AI Summary
5 min readIn the first two or three days after ChatGPT launched, Said Ezari learned how to build a browser extension and shipped his first version. A year and a half later, that extension—Superpower ChatGPT—has been downloaded roughly 270,000 times, sees about 150,000 weekly active users, and generates between $20,000 and $30,000 in monthly recurring revenue. He is the only person working on it.
Ezari’s path from a corporate software engineering job to a profitable solopreneur project is the subject of this episode of Starter Story. Host Pat Walls walks through Ezari’s strategy for choosing where to build, how to find ideas, why he gave away the product for free for nearly a year, and the specific tools he uses. The conversation is a grounded, step-by-step look at one developer’s approach to building on top of someone else’s platform.
The case for building inside a marketplace
Ezari’s core strategic insight is that most aspiring founders default to building a standalone SaaS product—a website with its own backend, frontend, and user base to acquire from scratch. He argues this is the hardest path because you are competing with everyone on the internet. Instead, he recommends building for an existing platform that already has a large, engaged user base.
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What you'll learn
- 1 (02:49) **Who Said Is and What He Built** - Said introduces himself as a solo software engineer who built Superpower ChatGPT, a Chrome extension that adds extra features to ChatGPT, now earning $20-30K MRR with ~150K weekly active users.
- 2 (03:33) **The Two Strategies for Platform Building** - Said explains the two best approaches for building a plugin or extension: targeting massive existing platforms or smaller, less crowded marketplaces.
- 3 (04:26) **Why Plugins Beat Standalone SaaS** - Said breaks down the core advantage of building within an existing marketplace versus launching a standalone website.
- 4 (05:18) **How to Generate Ideas by Listening to Communities** - Said shares his exact process for coming up with new features by finding where his target users hang out online.
- 5 (07:20) **The Minimal Technical Skills Required to Start** - Said reveals the simple coding skills needed to build a browser extension, emphasizing that he learned how to do it in just two or three days.
- 6 (09:37) **Zero-Dollar Marketing: How Users Found Him Organically** - Said explains how he got his first users without spending any money on ads or paid promotion.
- 7 (10:45) **Finding Early Opportunities in the AI Space** - Said describes the current state of AI as still very early, and how talking to users from different professions reveals new niches.
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Guests on this episode
Show Notes
How I Built It: $20K/Month Chrome Extension This is how Saeed Ezzati built an AI Chome Extension to over $20,000/month.📚 50+ Solo Dev Ideas → https://www.starterstory.com/solo?utm_campaign=saeed&utm_source=youtubeFollow Saeed 🐦 Twitter - https://x.com/eeeziii🔔 Subscribe - https://www.youtube.com/@starterstory 📸 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/starter_story/ 🐦 Twitter - https://twitter.com/thepatwalls Sharing ideas that make money!Disclaimer: This podcast is published by a viewer using content from Starter Story's YouTube channel with the goal of making his valuable insights more accessible to those who prefer audio formats, helping more people discover and learn from the insights shared in his videos. It is not an official production of Starter Story. For any requests from Starter Story, please don't hesitate to get in touch. ---------- Keywords: startup journey, entrepreneur podcast, passive income, tech business, startup tips, startup success, bootstrap startup
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