How to Convert
A local universal file converter that keeps files private
Hey indiehackers!
I've been smashing through feature requests and wanted to update everyone on:
Interactive cropping of images and video
More file types with +52 conversions, including ICNS
Word track changes/comments support
Better GIF support and compression options
If you have any more feedback, I'd love to hear it.
I made https://howtoconvert.co
It's a universal file converter that does conversions locally on your device.
There are plenty of file conversion sites, but when you use them, you’re sending your files and data to their servers.
I didn’t like that and I wanted to use local tools but with a drag and drop app, so non-programmers could use it!
v1.0.8 of How to Convert is out now!
Bringing the number of file conversions this tool can make from 2111 -> 2114
This update comes after loads of feedback that came with a flood of users from a post to Threads👇
For those that don't know: I made an app that converts almost any file to any other file locally. Coinciding with this update, I just crossed my 300th user!
It’s a universal file converter that performs conversions locally on your device.
There are plenty of file conversion sites, but when you use them, you’re sending your files and data to their servers.
I didn’t like that and I wanted to use local tools with a drag-and-drop app so non-programmers could use it.
We're getting one step closer to converting almost any file with one app. I'm building in public and adding support for more files as people request them!
Specifically, we:
- Added PDF to DOCX and ODT
- Added PDF to PPTX
- Added setup loading indicator and improve setup menu
- Fixed a LibreOffice conversion bug
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Congrats on the milestone! 🎉 Quick question: do you plan to add support for more niche file formats, like certain image or audio types, in future updates? Keep up the awesome work!
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Yeah, I'm adding file types as my users are suggesting them. It's been great for building a good interaction with my customers
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This is super inspiring — congrats on the early traction! 🚀
I’m in an earlier stage with a tool I’m building (focused on helping people who manage messy Excel files), and right now I’m trying to better define my ICP. The hardest part so far has honestly been getting people to talk — even just short user interviews have been tough to land.
Any tips on how you got those initial users to engage and try the product? Would love to hear what worked for you!
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I'm so happy to inspire someone else. That's very kind of you to say.
I would honestly recommend the build a simple one feature version of it where you users can give it an input and it gives the user the output to solve their problem.
Make a nice demo video with a tool like screen studio and then post it to subreddits like r/SideProject, on threads/X and on hacker news and see if people like it.
I've found people don't really care about just an idea. They want something real to test and if it helps them solve a problem that is a pain, they'll pay for it.
Build a prototype in less than a month, along with a landing page and pay button and just try and test it
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Jake, this is awesome! How has user acquisition been?
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Been quite good, especially on Reddit and Threads. I haven't had much luck on X or other social medias. SEO is starting to kick in now too, which is a great feeling after ~2 months of not ranking well
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Nice, this is very cool! How’d you validate your idea? Did you make any mock ups or talk to any people, or did you just launch?
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I thought of the idea because I have to convert a lot of media files for work and had friends and family always ask me how to convert certain files. I then checked whether people search for this using tools like ahrefs. It was a mix between my need and a need I see a lot of others have too.
I made my app a little different - it does the conversions without your files leaving your computer. And, I built it as fast as possible. I made a nice demo video and posted it to reddit, threads and hacker news. I found if it gets paying users at that point, with a scrappy prototype, then you know it's validated
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Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented both the World Wide Web (WWW) and HTML while working at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Geneva, Switzerland.
The interesting story is that he created it to solve a practical problem.
Scientists at CERN needed a better way to share information and documents with each other. At the time, computers at CERN were connected, but sharing information was complicated and inconsistent.
Here's what Tim created:
HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) - the language to create documents
HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) - the protocol for transmitting data
URLs (Universal Resource Locators) - the addressing system for documents
The first web browser and web server software
What's particularly remarkable is that he and CERN decided to make the World Wide Web available for anyone to use for free, without royalties. On April 30, 1993, CERN released the WWW technology into the public domain. This decision was crucial in allowing the web to grow into what it is today.
