Building a browser extension empire

[Tau Ceti]

End of the month update.

This month has been a roller coaster.

The month started well with lots of new users subscribing to the paid plan.
But then a lot of users decided to churn.

So I am ending the month with $612 MRR.

The total cost of running the app is $20 so, that gives me a profit margin 96.7%

Things I will need to pay for next month:
- GH copilot (currently paid by my day job but will switch to personal subscription next month) => $10/month
- Email marketing service => $20/month

The app is out of beta, I will remove all coupon codes from the site as it cheapens the brand and distorts the value offered by the product.

I am now beginning to build the Pro plan.
This will take about a month to build and test.

Once the Pro plan is out , I will focus on marketing and Branding for the next few months.

I need to publish a lot more articles to keep the SEO gods happy, I need to add proper documentation to the site to explain the functionality and cut down the time spent on support requests.

I also need to invest in a proper Youtube channel where I could showcase the functionality of the extension and use that to drive traffic to the app.

But that's for later, for now, getting the Pro Plan out and reaching the $1K MRR goal with a profit margin of 75% minimum are my only concerns.

The Pro plan will rely on a few other services:
- Node app hosting
- another service that I won't mention for privacy reason (Not GPT-4/CHAT-GPT)

My goal of reaching $10K MRR before the end of the year is still on the table and I am planning on pushing real hard towards this goal. Nothing will stop me from achieving it.

My goal is to replace my salary with this app. My current after-tax income is around 4K euros per month. To be able to pay myself the same amount of money I receive now, I need to pay the same amount in taxes as an independent worker.

With a $10K MRR and assuming $1K expenses per month, that bring my gross profit to $9K.

I then divide this amount by 2 and that is roughly how much I would take home each month after taxes.
But even though my pay won't change much, I will be building equity in the business.

If the business brings in $10K per month, I think I can safely value it at somewhere between $240K to $360K.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[adnanazmi]

Current status

After posting my introduction post, I thought it was time to create an execution thread.

I have two browser extensions currently live.

Extension #1

This extension is dormant, as in I haven't updated it in a while and it is very niche browser extension. I have looked at monetizing/selling it but I don't think there is way to currently do that. It sits at around 150 installs and does not grow much as the market it is serving is relatively small. Nonetheless I consider it a success and used it to build the foundation of extension #2. At this stage I am going to focus on extension #2 exclusively and leave this extension to be. It doesn't require any maintenance fortunately.

Extension #2

This is the focus of this thread. This extension has potential to become a source of income. It is growing steadily and my SEO efforts are starting to payoff. It has about 300 users currently and gets about 30 to 50 new users every week.

At this stage the extension is free and voluntarily limited and could do a lot more. But so far I have not been providing more value to my users because I wanted to keep some functionality hidden to be able to release a paid plan with these extra functionalities.

Before spending more time on this project, I validated the idea in several ways bay asking myself the following questions:

1. Is this a problem that people are willing to pay for?
   
   Yes, because there are other competing extensions that are quite popular ( around the 5000 users mark) and charging users around $30 per month to use the full extension's functionality.
   
2. Can I provide a better experience than the competition?
   
   Absolutely. I currently receive emails from my users every few days, and exchange with them regularly. I understand their problems and what they are trying to accomplish. I can build what they need. I do things that don't scale and treat every user very well by responding to each and every question they have in timely manner and spending as long as it takes with them until their issue is resolved.
   
   
   
3. Can I outrank the competition in Google search results?
   
   Yes, I am currently in the process of ranking many articles and blog posts above the competition's results which leads me to having a steady flow of users visiting my landing page every day (currently I have 10 to 15 organic clicks on the website).
   
   
   
4. Can this business be scaled?
   
   Yes, this business can be scaled. The plan is to have the extension as a middle of the road solution. User's get all the benefits of the extension but they still have to do some of the work themselves.
   
   The fully automated solution to their problem can be created via SaaS platform that will do everything on their behalf. This solution is not hard to build, I already have a prototype working.

