How I Built It: $20K/Month Chrome Extension | Starter Story

Saeed Izadi built a Chrome extension called Superpower ChatGPT that adds extra features to the ChatGPT interface. He started it about a year and a half ago as a solo developer with no prior experience building browser extensions. Today, it has been downloaded roughly 270,000 times and generates between $20,000 and $30,000 in monthly recurring revenue. He has never spent money on advertising.

The strategy: build for existing platforms, not from scratch

Izadi’s core insight is that most people trying to start a software project think they need to build a standalone website with its own backend, frontend, and user acquisition funnel. He argues that competing with everyone on the internet is much harder than competing within a limited marketplace. His recommended approach has two branches:

• Build for a massive existing platform like Gmail, Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter. These platforms already have hundreds of millions of users. Even if only a tiny fraction want a specific feature, that can be enough to live on.
• Build for a smaller platform with an existing marketplace like Zoom or Salesforce. These have fewer users, but also far fewer developers building extensions for them, making it easier to stand out.