heyhey – Building a Linktree-like app taught me more than college

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heyhey – Building a Linktree-like app taught me more than college

Hello Hacker News! HEYHEY is a service that tries to bridge the siloed platforms of the modern-day internet and be where people come to search for others. So far, I've spent about 2 months developing it, and as a college student, it honestly helped me learn more about computer science than any undergrad course we have. Also, after getting the inspiration from HN, I wanted to prove to myself that, in 2022, anyone could build a full-fledged web service. Thanks to its modern-yet-traditional infrastructure, HEYHEY is costing me about 0 dollars a month to run (so far!). I really wanted to keep the service simple but functional. So naturally, I tried to stay away from a JS-based front-end. Instead, HEYHEY uses simple HTML pages with modern CSS and forms to function (you can disable JS!). Last week, I silently turned on registers, and if you register today, you will have a 10% chance to get Pro for life — it enables custom usernames (heyhey.to/[username]) and rich themes. I am not trying to take over the "Linktree space" nor trying to build a unicorn startup. After making HEYHEY presentable, I just wanted others to have access to it as well. I hope to keep developing HEYHEY so that it can further integrate with other social platforms while staying lightweight and functional. Would love to hear your feedback! If you registered and want to delete your account, just shoot an email to: friends@heyhey.to