Whats is the expected conversion rate between free users and paid users?

After reading a few articles on this issue, I have come to the conclusion that the conversion rate is between 5% to 10% usually. I follow this guy who has an extension whose made up of 30% paying users. This is the exception and not the rule but one can dream.

Current goals for the next 30 days

• release the paid plan for the extension
• convert at least 5 users to the paid plan
• finish the MVP the SaaS platform and find at least 2 beta users

I had a very similar idea. Can we chat? I get tons of Chrome Extension Ideas! and some of them are GOLD. I tried implementing some but man I can't seem to get the extension to actually work... Can I inbox you? Maybe we can partner on an idea? I am a 2nd-year at Uni pursuing a Software Engineering Degree part-time. More than Coding, I feel my strong suit is in sales, business planning, and ideas!

 

[Tau Ceti]

I had a very similar idea. Can we chat? I get tons of Chrome Extension Ideas! and some of them are GOLD. I tried implementing some but man I can't seem to get the extension to actually work... Can I inbox you? Maybe we can partner on an idea? I am a 2nd-year at Uni pursuing a Software Engineering Degree part-time. More than Coding, I feel my strong suit is in sales, business planning, and ideas!

Hi. Thanks for responding.

Can I inbox you?

If you want , I am always keen to have a chat.

Maybe we can partner on an idea?

Unfortunately I don't have time to take on another project. I am currently working on my project and I have my day job as well so time is limited.

I feel my strong suit is in sales, business planning, and ideas!

I think being strong in sales is an asset but unfortunately being strong in ideas does not mean much tbh. You will find that most business work based on their execution not the idea itself. Myself, I have tons of ideas per day but only a limited time to execute them so I suggest you work on executing your best ideas.

As for your implementation issues, I suggest you start with something basic. Then increase the complexity of your project as you add more features.

There are tons of chrome extensions starter packs available on GH. That's usually where I look when I don't know how to do something. The official docs are pretty good as well.

Good luck to you.

 

[adnanazmi]

Hi. Thanks for responding.

Can I inbox you?

If you want , I am always keen to have a chat.

Maybe we can partner on an idea?

Unfortunately I don't have time to take on another project. I am currently working on my project and I have my day job as well so time is limited.

I feel my strong suit is in sales, business planning, and ideas!

I think being strong in sales is an asset but unfortunately being strong in ideas does not mean much tbh. You will find that most business work based on their execution not the idea itself. Myself, I have tons of ideas per day but only a limited time to execute them so I suggest you work on executing your best ideas.

As for your implementation issues, I suggest you start with something basic. Then increase the complexity of your project as you add more features.

There are tons of chrome extensions starter packs available on GH. That's usually where I look when I don't know how to do something. The official docs are pretty good as well.

Good luck to you.

Thank you Tau for the advice!

Tau, is it really not possible to collect your users email addresses? When they download your extension can't you redirect to a page to collect their information? I think you can use this to get more 5 star ratings as well. Please double down on this I think this is something that will open up more possibilities for you...

I read somewhere that if you are charging $1 for a product, make the product worth atleast $10 better yet worth $100. This way your customers will promote your product themselves. If you can get them to be really impressed with the value they will be free promoters of your brand. This is key to expanding business as this way as you scale you won't have to worry about marketing.

Also Tau why don't you create an Instagram account for this extension and promote it? 1 post a day. Comment on posts relvant to your niche. Post memes (if feasible). Post dumb videos that gathers attention. That's what I would do.

Also Twitter!

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Simon Angel]

I'll likely be undertaking a similar venture very soon after spontaneously coming up with a solid idea and doing market research with promising results. Will re-read this whole thread.

 

[Tau Ceti]

Thank you Tau for the advice!

Tau, is it really not possible to collect your users email addresses? When they download your extension can't you redirect to a page to collect their information? I think you can use this to get more 5 star ratings as well. Please double down on this I think this is something that will open up more possibilities for you...

