He Built 20 Chrome Extensions, Sold Four in a Month, and Learned What Actually Wins
In this interview, Adil breaks down how he built and sold multiple Chrome extensions by trusting research, moving fast, and following the demand he could actually see.
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In this interview, Adil shares how simple ideas, solid research, and steady experimentation helped him grow multiple Chrome extensions and sell several of them without paid marketing or a large audience.
Adil shares:
His backstory and how he started.
How he got his first free and paid customers for his product.
What was effective in attracting customers to his product?
His competitive advantages, what gives him an edge, and insights that have proven beneficial to his operations.
Which books, podcasts, or other resources have had the greatest impact on him.
Advice he'd offer to entrepreneurs who are just starting out.
Q. Hello! Who are you and what product are you working on currently, and who is your target audience (Age range)?
My name is Muhammad Adil from Pakistan. I’m working on a mix of projects, mostly websites and Google Chrome extensions.
Q. What is your backstory and how did you come up with your idea? What year did you start?
I started working online around 2017 when I began learning web development. WordPress grabbed my interest, and even though I didn’t study computer science in school or university, I kept pushing through the basics. That’s how I discovered SEO. I launched my first travel blog, which failed, but it taught me a lot and pushed me deeper into SEO. Eventually I started freelancing and earned good money offering SEO services. Later I took a job as an SEO specialist for a year before moving to Dubai and continuing my online work.
Q. Take us through the process of building the first version of your product MVP.
Since I work in SEO, I often need to analyze competitors. One part of the job is copying all the titles from Google search results, which I used to do manually. It was slow and boring. One day I asked ChatGPT if it could help me build a Chrome extension that would copy all the SERP titles for me. It said yes, and step by step I followed the instructions. I had never built an extension before, but I managed to publish a few basic ones that same day. That small win pushed me to build more ideas, but I only moved forward with extensions that passed my research checklist. The extension that recently passed 5,000 installs was a simple tool that lets users download any image in a different format, no matter what the original format is.
Q. How did you acquire your first customers, both free users and paid users?
I have more than 20 free extensions live on the Chrome Web Store. All the traffic is organic. I focus heavily on research before building anything. If the extension solves a real problem and doesn’t face heavy competition, it brings in users without spending money.
Q. What strategies worked best to attract customers after you launched your product?
I shared one post on LinkedIn, but most growth came from organic searches on the Chrome Web Store. The planning stage does most of the work for me. Good research decides half the success.
Q. How did you eventually sell your products?
Last month I sold four extensions. I made a post on Reddit out of curiosity, wondering if people actually buy Chrome extensions. To my surprise, I received more than fifteen offers in a day. One buyer emailed me, asked for details, and we agreed on a price. He later bought another extension for 1800 dollars.
Q. Have you gained any insights that provided a competitive advantage and were beneficial to your operations?
Research. I spend a lot of time on it, and it saves me from building things that won’t go anywhere.
Q. What tools or platforms were instrumental in growing your products to the point of sale?
Reddit helped me reach buyers and connect with people interested in extensions.
Q. Which books, podcasts, or resources had the greatest impact on your entrepreneurial journey?
I watch The Starter Story on YouTube, and I’ve taken a few ideas from there that I am actively working on.
Q. What advice would you give to entrepreneurs who have sold their product or are considering selling their business?
Selling a product can give you a good one-time payout. But if you can manage a team and keep improving the product, it may be worth holding onto it for a while before selling.
Thank you for taking the time to answer these questions! What is your contact info if people would like to inquire about your services? You can add all your links.
Here’s my LinkedIn, and my website link!
Let me know what you learned from this interview and have a productive week! 🙏
Indie Tip of the Week
If you’re stuck choosing what to build, start with the problem you can explain in one sentence. The clearer the problem, the easier it is to spot whether people already care about it. When your idea lines up with real search demand, you don’t have to shout to get attention, people discover your work while looking for a fix. Research doesn’t sound glamorous, but it saves you from months of building something no one will ever search for.
Indie Product of the Week
If you run a small team or manage a website and dread the overhead of full-blown help desks, Suprr might be exactly what you need. Suprr adds a simple chat bubble to your site, visitors ask questions there, and those messages land directly in your team’s Telegram. You reply in Telegram and your answer gets sent to the user via the website chat or email. For small startups, indie SaaS makers, or solo founders who want real customer support without building or buying a heavy support system, Suprr delivers a surprisingly complete support setup with minimal friction.
Indie Trivia Of the Week
What actor-comedian found fame on the TV show “Mork and Mindy?”
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Thank you so much for publishing my story. I am glad and also hope that the readers can get some idea from my expereince in selling Google Chrome Extensions