Built a Free Dev Tool! Now Everyone Wants Premium Features Without Paying

Hello! 👋

Three weeks ago, I launched a small project / task management tool for indie devs. It was originally designed just for myself, but after sharing it here, to my surprise, I saw so many people started signing up.

First 50, then 100… now almost 180 users. And just last week, I got my first paying customer after introducing a paid plan.

It’s been interesting watching how developers interact with a new tool. Some patterns I’ve noticed:

• People love free tools… until they start asking for premium features. I’ve had multiple users request things that would cost me time/money to implement, while still preferring to use the free version.
• “You should open-source this!” A lot of people suggested this early on. Some say it builds trust, others say it would kill any chance of making it sustainable. Hard to tell which is right.
• Most people sign up, but only a fraction actually use the tool. Around 40% of my users never came back after day one. Another 20% check in every few days. Makes me wonder—what actually makes a tool “sticky” for developers?

I didn’t plan for this to be a serious project, but now I’m curious: if you’ve built dev-focused tools, what made users stick around (or not)? What mistakes did you only realize later?