I read somewhere that if you are charging $1 for a product, make the product worth atleast $10 better yet worth $100. This way your customers will promote your product themselves. If you can get them to be really impressed with the value they will be free promoters of your brand. This is key to expanding business as this way as you scale you won't have to worry about marketing.

Also Tau why don't you create an Instagram account for this extension and promote it? 1 post a day. Comment on posts relvant to your niche. Post memes (if feasible). Post dumb videos that gathers attention. That's what I would do.

Also Twitter!

No it is not possible to collect email addresses from users directly.
When a user installs an extension, only the Chrome Store knows who they are.

The Chrome web-store does not give this data to the developers and for good reasons.

As a developer you know how many people install your extensions, but if you want to know more about your users, then the users themselves have to create an account on your platform and then, you can talk to them.

This is what I currently do.

My users don't hang around on Instagram, most of them have private Slack/Facebook groups that are closed off to outsiders.

So any advertising on Instagram is a waste of time at this stage. Same with Twitter.

 

[Tau Ceti]

This update is overdue.

May was a good month. I finished the month at $800 MRR.

Churn is finally starting to come down a bit as I had the features that were requested by the users.
I spent some time fighting more fires than expected.

I am also finally adding the last piece of the puzzle which will enable me to move faster in the coming months: a dedicated server.

So far I have mostly relied on the Vercel cloud functions to do most of the work but a lot of work needs to happen in the background and cloud functions are not made for this so I bit the bullet and decided to spin a up a dedicated server that will handle all the background tasks.

It's been a bit slow to get started but it's finally coming together and it will be fully operational by the end of June which means I will be able to onboard my current users into the higher tier plan aka the Pro plan.

I hope the growth will continue this month and I hope I will finally break the $1000 MRR barrier. From what I have heard the first $1000 of MRR is the hardest to acquire then things get slightly better. I hope that is true.

The last 3 months I have been working part-time at my day job so that I could spend more time on this project and get it off the ground. I am happy i took this chance because it was a really positive experience and it gave me the time I needed to do things properly.

But this part-time period is coming to an end and I will be back working full time from this week onward.
I have to admit that this period of semi-freedom really opened my eyes.

Despite having great working conditions, a good salary, nice colleagues, I just can't stand normal employment.
I feel a sense of dread going into work not because work itself is bad but because of the loss of freedom.

When I am at my day job, I build someone else's dream, I make them money instead of me making money. I have to attend meetings and reach consensus and be available between 9 to 5.

When I work for myself, I can start the day at 5am and work until 9am, then go for a walk, or read a book for an hour, then get back to work or not if I want to.

Normal employment sucks the joy out of living and I believe I am reaching my limit.

My wife is going to school currently but she will be graduating at the end of the year and she is pretty much guaranteed to find a job straightaway as she works in healthcare.

I have a three month notice period at my day job so as soon as my wife graduates, I will be handing in my notice. By then I am 95% sure that we will be in a strong financial position for me to finally go full time on this business.

The goal for June is to get the server up and running properly and get all the background jobs working as well. Also onboard at least 1 customer of the Pro plan.

We ll see what happens.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Andy Black]

My users don't hang around on Instagram, most of them have private Slack/Facebook groups that are closed off to outsiders.

Do you have a Facebook group for free and/or paid users?

 

[Tau Ceti]

Do you have a Facebook group for free and/or paid users?

No I don't . I mostly talk to my users via email or video.

 

[Andy Black]

No I don't . I mostly talk to my users via email or video.

Ha. I do the same.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Andy Black]

work itself is bad but because of the loss of freedom.

When I am at my day job, I build someone else's dream, I make them money instead of me making money. I have to attend meetings and reach consensus and be available between 9 to 5.

When I work for myself, I can start the day at 5am and work until 9am, then go for a walk, or read a book for an hour, then get back to work or not if I want to.

You'll get there.

