This little idea started as a tiny experiment… and honestly, I wasn’t sure anyone would care.
I had no idea it would quietly grow into something used by thousands.
Sometimes it still feels like I’m peeking over my own shoulder 👀, hoping it all makes sense.
I did launch it.
On Indie Hackers.
And on Product Hunt.
Product Hunt got… 2 votes (read: nothing 😆), so no spike, no magic — just quiet.
A few weeks ago, this project had barely 20 users.
Today, it’s 2,000+.
And most of that growth didn’t come from launches.
It came from what happened after people installed it.
I’m building a small Chrome extension — a screen recorder I made mostly for myself (Showesome).
Nothing flashy. No AI buzzwords. Just something that had to feel right to use.
Honestly, I worried no one would even care. Every little message, or even a tiny sign of interest, felt like a hug from the universe. 💛
Here’s what actually made it grow:
If anything felt confusing or awkward while using it myself, that was on me.
Every unclear label, shortcut, or “why is this here?” moment got fixed as I iterated.
Even the tiniest friction felt like a personal challenge to solve.
I spent hours refining small details, testing different flows, and iterating again and again — sometimes muttering to myself like a mad scientist.
Onboarding isn’t a checklist. It’s whether someone feels confident using your product.
Even the few messages I received, or small signs I noticed while testing, were louder than any launch metrics.
Each hiccup reminded me this was still my baby project 🍼 — I couldn’t leave it broken.
Sometimes a small improvement would make me grin — a tiny sign that it was finally feeling right.
No big features. No hype.
Just tiny improvements: shortcuts, wording tweaks, UX fixes.
The boring stuff nobody tweets about — but everyone feels.
Some nights I stayed up tweaking a word or a button color, thinking: does this feel right?
Other nights I whispered to my laptop: please be good enough…
Often, the tiniest tweaks nobody tweets about ended up making the biggest difference.
At some point, users started returning without reminders.
Then it compounded.
Word of mouth and Chrome Web Store discovery did the rest. 🌱
Every time someone came back, I felt a little spark of joy — like my baby project had grown a tiny pair of wings. 🪽
The extension didn’t go viral.
It just quietly stopped giving people reasons to leave — and that… that felt amazing. 😌
If you’re stuck at 10–50 users, this phase matters more than it feels.
Sometimes the difference between 20 users and 2,000 is just fixing one small annoying thing you’ve been ignoring.
Growth isn’t always loud. Sometimes it’s the quiet moments — the little “aha” moments — that stick. ✧
And sometimes, those quiet moments are exactly the reason you started building in the first place. ❤︎