My website makes $34K/month (built in 3 hours)

The Genesis of Cursive Directory: A Rapid Build to $34K/Month Success

This summary delves into the remarkable journey of Pontis, the visionary developer who, alongside his co-founder Victor, conceptualized and launched the Cursive Directory. What began as a spontaneous, three-hour coding sprint evolved into a highly profitable online resource, demonstrating the immense potential of targeted niche solutions, rapid iteration, and astute market positioning. The Cursive Directory serves as a central hub for Cursive developers to discover and share custom "rules," a critical component for optimizing their coding environments, a need Pontis identified during a flight. This venture, though initially a side project to their main startup, Midday, now boasts impressive financial and user metrics, challenging the conventional wisdom that directories are an outdated internet model.

• Who/What: Pontis and the Cursive Directory 🚀 Pontis, a seasoned developer and co-founder of the startup Midday, teamed up with his best friend Victor to build the Cursive Directory. This platform is a specialized online directory meticulously crafted for Cursive developers, designed to enhance their workflow by providing a centralized, easily discoverable repository of "rules." These rules are essentially configurations and extensions that tailor the Cursive editor experience, yet prior to the directory's creation, finding them was a fragmented and often frustrating process, scattered across obscure GitHub gists, forums, and individual blogs. Pontis and Victor's creation addressed this critical gap, offering a focused solution that brought order to this chaos. The initial build, astonishingly, took only three hours, rapidly transforming from a nascent idea into a functional and immensely valuable resource that today generates approximately $34,000 per month. This success story is not just about the monetary achievement but also about validating a lean, agile development philosophy and proving that even niche, seemingly simple projects can achieve significant scale and profitability with the right execution. Their commitment to building in public and fostering a community around their open-source projects underscores a broader ethos that values transparency, rapid iteration, and continuous learning, setting a compelling example for aspiring entrepreneurs and developers.

• The Build: Inspiration from a Three-Hour Flight to Launch 💡 The foundational idea for the Cursive Directory struck Pontis during a three-hour flight to France, a period he used to delve into various tech-heavy resources, including specific content related to Cursive. During this deep dive, he noticed a recurring pattern: the indispensable role of "rules" in the Cursive development ecosystem and, crucially, the glaring absence of a single, authoritative platform where these rules could be easily found, explored, and shared. This revelation was a moment of clarity—a clear market need that had yet to be adequately addressed. The moment his plane landed and he settled into his Airbnb, Pontis wasted no time. He immediately contacted Victor, his co-founder and design counterpart, conveying the urgency and potential of the concept. Their collaboration was instantaneous and highly efficient, a testament to their established working dynamic and shared technical prowess accumulated over years of building together. Victor, with his design expertise, swiftly opened Figma to sketch out the initial user interface, while Pontis concurrently initiated the project using Next.js, a framework they were both intimately familiar with. To jumpstart the content, Pontis quickly populated the directory with a hard-coded JSON file containing a preliminary selection of rules he had gathered online. Within a mere thirty minutes, a clickable, functional prototype was live on Vercel, demonstrating remarkable speed and execution. This rapid prototyping wasn't just about technical efficiency; it was driven by a bold "just ship it" mentality. Pontis acquired the highly relevant domain, cursordirectory.com, which further solidified the brand's identity and discoverability. The entire initial build, from idea to launch, spanned an astounding three hours. This expedited launch was underpinned by their mutual experience and a "design DNA" that allowed them to move with unparalleled speed and synergy. Pontis emphasizes that their ability to launch quickly stemmed from a combination of focused immersion in their primary work, which often reveals tangential opportunities, and a willingness to act on those ideas without the burden of excessive expectations or the paralysis of perfectionism. Their advice for aspiring builders is to embrace this agile approach, seeing rapid development as a strength rather than a compromise, and to simply launch without overthinking, allowing the market to validate or guide subsequent iterations.