It reminds me of this:

MINDSET - Freedom as an entrepreneur (Amusing PM w/Freelancer)

Thought you guys might find this amusing.

www.thefastlaneforum.com

 

[Tau Ceti]

Maybe I ll create one in the future. I am not sure yet. For now, I am working mostly on getting to PMF as soon as possible.

 

[Tau Ceti]

You'll get there.

It reminds me of this:

MINDSET - Freedom as an entrepreneur (Amusing PM w/Freelancer)

Thought you guys might find this amusing.

www.thefastlaneforum.com

Thanks for your kind words.

I am biding my time. I know I can't quit now. It doesn't make financial sense. It's frustrating but it is like that. I am not unhappy, I just know I could be happier.

This is all part of the process of delayed gratification. I know I will get there eventually. I can almost taste the freedom.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[MitchC]

Are there any influencers or gurus in your space?

Does the extension solve a problem that gurus solve or people search for?

YouTube how to videos and influencers could be a good promo method

The only paid extension I’ve ever paid for was recommended by a YouTube guru as part of his course

Nice work on sticking with it, I agree, extensions are an under served and overlooked opportunity

 

[Tau Ceti]

Are there any influencers or gurus in your space?

Does the extension solve a problem that gurus solve or people search for?

YouTube how to videos and influencers could be a good promo method

The only paid extension I’ve ever paid for was recommended by a YouTube guru as part of his course

Nice work on sticking with it, I agree, extensions are an under served and overlooked opportunity

Sorry for the delayed response.

I honestly haven't looked into this so far.
I think the product is not quite ready for this type of marketing and it's not the kind of product that I think would interest Gurus.

Its a very simple and a very useful product but it's not sexy or hype like AI products nowadays for example.
Maybe in the future I will give it a shot but for now its growing slowly but growing nicely.

Once I have reached PMF, I will look into doing more marketing partnerships/outreach with influencers.

 

[Vasudev Soni]

Current status

After posting my introduction post, I thought it was time to create an execution thread.

I have two browser extensions currently live.

Extension #1

This extension is dormant, as in I haven't updated it in a while and it is very niche browser extension. I have looked at monetizing/selling it but I don't think there is way to currently do that. It sits at around 150 installs and does not grow much as the market it is serving is relatively small. Nonetheless I consider it a success and used it to build the foundation of extension #2. At this stage I am going to focus on extension #2 exclusively and leave this extension to be. It doesn't require any maintenance fortunately.

Extension #2

This is the focus of this thread. This extension has potential to become a source of income. It is growing steadily and my SEO efforts are starting to payoff. It has about 300 users currently and gets about 30 to 50 new users every week.

At this stage the extension is free and voluntarily limited and could do a lot more. But so far I have not been providing more value to my users because I wanted to keep some functionality hidden to be able to release a paid plan with these extra functionalities.

Before spending more time on this project, I validated the idea in several ways bay asking myself the following questions:

1. Is this a problem that people are willing to pay for?
   
   Yes, because there are other competing extensions that are quite popular ( around the 5000 users mark) and charging users around $30 per month to use the full extension's functionality.
   
2. Can I provide a better experience than the competition?
   
   Absolutely. I currently receive emails from my users every few days, and exchange with them regularly. I understand their problems and what they are trying to accomplish. I can build what they need. I do things that don't scale and treat every user very well by responding to each and every question they have in timely manner and spending as long as it takes with them until their issue is resolved.
   
   
   
3. Can I outrank the competition in Google search results?
   
   Yes, I am currently in the process of ranking many articles and blog posts above the competition's results which leads me to having a steady flow of users visiting my landing page every day (currently I have 10 to 15 organic clicks on the website).
   
   
   
4. Can this business be scaled?
   
   Yes, this business can be scaled. The plan is to have the extension as a middle of the road solution. User's get all the benefits of the extension but they still have to do some of the work themselves.
   
   The fully automated solution to their problem can be created via SaaS platform that will do everything on their behalf. This solution is not hard to build, I already have a prototype working.

Whats is the expected conversion rate between free users and paid users?

