I Built a Free Finance Dashboard as a Solo Dev — Here's What I Learned

I was tired of using 5 different apps to track my money. One for budgeting, one for crypto prices, one for dividends, one for market news. So I built my own. It's called CollectCX — a free finance dashboard that tracks everything in one place. No signup, no account, your data stays in your browser. Here's what it does: Year-at-a-glance budget spreadsheet for tracking income and expenses Live crypto prices updated in real time Dividend calendar with ex-dates for 27+ stocks Market news feed covering 795+ tickers Spending heatmaps and savings rate tracking I built it with React and it's completely client-side. No backend, no database, no server costs. Your financial data never leaves your browser. The hardest part wasn't building it — it was getting people to find it. As a solo dev with zero marketing budget, I'm learning everything from scratch. SEO, social media, backlinks — none of it comes naturally when you'd rather be writing code. A few things I've learned so far: Your site d