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12 Comments

Looking for feedback on product pivot.

Hi all, I built a chrome extension that records browsing history and publishes it to a secure or non-secure webpage in real time. But its not picking up. I am thinking of pivoting the project in another direction.

So instead of real-time publishing of browsing history, I am thinking of doing the following:

  • User can use the extension to manually publish individual web pages that they are on.
  • Take manual notes, and copy text from a web page and save it as a note.
  • Everything gets saved to the cloud, and can be accessed through a secure or public web page.

In the end, it becomes a collaborative research assistant. Need feedback, thoughts, suggestions, anything. Thank you all in advance.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/rabbit-hole/nlfnpcelpdemleigabcngjgbnopfdffp

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    Hey @artem, I noticed that you're describing a lot of what your products do technically rather than the problems they solve or the value they create. I'm not sure if this is a pattern for you, but if it is I would consider talking to more potential customers and reading The Mom Test if you haven't already.

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      @Glench Yep, this is a pattern for me, pretty much every single project I built. I have read many books, read a ton of online content on how to overcome this and still stuck in it. However, since mid last year, I started to actually speak to users of my other projects not mentioned on IH. This was a new experience for me, to actually speak to people using things I built. And I am starting to internalize something I can't quite put into words yet. Hopefully things will improve.

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        Oh that's wonderful to hear! Having a real empathic connection with users and their problems is not just good for business but also a very fulfilling way to live your life!

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          Your personal website is the coolest thing I've seen in a while. The rainbow vomit is a good touch haha.

          Anyways... back to work..

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            haha thank you! you're the first person who's ever mentioned that they found that little easter egg :)

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              @Glench I deployed some features asked by a few users https://fragmentsup.io/. Now I need to figure out "the problems it could solve" haha. Once I know what problems it can solve, I can improve the product and even do some real marketing. If you have ideas, please let me know!

              I think the next project I build, I will definitely think about what problems it solves first, because this is getting ridiculous.....

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                With programming tools like that they're so general-purpose that it can be hard to find your users I think. It's clearly for people that can code JavaScript, but which specific segment is it valuable for and how do you find those users and let them know about your product? Replit has the same problem (I worked for them for a bit).

                Btw one thing you might run into is hackers using your CPUs to run cryptominers and things like that. Keep an eye on metrics just in case.

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                  I heard of Replit some time ago, and couldn't understand what the product was exactly, even tho it looked/looks really really cool. It was like a mix between hosting, writing code in a browser IDE, and ?learning? collaboratively . I sort of want fragments to be just about quick hosting, sure there is a code editor in the browser, but it can easily deploy code from GitHub on branch push.

                  The idea for this project, at least for my own use, is to eliminate the need to fiddle with AWS lambdas, Google CC to get a web endpoint running with some code behind it. I use it when I am working on my Figma plugins, or other react apps.

                  Ill take care of the hackers :)

  2. 1

    Hi @artem, I have a perfect use case for this based on personal need and in companies I’ve worked at. Are you’re still looking for feedback on this?

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      Hey @learningproject Yana, check my reply below to StephCode. Im thinking of just focusing on this fragments project instead. And boil down the chrome rabbithole extension to send data to these custom functions running on the fragments project. The guys I teamed up with on RabbitHole are really busy with their full time work, so its been just me developing, posting about it, and thinking of directions to take it further. But I got a bit burned out doing this alone.

  3. 1

    The pivot definitely sounds better but I'd work on your USP.
    I haven't fully understood what it does after visiting the extension page and sitting there for 2 minutes.
    I'm using Raindrop for instance to save my browsing history.
    Is it similar to that?
    Why would it help if it's real-time?
    There's something there, but it needs a bit more focus imo.

    Hope this helps! Good luck!

    If you get a chance to review mine I'd really appreciate it: https://www.indiehackers.com/post/get-help-for-your-code-problems-fast-fc6778874d

    1. 1

      Hey @StephCode I got an email notification about this post just now for some reason. So, thanks for the feedback, and I left feedback on your project post also, I really like your idea.

      So I was thinking about the RabbitHole project, and felt like the best direction to take this is complete ownership of browsing data. This means, my server will capture all your browsing data through the chrome extension, and you write custom code to do with it what you want. Send it to Notion, sheets, whatever, and I dont save any data.

      So I built out the coding part, and realized that it can be its own project so I launched it as is. Check this out https://fragments-web.vercel.app/. Just write some js code, and hit the endpoint. Let me know what you think.

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