• Success & Scale: Astounding Metrics from a Weekend Project 💰 What began as a swift, three-hour side project has blossomed into an extraordinary success story, boasting financial and user engagement metrics that underscore its profound impact and effective execution. The Cursive Directory currently generates an impressive $34,000 per month in gross revenue (with some instances citing $35,000, indicating consistent high performance). This revenue is achieved with an almost unparalleled 99.8% profit margin, a figure that speaks volumes about the efficiency and low overhead of their operational model. The operational costs are kept remarkably lean, totaling just under $500 per month, reflecting their strategic choice of serverless technologies and an optimized tech stack. Furthermore, the maintenance burden on Pontis and Victor is incredibly minimal, requiring only approximately 3 hours of work per month to sustain and evolve the platform. This allows them to dedicate the vast majority of their time and resources to their primary startup, Midday, while Cursive Directory operates largely as a high-yield, self-sustaining asset. Beyond the financial triumphs, the directory has cultivated a thriving community, evidenced by over 49,000 registered users. Since its launch, the platform has attracted an astonishing 2.2 million unique visitors, highlighting its widespread adoption and essential utility within the Cursive developer community. An additional layer of its success lies in its open-source nature, with all its "rules" and code openly available on GitHub, fostering transparency, community contribution, and trust among its user base. These metrics collectively paint a picture of an exceptionally well-executed project that identified a critical niche, delivered an effective solution, and scaled rapidly with minimal ongoing effort, effectively becoming a passive income powerhouse.

• Growth Secrets: Cultivating a Viral Loop and Niche Dominance 🌐 The rapid ascent of the Cursive Directory to millions of users and substantial revenue was not accidental but a direct result of a multi-pronged growth strategy focused on organic reach, community engagement, and a superior user experience.

  • Building in Public and Strategic Launch: Pontis and Victor leveraged their existing presence and philosophy of "building in public" on platforms like X (formerly Twitter). Their initial announcement post for the Cursive Directory instantly gained traction, achieving an impressive 1 million impressions, which was compounded by several subsequent posts detailing their journey and the project's evolution. This transparent approach resonated deeply with the developer community, who appreciated insights into the build process.
  • Hacker News Front Page: A pivotal moment in their initial growth surge was getting featured on the front page of Hacker News. This placement exposed the directory to a vast, highly engaged, and technically sophisticated audience, leading to an explosion in early user acquisition and visibility.
  • YouTube Coverage: The directory's unique story—a high-impact product built in just three hours—captured the attention of various tech YouTubers. Their coverage further amplified awareness, introducing the Cursive Directory to broad segments of the developer community and beyond.
  • Solving a Timeless Problem for a Niche: Pontis astutely identified that directories, far from being "dead," remain incredibly effective when they solve a "timeless problem" for the "right audience" at the "right time." In the context of the evolving "AI world," developers are constantly seeking precise answers and tools to optimize their workflows. The Cursive Directory precisely met this demand by aggregating and organizing essential Cursive rules, making it an indispensable resource for its target demographic. This niche focus allowed them to dominate a specific segment where a clear need existed.
  • Design as a Competitive Advantage: A significant differentiator for the Cursive Directory is its exceptional design. Pontis views design not merely as aesthetics but as a critical strategic advantage, particularly in an era where AI can rapidly generate functional but often generic-looking websites. He and Victor, with their shared "design DNA" and access to a pre-existing design system and reusable components from previous ventures, could craft a "beautifully designed" and intuitive user experience with remarkable speed. Their design philosophy centers on simplicity, consistency, and learning from admired patterns in other successful websites. This commitment to superior design made the directory inherently more shareable, trustworthy, and pleasant to use, elevating it above competitors and fostering user loyalty.
  • Iterative Feature Development and Monetization: The directory's growth was further propelled by intelligent iterative development and monetization strategies. Initially, it provided basic rule discovery. They then introduced community features, allowing registered users to post their own rules and engage through voting, transforming it into a vibrant, self-sustaining community. The business model evolved to include paid job advertisements, offering companies direct access to a highly specialized developer audience. A second significant wave of adoption came with the integration of MCPs (Multi-Cursor Packages), which further extended Cursive's functionality. The directory made these MCPs searchable and offered featured listing options for payment, creating another revenue stream. Finally, they introduced a unique feature that allowed developers to generate custom Cursive rules tailored to their package.json file, addressing a core pain point for those who struggled to customize their Cursive experience. These strategic additions not only enhanced the directory's utility but also diversified its revenue streams and deepened its integration into the Cursive developer workflow.

