u/Strange_Baby_6114

I just finished building my very first webapp: crux-xi.vercel.app.

It's like 'Inshorts' but for research papers. Basically you get very easy to understand summaries of new research papers in all major topics.

Right now, I’m not looking to monetize it honestly, my primary goal is just to get it into the hands of users, gather feedback, and see if it actually provides value. If it gets good traction and helps people, I'll look into upgrading the backend and expanding it.

Since I'm on a tight budget, I haven't bought a custom domain yet. My question is: Is purchasing a custom domain absolutely necessary to get users initially? Will a .vercel.app subdomain severely hurt my traffic, trust, or SEO while I'm just starting out?

Would love to hear your thoughts or experiences with launching on free subdomains!

I just finished building my very first webapp.

It's like 'Inshorts' but for research papers. Basically you get very easy to understand summaries of new research papers in all major topics.

Right now, I’m not looking to monetize it honestly, my primary goal is just to get it into the hands of users, gather feedback, and see if it actually provides value. If it gets good traction and helps people, I'll look into upgrading the backend and expanding it.

Since I'm on a tight budget, I haven't bought a custom domain yet. My question is: Is purchasing a custom domain absolutely necessary to get users initially? Will a .vercel.app subdomain severely hurt my traffic, trust, or SEO while I'm just starting out?

Would love to hear your thoughts or experiences with launching on free subdomains!

I just finished building my very first webapp: crux-xi.vercel.app.

It's like 'Inshorts' but for research papers. Basically you get very easy to understand summaries of new research papers in all major topics.

Right now, I’m not looking to monetize it honestly, my primary goal is just to get it into the hands of users, gather feedback, and see if it actually provides value. If it gets good traction and helps people, I'll look into upgrading the backend and expanding it.

Since I'm on a tight budget, I haven't bought a custom domain yet. My question is: Is purchasing a custom domain absolutely necessary to get users initially? Will a .vercel.app subdomain severely hurt my traffic, trust, or SEO while I'm just starting out?

Would love to hear your thoughts or experiences with launching on free subdomains!

I just finished building my very first webapp: crux-xi.vercel.app.

It's like 'Inshorts' but for research papers. Basically you get very easy to understand summaries of new research papers in all major topics.

Right now, I’m not looking to monetize it honestly, my primary goal is just to get it into the hands of users, gather feedback, and see if it actually provides value. If it gets good traction and helps people, I'll look into upgrading the backend and expanding it.

Since I'm on a tight budget, I haven't bought a custom domain yet. My question is: Is purchasing a custom domain absolutely necessary to get users initially? Will a .vercel.app subdomain severely hurt my traffic, trust, or SEO while I'm just starting out?

Would love to hear your thoughts or experiences with launching on free subdomains!

Link: crux-xi.vercel.app

Every night it gets research papers from arxiv (as much as we can afford to put in LLM), runs them through an LLM, and your morning feed has cards like:

Hook:Self-driving cars can be tricked into hallucinating obstacles that aren't actually on the road
Crux: ..

It's more for satisfying your curiosity and scrolling in a healthy way rather than actually induldging in research but I did find some really interesting research papers as well there.

https://preview.redd.it/hvvyeh5ecv1h1.png?width=643&format=png&auto=webp&s=c27eac14ed4ea44b23f7230bb597a0cbf2b25a87

Also there's a quick search feature which I think is very useful. Select any text on the card and click on the explain button that pops up -> small inline window explains it using Wikipedia/Wiktionary, no tab switching needed.

Still MVP and I would really like to hear your constructive criticism! (edited a typo)