I Built 7 Free AI Tools While Broke — Here's What I Learned

A while back I was broke, applying to jobs that weren't calling back, and building websites for anyone who'd give me a shot. Somewhere in that stretch I decided to stop waiting for someone to hire me and start building things myself.

Why AI tools

I kept noticing the same pattern with clients: they needed ideas, ad copy, cold emails, a business name, a script, a job application — and they either didn't have the budget for an agency or didn't know where to start. Claude AI made it possible to build something that could actually help with all of that, fast, for free.

What I actually built

Seven small, focused tools, each doing one thing well instead of one tool trying to do everything:

Each one is its own small app — its own landing page, its own generate flow, all wired back to the same Claude API underneath.

What I'd tell someone starting the same way

Ship the smallest working version. Every one of these started as a form and an API call to Claude. No auth, no database for the first version — just prove the core loop works before adding anything else.

One tool, one job. It's tempting to build one mega-tool that does everything. Nobody trusts that. A tool with a clear name and a clear promise gets used; a tool that tries to be everything gets ignored.

Free is the fastest way to find out if it's actually useful. No signup, no credit card, instant results — that's not just generosity, it's the fastest feedback loop there is.

If you want to try any of them, they're all free and live — no signup required.