Small milestone, but the first one that feels real: LomuTab just crossed 12 users.
Not a huge number, I know โ but 12 people opened the Chrome Web Store, read the listing, and decided to install a new-tab replacement over all the alternatives already out there. That's 12 people who now see my widgets every time they open a browser tab. Feels different than "0 users, but the code works on my machine."
What LomuTab actually is: a modular dashboard that replaces your Chrome new tab โ clock, notes, calendar, bookmarks, tab manager, weather, color tools, and a few more. You pick which ones you want on your grid, no account required. There's also a "share anything with a link" angle (notes, docs, screenshots, bookmarks, layouts) โ create something in the extension, send a link, and whoever opens it doesn't need to install anything either.
What I've learned in the last stretch, building in the open:
- I spent way more time than expected making sure the marketing copy actually matches what the product does. Turns out it's easy to accidentally promise something in a landing page hero that the rest of the page contradicts three scrolls down โ and users notice.
- "No account required" keeps coming up as the thing people actually care about, more than I expected going in.
- Small, unglamorous fixes (a widget-placement bug, a few copy inconsistencies) probably matter more to those first 12 people than any new feature would.
Nothing dramatic here โ just wanted to mark the moment before I forget it happened. On to the next 12.
Question for the room: for those of you past this stage โ what actually moved you from single digits to your next real milestone? Was it one channel that worked, or just compounding word of mouth?
One thing that stood out is that your users aren't really choosing a dashboardโthey're choosing what happens every time they open a new tab.
That makes habit more important than features. I'd pay close attention to which part of LomuTab becomes the reason people keep opening new tabs instead of just the reason they installed it.