barely.io is the open-source marketing stack for creators.
To enable a thriving middle class of indie creators.
Life as an independent creator can sometimes feel exhausting or even futile. As an indie musician, I've spent countless hours crafting songs, only to find - much to my frustration - that no one was listening. In attempts to gain exposure, I’ve squandered both time and money on various marketing schemes and tools that ultimately had no substantial impact.
Although my band eventually learned methods that significantly increased our following, we found it easier to boost 'vanity' metrics (such as followers and monthly listeners) rather than building a sustainable business. The challenge lies in the accumulating costs of different tools needed for these tasks. Mailchimp for emails, ThriveCart for sales funnels, SquareSpace for website, and Shopify for an online store can add up to hundreds of dollars each month. While these expenses may be manageable for creators generating significant revenue, they can be prohibitive for beginners. It’s also just daunting to determine the best way to start generating income.
That’s why I’m building barely.io, an open-source toolset designed to help creators like myself build a following and start generating revenue as early as possible. It offers no marketing gimmicks or shortcuts, just simple, opinionated tools designed to help creators grow a fanbase and convert that fanbase into revenue.
These are the tools that I wanted (and still want!) for growing a creator-based business. Users have the option to either self-host or choose to host on barely.io. Self-hosting will always remain free, while the pricing for our paid plans will primarily depend on usage, closely related to earnings. Our aim is to provide tools that are affordable to get started with and can quickly generate momentum.
These are features that are currently used by Barely Sparrow, our marketing agency.
On the make-it-work / make-it-nice / make-it-fast spectrum, these are pushing towards ‘make-it-nice’. The UI is buggy, performance can be improved, but the features generally work. The goal is to clean these up in Q2 2024.
- Create and organize short links
- Create permanent transparent links made for paid ad-compliance
- Analytics & remarketing tools for use with Meta (TikTok, Snapchat planned)
- Funnel-focused carts built to reduce friction & convert first-time customers
- A simple, opinionated electronic press kit to present bio, links, press videos, photos, booking contacts
These are features that are planned Q3-Q4 for 2024.
- An opinionated alternative to HootSuite.
- Schedule social media posts to Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, & X
- Automated tracking of engagement & follower growth
- Using opinionated best-practices, provide a simple interface for creating & monitoring cross-platform paid ads on Meta & TikTok platforms
- Open-source alternative to LinkTree
- Open-source alternative to MailChimp
- Open-source alternative to ManyChat
Next.js - framework
Typescript - language
Tailwind - CSS
tRPC - typesafe API
Drizzle - typesafe ORM
Neon - postgres db
Tinybird - analytics
Auth.js - auth
s3 - file storage
shadcn/ui + react-aria - ui
Turborepo - monorepo
Stripe - payments
React Email - creating emails
Resend - sending emails
Vercel - deployments
The marketing philosophy is heavily informed by the teachings of Indepreneur. You can check out their [courses] (https://indepreneur.io/products) and their great free podcast.
We have referenced and heavily borrowed ideas + code from cal.com (hooks + button ui + codebase structure), dub (ui + short-link logic), uploadthing (file uploads), and t3-turbo (trpc + monorepo + auth + general best practices).
Each month, we pledge to disburse 5% of barely.io revenue to OSS libraries and/or contributors that have enabled our product.
Inspired by cal.com, barely.io is licensed under AGPL-3.0. We believe in the power of open-source and the importance of giving back to the community. If you have any questions or concerns about the license, please reach out to us at adam@barely.io.