How I Built a Frontend-Only Profile Card Tool in 5 Days (and Listed It on Flippa)

Table of Contents

🧠 The Spark

Two weekends ago, I had a random thought:

What if profile cards didn't require Figma or custom CSS hacks?
What if you could export them instantly — as an image or clean HTML/JSX?
What if it just worked out of the box for devs, indie teams, or personal sites?

So I decided to prototype a tool that answered all three.

💡 The Problem with Most Profile Tools

Most profile card solutions fall into one of two camps:

Design-heavy — built in Figma or Webflow, looks good but hard to integrate into a dev stack.
Code-heavy — dozens of styled-components or bloated design systems, no instant export, poor mobile UX.

If you just want to build a personal site, onboarding flow, or SaaS team section — that's overkill.

✅ What PersonaForge Does Differently

PersonaForge is a fully frontend-only tool that lets you:

Fill in your name, title, bio, and tags
Choose from design themes (Retro, Minimalist, Brutalist, etc.) (still under construction)
See changes live as you type
Export to PNG, HTML, Tailwind JSX, or JSON with one click

It's instant. You don't need an account. There's no backend. And the output is clean.

Use cases:

Indie devs who want plug-and-play team sections
Designers prototyping onboarding flows
Portfolio builders looking to skip Figma

🧪 Behind the Build: Tech Stack

My goal was to make this feel like a smooth design playground while keeping it dead simple under the hood. Here's what powers it:

Next.js 15 — app directory, optimized build
Tailwind CSS 3 — utility-first styling
Radix UI + Framer Motion — smooth animations and UI primitives
Embla Carousel — card previews
html2canvas — export to image
lucide-react, cmdk, vaul — icons, modals, shortcuts

Everything is modular. There's no backend at all. Exporting works by rendering the card inside a canvas and downloading it as a base64 image. Code export uses template snippets that match each preset.

🚀 From MVP to Flippa

After five focused days, I had a clean working product with five design categories and export flows. I launched it at personaforge.me, but instead of scaling it, I listed it on Flippa.

Why?

I wanted to test product-market fit without doing marketing for months
The stack was clean enough to sell as a drop-in module
I'd rather reinvest the time into my next project

It's also a great experiment to see what kinds of microtools have resale value in 2025.

📈 Distribution & Launch Strategy

Once live, I shared it on:

Reddit — r/SideProject, r/reactjs, r/Frontend
X/Twitter — dev community thread
IndieHackers, daily.dev, ProductHunt (soon)

This wasn't a big SaaS launch — just a fast build with a clear outcome. I spent more time on polish and UX than backend logic, which made it easier to ship.

🧠 Lessons Learned

People love frontend tools with fast results
Clean code matters if you plan to sell the repo
It's okay to quit while you're ahead — shipping is the win

I don't plan to scale PersonaForge. Someone else can turn it into a SaaS or integrate it. But I learned a lot about speed, polish, and selling small tools.

🔗 Try It / Buy It

Try the app: https://personaforge.me
View the Flippa listing: https://flippa.com/11935857

If you're a dev, designer, or indie team looking to integrate this, feel free to reach out. I'm always building.

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Thanks for reading ✌️