Tim Berners-Lee is still active in web development and advocacy. He founded the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) which develops web standards, and he's been knighted by Queen Elizabeth II (hence the "Sir"). He's also been a strong advocate for net neutrality and web privacy.
An interesting quote from him about his invention: "The Web as I envisaged it, we have not seen it yet. The future is still so much bigger than the past."
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It is wild to think how different the internet would be if CERN had chosen to commercialize the web instead of making it free. That one decision shaped the entire digital world. Makes you wonder what other groundbreaking tech might be locked behind paywalls today?
When I first started building websites and apps, I searched almost every day for whether I was using the most optimal tech stack.
It wasn't until I got used to building products in one, that I realised learning the newest "blazingly fast" framework or switching to some new database doesn't really matter if you have no users.
What matters is whether you can build something quick to test your idea. After learning that, I built this project in a month and it surpassed $1000 in revenue in its first two weeks!
What am I doing now? Using the same tech stack to build my next idea.
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The key to success is starting with what you are familiar with and focusing on developing a functional product first. Once you have gained traction, you can refine and optimize your stack to facilitate growth.
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This is spot on! Too many developers get caught up in chasing the “perfect” tech stack when the real priority should be execution and validation. 🚀 Choosing a stack you’re comfortable with allows you to build faster, test ideas, and focus on what truly matters—getting users and generating revenue. Congrats on the success, and looking forward to seeing what you build next! 🔥
With my project now crossing the $1000 mark just 2 weeks after launch, I wanted to create an affiliate program to help spread the word more and share revenue with my community. If you have an audience, you can now earn 30% of each $14.99 sale (~$5 USD) that you refer to How to Convert.
Your support has been nothing short of amazing. My life is changed after a single reddit post and posts like this to this community. This experience has taught me a powerful lesson: make something useful, not revolutionary.
How to Convert is a universal file converter that does conversions locally on your device. There are plenty of file conversion sites, but when you use them, you’re sending your files and data to their servers. I didn’t like that and I wanted to use local tools but with a drag and drop app, so non-programmers could use it.
This program is a way for me to say thanks and hopefully get the word out there more without needing to run Ads.
How it works:
Sign Up: Visit the Affiliate Dashboard and join the program.
Share Your Link: Once approved, you’ll receive a unique referral link.
Earn Commission: Every time someone makes a purchase using your link, you pocket 30% of the sale with a 30-day cookie policy.
I’m incredibly grateful for your ongoing support and can’t wait to see this community help each other grow. If you have any questions or need help getting started, feel free to drop a comment below.
Thanks for being part of this journey and let me know if you have any tips or recommendations.
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This is awesome news! Congratulations on hitting the $1000 milestone so quickly – that's a testament to the usefulness of "How to Convert." The fact that it prioritizes local processing is a huge selling point for privacy-conscious users.
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Congrats on hitting such an amazing milestone so quickly! 🎉 The affiliate program sounds like a great way to reward the community while spreading the word. For those considering joining, what strategies do you find work best for sharing referral links effectively? Let’s help each other maximize earnings!
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thank you! I find writing affiliate style blogs, best of videos and emailing/tweeting to your following. Most of all, telling people how you find the app useful in your experience
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@jakemanger I wish you success. But I couldn't understand the software background that runs locally? It looks like a js html app running in the browser. What is the logic of working locally? What dependencies are required to convert so many files?
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Thanks. Instead of Googling "Convert HEIC to JPG", clicking on the first link you see and then sending your files to some random server, it's an app that you download and run locally. That way, your private files stay on your device.
You can also convert in the browser using the free demo. That runs on the client side (your own machine) but only a limited number of files can be converted with the demo, because local tools are needed to do the others.
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Two weeks ago I launched an app via a post to reddit. The reception was absolutely beyond my expectations.
