Prabhu Thangavel
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Why I Built This Platform

Why I built a single platform for all my content — and how it runs at ₹0/month.

·2 min read

Why I Built This Platform

This isn't about the tech stack — you can find that in the tech stack post. This is about why this exists.


The Problem

For years, my content lived in a dozen different places.

📓
Course Notes

Scattered across Google Docs, Notion, and random markdown files

✍️
Blog Posts

Some on Medium, some in drafts that never got published

📖
Documentation

GitBook for one project, README files for another

🎓
Teaching Material

PowerPoint slides, PDFs, handwritten notes — everywhere

Every time I wanted to share something, I'd have to remember where I put it, update it in one place, forget to update it in another. It was a mess.

I wanted one place — a single repo, a single URL — where everything lives together.


No Database, No Problem

One of the best decisions I made was not using a database.

📝
Content

MDX files in the repo — version-controlled, easy to edit

🔐
Access Control

Clerk's publicMetadata — roles, enrollments, pending requests

📊
Progress

localStorage in the browser — per-lesson completion tracking

💰
Payment Records

Email trail + Clerk metadata — enough for my scale

For a single-creator platform, this is more than enough. Zero infrastructure means zero maintenance.


The ₹0/Month Stack

Every tool I chose is either free or has a generous free tier.

Hosting

Vercel — free tier

🔑
Auth

Clerk — free tier

📧
Email

Gmail SMTP — free

💳
Payments

UPI — no gateway fees

📅
Scheduling

Cal.com — free tier

📦
Storage

GitHub repo — free


What's Next

More projects, courses and labs

If you want the technical details, check out the tech stack posts. And if you're building something similar — reach out, happy to help.