A failed domain flip that became something I never planned.
written by ARJ · CS student & tutor · founder of Painless Programming
This site started as an impulse buy. I was scrolling a domain marketplace during an OOP class and bought painlessprogramming.com on a whim, a flip I was sure I could sell on.
It wasn't. The domain had no backlinks, no rankings, no history, nothing that makes a flip worth anything. I'd made a small, slightly embarrassing blunder.
Around the same time, my own courses were getting out of hand. OOP especially was a pain. So I did the thing students do: I made notes. Plain, unstyled, ugly notes, but mine. And instead of leaving them in a folder, I published them on this useless domain I'd bought, just so I could study from my phone while travelling, or anywhere I was away from a laptop.
A blunder of a purchase quietly turned into the one place I could revise from anywhere.
Then it spread. I tutor O/A Level students, and they were constantly forgetting their books and notes, so I put their material up here too. The rule became simple: no one walks into class without the content, and every student can study from anywhere.
The notes I'd written for myself got passed to friends. Word of mouth did the rest. The O/A Level notes grew the same way. I built a GPA calculator because I needed one. Now people in university group chats ask for the link to it.
So here we are.
What was meant to be a quick domain flip is now 65+ structured tutorials, complete AS-Level 9618 chapters, IGCSE (0478/2210) notes, and deep dives into Python, C++, AI, and computer architecture. It's read by hundreds of students a month.
It was all about a simple domain flip. A failed one became something I never planned, and something I'm absolutely grateful for.
How it actually happened
No grand plan. Just one step leading to the next.
An impulse domain purchase
Bought during an OOP class, convinced it was an easy flip. It had no backlinks and no rankings. It wasn't.
Notes for myself
Drowning in coursework, I published my own study notes here, plain and unstyled, so I could revise from my phone, anywhere.
Notes for my students
My O/A Level students kept forgetting their books, so their notes went up too. Word of mouth grew from there.
A GPA calculator I needed
Built for myself first. Now it gets passed around university group chats on request.
A real resource
65+ tutorials, full 9618/IGCSE notes, read by hundreds of students every month. Still free.
The notes are still written like notes.
No skipped steps
These started as notes I had to understand myself. If a step matters, it's on the page, not assumed.
Built by someone who sat the exams
I'm a CS student and a tutor. The material is shaped by what actually trips students up, not by a textbook's table of contents.
Free, and study-anywhere
It exists because I needed to revise from my phone. That's still the point: readable anywhere, free to read.