I was sitting at my PhD student desk working when to my amazement, I saw a notification from stripe saying that I received my first payment of $7.5. I have never had such a flood of good hormones go through my body. Thank you whoever you are for clicking that purchase button and thank you to the continued interest of people that keep purchasing the app (It's now at $1000).
This is my 3rd attempt at a startup in the last 3 years and is the first time I have ever received an internet dollar. I spent 2 years on my last project - building tests for this, tweaking styling for that, optimising page load times and what did that get me? $0
What changed is I decided to make something useful, not revolutionary. Something that people search for regularly (you can find this out on sites like ahrefs), something I do regularly and something that I could build and test in a month. I thought: don’t focus on features no one will use until you’ve tested whether there’s interest in the essential features that solve the problem. If no one showed interest, i would move onto the next idea.
I settled on a universal file converter that does conversions locally on your device. There are plenty of file conversion sites, but when you use them, you’re sending your files and data to their servers. I didn’t like that and I wanted to use local tools but with a drag and drop app, so non-programmers could use it.
With my last failure, I honestly thought that maybe I wasn’t cut out for making my own apps/websites. However, this new mindset is working - build it fast and see whether people buy before you spend years on it. I hope this post is a bit of inspiration for people who are in a similar boat to how I was feeling. After your first failure, learn then build and launch to test your next idea. The feeling of having one actually be wanted by a user is the best feeling I have had in years.
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Dude, congrats! $1k from a side project is the dream and only the beginning! The point about not getting bogged down in features before validating the core idea really hits home. Inspiring stuff.
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I'm really glad you liked it. Keep on building, friend!
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Wow, this is such an inspiring story! Build it quick, test if there's demand, then go from there. Your approach of focusing on something actually useful, not just revolutionary, is so refreshing. Anyway, huge congrats on hitting $1,000 in just a month! That feeling of validation is unbeatable. Keep going!
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I really appreciate it. Keep going yourself!
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Great story! The best of luck
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Thank you, friend!
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congrats Jake!!
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Hi, I need some advice, I have an idea to create a website, and I think it can work, I don't know how to code. So, what I've planned is, to open a YouTube channel where I make some content, not specifically related to the site, but to gain an audience to which I can then pitch my idea in order to validate the idea, while building the MVP alongside. What do you think about this method, as gaining an audience on YouTube won't be easy and will take at least 3-6 months, so is it worth building the channel or should I focus on building the MVP and just post on X, reddit, etc for spreading it?
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I think you’re on the right track. I would honestly try each and whatever you get the best response on, focus your efforts there. Be prepared for a lot of failure and hate for some things but just keep learning from what works (and doesn't) and you’ll get better results next time. You’ll find that when you get nice comments (like you’ve just given me) or, better, people buying what you’ve made, you get more motivated to keep doing it.
For me, I’m currently trying to grow my audience on X too (https://x.com/JakeManger). It’s hard but I have had much better success on reddit in my case - posting about what I’ve made.
As for YouTube, I know a lot of people have great success with it, others don’t. You just got to give it a try and keep improving with it.
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I am absolutely not qualified to answer this, but I'm dealing with the same issue - trying to "get an audience" while working on actually building something. I've been doing POSSE (Post On (Your Own) Site Syndicate Everywhere), meaning I post stuff to my website, and then I copy that content to LinkedIn, X, Bluesky, and Mastodon. So far it hasn't "worked," lol, but I'm still trying different things to see if something sticks.
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Congratulations Jake
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Congrats Jake! This is super inspiring man keep at it.
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Keep at it too yourself!
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I know you said 2 years working on your project? but how many hours do you think you've put into it?
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ooh well at least 3-8 hours a week after work/on weekends. Waaayyy too long on something I should have 1) market researched and 2) tested much earlier
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Congrats Jake! Wonderful to see your success! I also launched my product recently with similar motivations, to prevent data being sent to 3rd party servers for cleaning Gmail Inbox.
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Congrats back to you!
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Congrats Jake! Thanks for sharing your learnings and new strategy. I wasn’t aware of the existance of sites like Ahrefs. Brillant for checking out ideas of what people are looking for.
