Who is Kevin Hutson?
Started Futurepedia in November 2022 as a side project. ChatGPT had just launched, AI tools were exploding everywhere, and nobody had a good directory tracking them all. Kevin figured he'd build one over a weekend.
That weekend project hit 100k monthly visitors by February 2023. By summer it was pulling 500k. Early 2025? Over 2 million monthly visits, making it arguably the largest AI tools directory on the internet.
The site curates 5,000+ AI tools across every category imaginable. Writing assistants, image generators, code completion, voice cloning, you name it. Every tool gets reviewed, categorized, and tested before making the list.
What's wild is Kevin runs the whole operation mostly solo. No big team of editors or researchers. Just him, a tight tech stack, and aggressive automation to keep up with the 50+ new AI tools launching weekly.
The Kevin Hutson tools below reflect that constraint. Everything needs to either save time, automate repetitive work, or scale without adding headcount. No room for apps that just look cool but don't actually move the needle.
How Kevin Researches New AI Tools
Arc Browser organizes the chaos. Separate Spaces for Futurepedia admin work, AI tool research, content creation, and personal stuff. Each Space has its own tab setup and login sessions, so switching contexts is just a keyboard shortcut.
Research Space regularly hits 40+ tabs as he tests new tools. Boosts feature auto-archives tabs after he's done reviewing, keeping things manageable. Split view lets him compare tool interfaces side by side without window juggling.
Perplexity handles the initial vetting. When a new tool submission comes in, he asks Perplexity about the company, funding status, founder background, and any red flags. Beats spending 20 minutes Googling around for basic facts.
The real work is actually testing each tool. Sign up, run it through typical use cases, check if it does what the marketing claims. Some tools get rejected immediately. Vaporware demos with no actual product. Scammy pricing that hides costs. Straight up broken UIs.
ChatGPT drafts the initial tool description after testing. Feed it the product details, use cases, and key features. Output gets heavily edited for accuracy and voice, but it beats staring at a blank page 50 times weekly.
Arc Browser
Arc Browser is an internet browser with cleaner design, tabs & new AI features too.
Managing Content & Submissions
Notion runs the editorial calendar. Blog posts, newsletter topics, social media schedules, all tracked in linked databases. Views filter by status, priority, and publish date. Nothing fancy, just reliable organization.
Tool submission queue lives in Notion too. Every founder pitching their tool gets funneled into a database with review status, category tags, and priority flags. Weekly view shows what needs reviewing versus what can wait.
Typeform collects submissions with structured questions. Category dropdown, pricing model, target users, key features. Conditional logic branches questions based on answers, so SaaS tools get asked different things than open source projects.
Integration between Typeform and Notion happens through Zapier. New submission? Automatically creates a Notion database entry with all the form data. Saves hours weekly of manual copying from one system to another.
Airtable manages the master database of 5,000+ tools with deeper relational structure than Notion handles well. Links tools to founders, categories, featured collections, and partnership status. Powers internal analytics tracking submission trends and category growth.
Automation That Keeps It Running
Zapier ties everything together. When a new tool goes live on Futurepedia, Zaps automatically post to Twitter, update the newsletter queue, and log it in Airtable analytics. What used to take 15 minutes of manual work now happens instantly.
Partnership tracking runs through automated workflows. Affiliate link clicks get logged. Commission reports auto-import from various networks. Monthly revenue summaries generate without touching a spreadsheet.
The whole system is built around one constraint: if Kevin has to do it manually more than twice, it gets automated. That philosophy is why a solo founder can manage 5,000+ listings without losing his mind.
Email & Publishing Workflow
Superhuman handles the email flood. 200+ daily messages from founders pitching tools, partnership requests, user feedback, and random inquiries. Keyboard shortcuts batch through it in 30 minutes versus the 2 hours Gmail used to take.
Send-later feature prevents setting expectations of instant responses. Write the reply at 11pm, schedule it for 9am. Looks professional, protects boundaries. Reminders surface important threads that need follow-up without manual tracking.
Webflow powers the entire Futurepedia frontend. CMS manages 5,000+ tool listings with custom fields for categories, pricing, and features. Dynamic filtering lets users narrow 5,000 tools down to exactly what they need without Kevin writing custom code.
Template system keeps every tool page consistent. New listings inherit the same structure automatically. Beats manually designing each page or hiring developers for every update.
Considered switching to a headless CMS setup in 2024 but stuck with Webflow. The visual editor and integrated hosting still beat the complexity of managing separate frontend and backend systems as a solo founder.
Frequently Asked Questions About Kevin Hutson's Stack
What tools does Kevin Hutson use to run Futurepedia?
Webflow handles the frontend and CMS for 5,000+ listings. Notion manages editorial calendar and submission queue. Airtable is the master database with relational links. Zapier automates workflows between everything. Arc Browser keeps research organized in Spaces. That's the core Kevin Hutson tech stack powering 2M+ monthly visits.
How does Kevin review so many AI tools solo?
Automation and ruthless prioritization. Typeform structures submissions. Zapier pushes them into Notion automatically. Perplexity handles initial vetting. ChatGPT drafts descriptions. The actual testing still requires manual work, but everything around it gets automated. If a process happens more than twice, it gets a Zap.
What browser does Kevin Hutson recommend?
Arc Browser, no contest. Spaces organize Futurepedia admin, AI research, content creation, and personal browsing separately. When you're testing 50+ new tools weekly, being able to isolate that in its own Space with auto-archiving tabs is clutch. Tried going back to Chrome once. Lasted two days.
Does Kevin use AI tools to manage Futurepedia?
Yeah, ironically. ChatGPT drafts initial tool descriptions that get heavily edited. Perplexity handles research and fact-checking. But the actual curation and testing is still manual. You can't automate good taste or spotting vaporware demos. AI speeds up the grunt work, doesn't replace judgment.
How does Futurepedia handle tool submissions?
Typeform collects structured data with conditional logic branching questions by category. Submission hits Notion review queue via Zapier automatically. Kevin vets it with Perplexity, tests the actual tool, then either publishes or rejects. Takes maybe 15 minutes per tool now versus the hour it used to require before automation.
What makes Kevin's tech stack work for a solo founder?
Everything either automates repetitive work or scales without adding people. Zapier connects tools so data flows automatically. Webflow's CMS handles thousands of listings without custom development. Superhuman keeps email manageable. The whole stack is built around the constraint of running solo. No room for tools that need constant maintenance or teams to operate.