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12 Comments

+70,000 users on my chrome extension and almost no revenue.

Hi,

around 2 years ago, I published a chrome extension for responsive testing on ProductHunt, and it was a very successful launch, after that day the extension getting more users every day until the moment.

I've added a carbon ad to the extension, hoping to generate some revenue but actually, it makes 30$ at its best.

My primary goal is to keep it free while I have the motivation to keep pushing features.

So I'm writing here to find ideas to improve the extension revenue while keeping it free.

P.S: motivation = money :P .

Here's the ProductHunt launch page
https://www.producthunt.com/posts/responsive-viewer

Thanks

  1. 3

    Some of us have very little interest in pushing for the money. I think you have a great plugin and you should focus on monetizing a bit more.

    You can check out other premium extensions and see how they do it. Either add a donation, have a premium tier with more features for monthly or one-off. You'd be surprised how much people would like to pay for something great

    All the best man

  2. 2

    Hey man, first of all, don't worry at least you have got some users.
    Second, in order to help you do something with this extension you gotta find a way to get these users on your email list (I can help you with that later).
    Whether its directing everyone who install the extension to your newsletter or to a sign up page..
    I will give you an example to motivate you, from a company thats kind of different from your niche, but still their lesson can really help you with understanding where you are at and the potential you got.
    There is a company called beautyblender, and all they did at the beginning was selling a very simple makeup appliance (a simple sponge that lets girls apply makeup. thats it. not a brilliant business right?).. it was a really low ticket item and didnt blow the bank of the company, I not sure if it was even profitable. But at least this company got a lot of customers who bought this sponge- so they got customer base with no money(actual profits).
    So what they did? they simply took that little sponge as a way to get inside this Makeup market, and right now they started offering actual makeup products that people buy on a regular basis (remebmer that sponge they sold in the beginning? guess what they cant sell it more than once, but if they manged to sell it once, they got customer that they can sell to, whatever makeup products they want) And there are many companies who do that. All you need is right now get your customer list and sell them a different product from the space of this extension.
    Hope that helps

    1. 1

      I'll update my previous answer saying you'd probably need to charge money (because the core feature is be free). If you're collecting emails somehow there's gotta be other ways you can monetize. If you built something like a guide for how to build great responsive sites, I'm sure a large part of your audience would be interested in that.

    2. 1

      Yeah exactly. Even Postman started as a simple extension without any payments or anything like that. And now its valued in billions apparently.

      To the OP - you need to figure out where the value prop is for your userbase. If you can figure that out, you have a possible business solution on your hands.

  3. 2

    I'm not your target audience so this is just my 2cents:

    You can reach out to the 70,000 users and do a survey / questionaiire to find out what other features they would like and would be willing to pay for.

    This would allow you to go the freemium model; keeping basic features free to attract users and monetizing advanced features.

    I've got case studies on my site GrowthHunt.co on how to create a survey/funnel if you are interested.

    Cheers and all the best!

  4. 1

    It happens, my product 'Tealpod Image Compressor' is downloaded more than 9000 times but single digit sales.

    https://tealpod.com/compressor/index.html

    Its a superior product with no equalent product match in the market, but still no revenue. Just last week realmac squash is released with all most same features, I keep wondering how are they doing in revenue?

  5. 1

    Agreed, definitely important to find out about your users and what they'd find valuable about the extension then really market to that audience.

    Also I hope you don't mind me mentioning my own project that makes it easy to take payments in your extension without needing to run a backend: https://extensionpay.com

  6. 1

    If you are expecting revenue then you need to monetize it. Try to figure out a way to monetize it based on the usage.

    P.S. If you can't figure out a way to make money with this and would like an exit, feel free to reach out.

  7. 1

    Do you collect emails?

  8. 1

    I'm part of your target audience, I do a bunch of testing on front-end to make sure that my pages work across different viewports (you end up having to test on real mobile devices in the end as well because :) ).

    I see there's https://sizzy.co/ which offers and charges for a similar service. I don't see a way that freemium could work out for this project because extensions are significantly less valuable than the core functionality (letting people view across multiple viewports).

    If you're thinking about keeping it free while also generating revenue, you might have to re-evaluate that model. The existence of sizzy comes up as proof that people are willing to pay money for the service.

  9. 1

    I have done this mistake you're not targeting the paying customer. I think frontend devs would use it but people who are in jobs would use it not the indiehackers.

    Most devs won't pay, they just build or adjust since they have less tasks. People who are paying are going for other more mature one.

    What's your USP which the existing app are not yet solving and devs are waiting for someone to build for them ?

  10. 1

    Congrats on the 70k+ users... you need to bring them together as a community and figure out what their next billable need is.

    I don't know what sort of details an extension creator gets... do you have access to be able to communicate with them?

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