Wish you good fortune with your projects.
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Yeah, ahrefs is great. I didn’t know with my last project too and now that I do, things are working!
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First of all - congrats! Can you share what tech stack did you use?
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Awesome man. love the idea!
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Thank you!
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That's awesome man! Congrats on your new found success. That's also a good idea. I noticed the same thing a year or so ago and thought "I wish I didn't have to send my file to their servers".
Good luck on your journey!
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Thank you haha I'm glad I'm not alone in that thought. Good luck on your journey too!
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Keep going
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You too!
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This is extremely inspiring for me at this point, right now, today. Thank you.
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You got this buddy 🤞 and if your idea isn’t a success, keep improving and get the next idea out. It gets faster each time
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Hey everyone,
My universal file conversion app now runs on mobile! Best of all, it runs entirely in the browser and no files leave your device.
I built http://howtoconvert.co to solve a common problem: when you search “How to convert PNG to ICO,” you mostly find shady “free” websites that send your files to unknown servers. I wanted a tool that runs entirely offline and never sends your data anywhere.
So I created How to Convert and I have just got the free demo working on mobile - would love your feedback on this. Let me know what you think!
Hey everyone,
I’ve been reflecting on my early days of building products, and one key lesson stands out:
Bragging about “0.1-second load times” is like boasting about how fast a car can accelerate—cool in theory, but pointless if you can’t exceed the speed limit.
Back when I first starting making websites and apps, I was obsessed with every little feature. I’d spend hours tweaking styling and optimising API performance, convinced that those split seconds would win over users. But here’s the truth: no one cares about a few milliseconds of speed if the product itself isn’t something they want or need.
What really matters
Solve a Problem: Focus on building a solution that addresses a real problem. Users are more interested in value than in technical bragging rights.
Ship Fast: Launch early, get it in front of real users, and let their feedback guide your improvements.
If there's no interest in an idea, no amount of optimisation will help: if you've launched and have no interest. Don't waste time optimising it further. Pivot the idea or find something that people want.
Learn from users: Your users are your target audience. They have the problem and are trying to use your app to solve it. Who better to learn from than them?
The real takeaway
Instead of spending time perfecting a 0.1-second load time, I learned that listening to users and iterating based on their feedback is where real progress happens. The moment you ship, you gain insights that no amount of theoretical speed can replace.
So if you’re just starting out, remember: don’t get hung up on perfection. Ship it, learn from it, and evolve. That’s how you build something that truly resonates with your audience.
Cheers to building better, faster, and smarter!
Hey everyone,
I'm excited to announce that I've just launched an Affiliate Program for How to Convert! As a big thank you for all the support, you can now earn a 30% commission for every sale made through your unique referral link. That's 30% of each $14.99 - $30 purchase.
Just for reference, this is how my product is doing over its first 10 days in sales from reddit posts (which I explain how to do in a past post, below).
Why join the Affiliate Program?
30% Commission: Earn a healthy 30% commission on every sale generated from your referrals.
Simple to Get Started: Just sign up, get your unique link, and share it wherever you connect with your audience—be it social media, blog posts, or your email newsletter.
Trusted Product: How to Convert is a local, privacy-first file converter that keeps your files on your own device.
Unlimited Earnings: The more you share, the more you earn. There’s no cap!
How it works:
Sign Up: Visit the Affiliate Dashboard and join the program.
Share Your Link: Once approved, you’ll receive a unique referral link.
Earn Commission: Every time someone makes a purchase using your link, you pocket 30% of the sale.
I’m incredibly grateful for your ongoing support and can’t wait to see this community help each other grow. If you have any questions or need help getting started, feel free to drop a comment below or reach out on Twitter.
Thanks for being part of this journey!
Hi everyone! Thanks for the continued support and great comments so far.
Just wanted to let everyone know that How to Convert is now live on BetaList!
https://betalist.com/startups/how-to-convert
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