Week 2 — the landing page earns its keep

Two free tools shipped this week (a pay calculator and a savings planner) plus a devlog and an admin view. Why? Because a waitlist for a product that doesn't exist is a leap of faith most people won't take.

Three days after going live, here's what shipped — and why we pivoted mid-week.

The question that reshaped this week

Mid-week someone asked me a fair question: "Why would anyone sign up for a waitlist for a budget tracker that doesn't exist yet?"

They were right. A waitlist for nothing is a leap of faith most people won't make. The only way to make that leap smaller is to give people something useful right now — so they can see the maker is serious before Phase 1 drops.

So we pivoted. Instead of just admin / analytics / share buttons, we built two actual tools.

What shipped

💰 NZ Take-home Pay Calculator

Paste a gross salary, see what actually lands in your bank after PAYE, ACC earner levy, KiwiSaver, and student loan. Works for annual, monthly, fortnightly, weekly, or hourly pay. Results are shareable via URL.

Why this one: "paye calculator nz" is one of the most Googled personal-finance queries in the country. Free compounding traffic if we rank — and anyone who uses it is already in the "thinking about money" headspace.

🎯 Savings Goal Planner

Enter a goal, a timeline, and your starting balance. Get a clean weekly / fortnightly / monthly target. Optional expected return if you're saving in a term deposit or investment.

Why this one: naturally shareable. House-deposit targets, emergency funds, holiday saves — people compare notes. Each visit that shares the URL is organic reach.

Also shipped

  • 📝 This devlog at /updates, with RSS. Every week's update lives here permanently.
  • 🔒 Admin panel at /admin/waitlist — password-gated. I can now actually see who's signing up, from where, and when.

Explicitly not shipped

  • Share-with-a-mate buttons on the waitlist success state
  • Custom conversion event tracking
  • Live "join N others" counter

All three of those matter more once we've got real traffic. Tracking a dead funnel is pointless. They're next week's problems.

What I'm watching

Over the next fortnight: does either tool drive actual traffic? If the pay calculator starts showing up in Google Search Console for NZ queries, we've validated the "free tool funnel" idea and I'll ship a third before starting Phase 1. If not, we pivot again.

Full numbers next week, right here.

Ngā mihi, Muhammad