After reading a few articles on this issue, I have come to the conclusion that the conversion rate is between 5% to 10% usually. I follow this guy who has an extension whose made up of 30% paying users. This is the exception and not the rule but one can dream.

Current goals for the next 30 days

• release the paid plan for the extension
• convert at least 5 users to the paid plan
• finish the MVP the SaaS platform and find at least 2 beta users

All the best for your endeavours.

What tech stack do you use to build browser extensions?

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Tau Ceti]

All the best for your endeavours.

What tech stack do you use to build browser extensions?

Thanks

React + Jquery + tailwind CSS

 

[Vasudev Soni]

Thanks

React + Jquery + tailwind CSS

That’s cool

 

[Tau Ceti]

Middle of the month update.

I am now closing in on the first big milestone $1000 MRR with 93% profit margin.

The churn has really gone down in the last 2 weeks and I got a bunch of new customers.
I hope to finish the month between $1100 and $1200 MRR.

It's not a lot compared to some of you who are making 10K or 20K a month and still a far cry from reaching the fastlane levels of $50K to $100K per month but to me it is awesome.

Now that I am back at work full time, progress has been slower but I won't let that get in my way.
My goal is/was to reach $10K MRR at the end of the year.

If progress continues at the same pace, I am actually on track to reach $2.5K to $3K MRR but I am not giving up, I will keep going until I am free.

That is my motivation.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Tiago]

Middle of the month update.

I am now closing in on the first big milestone $1000 MRR with 93% profit margin.

The churn has really gone down in the last 2 weeks and I got a bunch of new customers.
I hope to finish the month between $1100 and $1200 MRR.

It's not a lot compared to some of you who are making 10K or 20K a month and still a far cry from reaching the fastlane levels of $50K to $100K per month but to me it is awesome.

Now that I am back at work full time, progress has been slower but I won't let that get in my way.
My goal is/was to reach $10K MRR at the end of the year.

If progress continues at the same pace, I am actually on track to reach $2.5K to $3K MRR but I am not giving up, I will keep going until I am free.

That is my motivation.

That's huge, great progress!

From $800MRR to $1100-1200 is a big step.

Keep going forward.

 

[ValueSystems]

Middle of the month update.

I am now closing in on the first big milestone $1000 MRR with 93% profit margin.

The churn has really gone down in the last 2 weeks and I got a bunch of new customers.
I hope to finish the month between $1100 and $1200 MRR.

It's not a lot compared to some of you who are making 10K or 20K a month and still a far cry from reaching the fastlane levels of $50K to $100K per month but to me it is awesome.

Now that I am back at work full time, progress has been slower but I won't let that get in my way.
My goal is/was to reach $10K MRR at the end of the year.

If progress continues at the same pace, I am actually on track to reach $2.5K to $3K MRR but I am not giving up, I will keep going until I am free.

That is my motivation.

Congrats on hitting 1k MRR !!

Massive progress from your first post at 0 to now $1k per month. Love to see it.

Keep going!

 

[Deleted115974]

Middle of the month update.

I am now closing in on the first big milestone $1000 MRR with 93% profit margin.

The churn has really gone down in the last 2 weeks and I got a bunch of new customers.
I hope to finish the month between $1100 and $1200 MRR.

It's not a lot compared to some of you who are making 10K or 20K a month and still a far cry from reaching the fastlane levels of $50K to $100K per month but to me it is awesome.

Now that I am back at work full time, progress has been slower but I won't let that get in my way.
My goal is/was to reach $10K MRR at the end of the year.

If progress continues at the same pace, I am actually on track to reach $2.5K to $3K MRR but I am not giving up, I will keep going until I am free.

That is my motivation.

Congrats, is there any specific database/tool you use for cheap deployments? I am a SWE, just figuring out a proper UI/UX for my idea, probably I guess, I just need to start working on it. However, I would appreciate to know if there are good places where I can deploy things cheaply.
Thanks

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Tau Ceti]

Congrats on hitting 1k MRR !!

