2 weeks to build a Chrome Extension: Idea to Launch

Here's my timeline of building and releasing a Chrome extension over the last two weeks, from idea to release. For those interested how this works, here's how I did it.

Oct 6th: The Idea

There's no independent form builder that natively stores data in Google Sheets. Google Forms does but it can't be customized and it forces you to be on the Google Platform. So I decided that there was probably a market for a form builder extension that used Sheets as the default backend.

Oct 9th: "Done by Monday"

After three days of coding, I have 90% of the experience running inside a functional Chrome app.

Key tools here:

• Frontend: NextJS, Vercel, Grommet components.
• Backend: Node.JS, DynamoDB, & Serverless.

Cue the false optimism:

Oct 18th: Code complete, pivot to marketing

This is the point where I think "Great, I'm done!" and then I open up the Developer Console and realize that I need to build a bunch of marketing assets before I can even submit the app for approval.

Time to pivot to market

Key tools:

• Sketch for layouts and building assets
• Wunderbucket and Merge.js for the marketing landing page
• Procreate for the illustrations
• Kapwing for the video

And by the end of the day on Oct 20th

Oct 23rd: We're live

I checked the dashboard and apparently Google approved the extension without sending me a notification. Maybe I just missed it?

Anyway, now I've released my first extension. It took about two week of intensive development and design. I'm hopeful that it finds an audience.

I'd love to hear what you think. Check it out here:

https://sheetmonkey.io/form-builder