Show HN: Write It Down – Personal finance tracker (write-it-down.com)
In 2020, I made it to track my own finances for income, expenses, savings, yearly summaries etc. I shared it once on Reddit, forgot about it for a year… When I checked back, it had over 130k views and I was honestly stoked!
No launch. No funding. No AI. Just a spreadsheet people actually stick with and find useful.
I finally gave it a proper home: write-it-down.com Now, more than 2,300 people use it.
It’s intentionally boring and that’s why it works.
People don’t always need AI. They just need something that actually solves their problem. This isn’t a billion-dollar startup of course, but it taught me more about building products than almost anything else.
Build something useful. Solve a real problem. Even if it’s just a simple spreadsheet.
So, what’s the most “boring” thing you’ve built that found unexpected traction?
43 comments
[ 2.0 ms ] story [ 59.2 ms ] threadLately I’ve been exploring smaller, simpler projects like this one. I usually build backend systems (currently at Browser Use, funny enough).
This spreadsheet started as a personal finance tracker during COVID and somehow turned into something people actually wanted to use.
The biggest lesson for me: People don’t care how “advanced” something is, they just want it to work and make their life easier.
Curious to hear what you all think.
Popular culture has always been easy to influence. We had blockchain hype, OOP hype, AI hype, Microservices hype, we had so many and they were ALL mostly a fad that resulted in yet-another-tool in the toolbelt of engineers -- nothing more, nothing less.
Good on you for using the right tools to build a new thing!
The three small videos with the big cursor are excellent. What did you use to edit them like that?
If you're already doing all those things, the best way you can help your personal finances is to make good decisions and work hard and with integrity in other areas of your life: grow your career and income, position yourself smartly to lower your odds of layoffs / termination / etc., take care of your health to avoid health-related income disruptions and costs (this includes mental health!), and make smart relationship choices (i.e., don't end up in divorce).
Personal finance is pretty much a solved problem. Breakthrough results generally come from personal and moral discipline sustained consistently over a long period of time. Simple tools like this can help a lot -- I like it.
What?
/s
"Strart" should probably be "Start" unless it's ragebait to gain engagement.
Did most start using it when it was a free spreadsheet linked to a reddit post or have the 2300 users all bought the $4.99 product?
Has there been a change in take-up since you monetised it?
This is solved via LLMs that can transcribe, categorise, convert messy records into structured book keeping.
I remain unconvinced that anything more rigid is more useful.
I think saying _just_ a simple spreadsheet makes it sound like a bad thing. Actually, the simplicity is probably one of the key selling points! I wish more things were just spreadsheets.
Also I’m extremely skeptical of your pricing. $5 one time seems too good to be true.
“Opinions” is a weird way to put it, the typical word there is “testimonials”.
“Get Started” also doesn’t feel right to me, makes me think of a subscription service that will require lots of set up, which seems to be the opposite of what you’re going for.
This is the essence of how we should think about building products (or, at the very least, doing some projects). I see so many of my juniors are building "useless" stuff just to participate in the AI hype. Whereas simple and elegant solutions are often neglected.
Obviously if a product/idea is good enough it can go 'viral' on its own with little prodding, but I'm curious about the discussion behind that post and how it may have taken on a life of its own.