Back when I was doing my podcast (and yeah, I'm planning to get back to it), one of the most annoying things I dealt with wasn't recording or editing. It was just… managing short links.
I used Bitly, Linkly, and a few others. I figured this would be the easy part—create short links for each platform, post them, track clicks. But nope. It turned into one of the most frustrating parts of my whole workflow.
What I Actually Wanted
- A short link for each platform: Spotify, Apple, YouTube, etc.
- One place to track where people were clicking from
- A way to organize links by episode
- And ideally, something faster than doing everything manually
Simple enough, right?
What I Got Instead
Annoying limits – Free plans were useless. Paid plans still felt restrictive for what I was trying to do.
Zero organization – Just a list of links. No folders, no tags, no clue which link was for what episode three months later.
Weak analytics – Most tools only showed total clicks. I wanted breakdowns by platform, time, location—anything to actually learn from the data.
Manual overload – I had to create 4–5 links per episode and manually paste them everywhere: bios, tweets, emails, episode descriptions. Every. Single. Time.
No automation – I kept hoping for some "template" feature like: "New episode? Boom—auto-generate platform links with consistent naming." But no such luck.
Even keeping a spreadsheet got overwhelming. And if I forgot or messed up one link? People ended up clicking the wrong thing, going to last week's episode instead of the current one.
Most Tools Weren't Built for Creators
They were clearly made for ad agencies or marketing teams—not solo creators or podcasters trying to keep things simple. It was overkill in some places (I don't need A/B testing for podcast links), and underpowered in the ways that actually mattered.
I just wanted to move fast and stay organized. Was that too much to ask?
The Real Problem
Every week, I'd spend 30 minutes just on link management. Create the links, copy them to different places, update my bio, paste them into social posts. It was mindless busy work that pulled me away from the actual creative stuff.
And the worst part? I knew I was probably missing opportunities because the process was so clunky. Maybe I'd skip posting on one platform because I was tired of copying links around. Maybe I'd use an old link by mistake. Small things, but they add up.
When Frustration Becomes Obsession
Here's where it gets ridiculous: instead of just dealing with the crappy link tools and focusing on my podcast, I went down a complete rabbit hole.
I started sketching out what a better tool would look like. Just quick notes at first—"What if it could auto-generate platform links?" "What if you could organize by episode?" Innocent enough.
But then I opened my code editor "just to see how hard it would be." Famous last words.
Three months later, I'd barely published any podcast episodes because I was too busy building the solution I wanted. Classic engineer move: spend 100 hours building a tool to save 30 minutes of work.
The ironic part? The whole reason I needed better link management was to make podcasting easier. Instead, I stopped podcasting entirely to build link management software.
The Tool That Ate My Podcast
I kept telling myself "just one more feature and then I'll get back to recording." But there was always something else to fix, optimize, or improve. The perfectionist in me took over completely.
And then life happened. You know how it is—work gets crazy, personal stuff comes up, and suddenly you're in this weird void where you're not podcasting and you're not building either. Just... existing in the gap between intentions and reality.
Looking back, it's probably the most expensive productivity hack I've ever attempted. I traded months of podcast content for... a really nice link management tool that sat half-finished while I dealt with everything else life threw at me.
Getting Back to It
But you know what? I don't regret any of it. Because now I'm finally finishing what I started.
These days, I'm working extra hours to get Link on Link across the finish line. It's exactly the tool I wished existed when I was publishing episodes every week—simple, creator-focused, no unnecessary complexity.
The gap taught me something important: sometimes you need to step away from both the problem and the solution to see what actually matters.
When I get back into podcasting (soon), I'll have the tool I always wanted. And hopefully this time, I'll resist the urge to "improve" it mid-episode.
Stay tuned.
Sometimes the best products come from solving your own annoying problems. This was definitely one of those problems.