• Tech Stack: Lean, Efficient, and Frictionless Development 🛠️ The technical foundation of the Cursive Directory epitomizes the philosophy of "no servers, no friction," prioritizing speed, simplicity, and maintainability. Pontis and Victor meticulously selected tools they were already proficient with, ensuring rapid development and minimal operational overhead.

  • Frontend & Backend: The core of the application is built with Next.js, a powerful React framework that supports both frontend rendering and backend API routes. This choice allowed for a full-stack solution within a single framework. The entire codebase is written in TypeScript, providing type safety and enhancing developer productivity and code maintainability. Components are designed to be "shipped" or shared efficiently, ensuring consistency and reusability.
  • Hosting & Deployment: For hosting and continuous deployment, they leverage Vercel, which offers seamless integration with Next.js and a robust serverless architecture, perfectly aligning with their "no servers" mantra. Vercel's platform simplifies deployment, scaling, and global content delivery.
  • Email Services: Email functionalities, such as transactional emails for user registrations or notifications, are handled by Resend, a service known for its developer-friendly API and reliable email delivery.
  • Analytics: For understanding user behavior and site performance, they utilize OpenPanel for analytics. This tool provides insights into traffic, user engagement, and other key metrics necessary for informed iteration.
  • Payments & Merchant of Record: To manage financial transactions, particularly for paid job listings and featured MCPs, they opted for Paddle. Paddle functions as a merchant of record, simplifying global payments, taxes, and compliance, which is especially beneficial for companies operating across different regions, like their base in Europe.
  • Productivity & Version Control: Their daily development workflow is streamlined by several key productivity tools. They use Cursor for coding, highlighting its integration capabilities. Notion serves as their primary tool for product management, helping them organize ideas, track progress, and plan features. All code changes and collaborative development are managed through GitHub, providing robust version control and facilitating their open-source approach.
  • Philosophy: The overarching principle guiding their tech stack choices is a commitment to minimizing friction and maximizing development velocity. By selecting serverless solutions and integrated platforms, they eliminate the complexities of server management and infrastructure, allowing them to singularly "focus on building and shipping fast." This lean and efficient stack is a critical factor in achieving their impressive 99.8% profit margin, with total monthly operational costs for all these services amounting to a mere $525.

• Key Takeaway: The Power of "Start" and Relentless Iteration ✨ Pontis's most profound and recurrent piece of advice for anyone embarking on a building journey—whether it's a directory, a SaaS application, or any online venture—is deceptively simple yet profoundly impactful: "Start." He elaborates that this isn't just a casual suggestion but a fundamental principle for success. The act of starting is the catalyst that sets everything in motion. When one commits to an idea and begins the building process, a critical transformation occurs: you become "dialed in." This state of focused engagement fosters a unique kind of luck. By consistently moving forward, taking action, and putting your creations out into the world, you actively create opportunities. The core tenets of this philosophy are: ship, share, and iterate. Don't wait for perfection; launch a minimum viable product, share it with your audience, gather feedback, and continuously refine and improve based on those insights. Pontis stresses that in this journey, there is "really no such thing as failure." Every outcome, regardless of its immediate perceived success, is a learning opportunity. The "worst thing that can happen," he posits, is that you gain valuable knowledge and experience, which then informs your next step forward. This mindset transforms potential setbacks into crucial data points, fueling continuous improvement and guiding the path to eventual success. His own story with the Cursive Directory—an idea quickly brought to life without grand expectations, then iterated upon based on real user engagement—serves as the ultimate testament to the power of simply getting started and embracing the iterative process.