gamifying referrals. With the no-code integrations, it takes less than 5 minutes to set up a waitlist on your webpage.

I specifically use it for:

User research: If users are willing to share your product with other users, that's already a positive sign. Reaching out to these users to understand their expectations and use cases can provide valuable information.

Rewards: During its earliest days, Dropbox grew through its referral program. The vast majority of Dropbox users had free accounts with limited storage space. However, every user was given more free space for any additional users they sign up. Specifying rewards for users for successful referrals can further boost your growth.

Demand: An important tool for marketing your product is showing excitement and traction. If you can begin marketing your product and its demand already before launch, you can set yourself up for an incredible launch day.

(Disclaimer: The author of the story works at Waitlist)

Sentry is a monitoring platform that helps with discovering, triaging, and prioritizing errors in real-time.

I didn't use Sentry until recently and previously relied on checking logs inside my EC2 instance (I know, super cumbersome). Sentry was a total gamechanger and here are my reasons why:

Stack traces: A stack track shows the stack of functions at the time an uncaught exception is thrown. That way, you can trace your error, with return values and data throughout the process.

Showcasing specific events: With Sentry, you can investigate specific events and the logs associated with them.

Collaboration: I no longer send screenshots, explanations, and snippets of errors to collaborators, but rather send a link or assign errors accordingly.

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I hope that you have a chance to try out these tools soon with your own side projects.

Happy hacking!