Massive progress from your first post at 0 to now $1k per month. Love to see it.

Keep going!

Thanks for your kind words

 

[Tau Ceti]

Congrats, is there any specific database/tool you use for cheap deployments? I am a SWE, just figuring out a proper UI/UX for my idea, probably I guess, I just need to start working on it. However, I would appreciate to know if there are good places where I can deploy things cheaply.
Thanks

It depends on your needs.

For the marketing/web app I use vercel => $20/month
For the node app I use fly.io which cost about $5/month
I use mongodb Atlas for the DB, which is another $3-$5 per month

 

[mojorisin]

Great thread, excellent progress, I'm rooting for you to hit your goals!

I''ve completed MVP phase on my SaaS, now moving to a full production release (next 60 days of dev). My subscription is a freemium model, similar to yours. I'm thinking through the base vs. paid models, I've decided to keep it to 2 for simplicity out of the gate.

I'm excited to have the product polished up and ready, like you so I can spend time on marketing & sales vs. development! I like how you use the marketing site to drive interest.

I came across a site for sale in my domain, which I'm considering purchasing to drive traffic to my SaaS. The site would cost 20k, it does generate 1k per month, with 20k hits per month.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Deleted115974]

It depends on your needs.

For the marketing/web app I use vercel => $20/month
For the node app I use fly.io which cost about $5/month
I use mongodb Atlas for the DB, which is another $3-$5 per month

Hi, Lol, I am back at this message.
Ok so I was building my backend with MongoDB Serverless as well. However, I found it extremely slow after creating the initial backend in python with mongo. 1.5 seconds - 2seconds to just register a user? No way.
So I am gonna go for other alternatives.


Dunno if I am being an action faker as I do not have any users either atm, but I am gonna try some crazy combination.

 

[Tau Ceti]

Hi, Lol, I am back at this message.
Ok so I was building my backend with MongoDB Serverless as well. However, I found it extremely slow after creating the initial backend in python with mongo. 1.5 seconds - 2seconds to just register a user? No way.
So I am gonna go for other alternatives.


Dunno if I am being an action faker as I do not have any users either atm, but I am gonna try some crazy combination.

No worries I hope it works out for you.

 

[Tau Ceti]

End of the month update.

June was great month. Revenue expanded and churn was trending lower as I added some more requested features.

For a while I was on track to reach almost $1100 MRR but I had 3 customers churn a couple of days before the end of the month.

I tried reaching out manually but to no avail. So the final MRR was $960.

I promised myself that I would buy a nice bottle on whisky when I reached $1000 MRR. I hope to finally be able to buy it in July.

But nothing is guaranteed so we will see. A lot of SaaS founders on Twitter talk about the Summer slow down where your MRR goes down quite a bit during July and August. Same deal for browser extension creators.

So far the number of installs is still increasing so I am not too worried about it.

I almost have a 1K list of validated email addresses. I am going to start sending product updates at the end of each month to the contact on this list.
I haven't done it so far as many features were missing but I feel like the product is becoming very usable.

I hope to finish July with an MRR above $1200.

Based on the current MRR expansion, I believe I will finish 2023 with an MRR between $2.5K and $3K.
A far cry form my $10K goal but It is better to be realistic than in denial.

I am taking a few weeks off in July. Mind you this a is a break from my day job and not from the business. The plan is to take my Mac with me overseas and if need be, do some coding in the morning and spend time in the afternoon with my wife doing various activities.

It's a bit of a work-cation in a way.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Tau Ceti]

Finally passed the 1K MRR goal.

I am so happy. A few months ago I would never have thought this would be possible.

Now back to work!
Next goal is 5K MRR

 

[Absar]

Finally passed the 1K MRR goal.

I am so happy. A few months ago I would never have thought this would be possible.

Now back to work!
Next goal is 5K MRR

Congrats on the great progress!

Been Following your thread.
I'm also brainstorming on building a chrome extension, currently I'm researching on finding a problem I can solve by creating one... I think the market has good potential.