I Spent 3 Months Building a SaaS Nobody Used. Then a 10-Minute Chrome Extension Got 2,000 Users.

It was 2:15 AM on a Tuesday when I launched my dream project: an AI-powered reader dashboard.

I had spent 90 days perfecting the tech stack: Next.js 14, Tailwind, Supabase auth, Stripe billing, PostgreSQL, and custom dark mode themes. I posted it on Twitter and Reddit, sat back, and waited for the signups to roll in.

Silence. Absolute crickets.

In two weeks, I had 12 visits and exactly 0 registered users. The cold reality hit me hard: Nobody wanted another web app tab open. People already had 40 tabs cluttering their browsers—they didn’t want to visit my site to solve their problem.

That’s when I noticed my own browsing habits. Every time I hit a paywall, an annoying popup, or a dense technical article, I didn't open a new tool; I looked up at my extension toolbar.