Taking a week off HelixLabs. Before I go how did you actually get from £0 to real MRR?
Six months in. Four Chrome extensions live, 422 total installs combined, £0 revenue still. Not looking for sympathy on that . genuinely trying to learn from people who've crossed the line I haven't.
Taking a proper week off starting tomorrow, first real break since February.
Before I go i have a genuine question for anyone here who's gone from £0 to something real. Not millions, not a huge exit I mean the actual moment things started working. A few hundred to a few thousand MRR. What was the idea that finally landed? Was it your first product, or the third one you tried after others didn't stick? What changed? the product itself, the positioning, the channel you found, or just persistence catching up?
I'm mid-build on a SaaS bundle (ClarityOS) and early planning on a new app I'm genuinely excited about, and I'd rather learn from what actually worked for people than keep guessing.
Back in a week. will read everything properly then.
Enjoy the week off! Honestly, xintiao1230 is spot on, don't build product #5 just yet. Focus on monetizing the extension with the highest retention once you're back. Unplug for now, you've earned the break
took the break, genuinely needed it. you're right, and it's the same thing several others here are saying too. the instinct to keep building rather than dig into what's already live is a pattern I need to actually break, not just acknowledge. focusing back on the strongest performer rather than a fifth product.
Really interesting journey. I think many indie builders hit this stage where building becomes easier, but turning usage into paying customers is still the hard part.
With 422 installs and multiple products tested, I’m curious what signal you’re looking for before doubling down:
Would love to hear what ultimately helped you find the path from "people use it" to "people pay for it."
honestly still figuring that out, and that's part of the problem. I've been chasing "more usage" as the signal, but a few people in this thread have made me realise I haven't cleanly separated activation from retention from willingness to pay. they're different problems needing different fixes, and I've been treating them as one blob. going to properly diagnose which one I'm actually stuck on before assuming the next step is more building.
I think you’re pointing at one of the hardest transitions for solo founders.
AI is making building and iteration much faster, but it doesn’t necessarily make finding the right problem easier.
The part I’m curious about is whether the bottleneck is shifting from ‘can I build this?’ to ‘can I identify the right signal before spending months building?’
Would love to hear how you think about validating those signals early.
422 installs with 4 extensions and £0 means the install-to-revenue gap is your product, not a bug in your funnel. Been there with 30+ KDP books and 4 small SaaS tools — the ones that made money weren't the ones I was most excited about, they were the ones where someone was already searching for exactly that solution.
The shift for me: stop building what seems useful and start building what someone is already looking for. For Chrome extensions specifically, the Chrome Web Store search autocomplete is free keyword research. Type your extension's core function and see what people actually search. If nobody's searching for it, the extension is a hobby, not a business.
Before building the next app, try this on your best-performing extension: find 10 people who use a competing paid extension (read their negative reviews, see what they complain about), reach out manually, and offer your version with the fix. One paying customer at £5/mo tells you more than 400 free installs. Good luck on the break — sometimes stepping away is the best product decision you can make.
the Chrome Web Store autocomplete tip is genuinely useful and something I haven't done properly. and the reframe "the ones that made money weren't the ones I was most excited about" stings a little because I think that's true for me too. going to try the manual outreach approach on my best-performing extension rather than another launch. one paying customer at £5/month really would tell me more than the last six months of installs have.
No MRR milestone story here, still early on my own thing (launched a few days ago), but the one shift that's already changed how I think about it: I stopped treating the first week's numbers as a verdict. Flat traction on the first posts told me almost nothing about whether the product works, only that cold traffic on day one doesn't convert. What's actually moving the needle so far is slower and less exciting: answering real questions in the communities where the actual buyers already hang out, no pitch, just genuinely helping, and letting people find their way to the product on their own terms. Early to say if that becomes real MRR, but it's the only channel that's felt sustainable rather than a one-time spike.
"I stopped treating the first week's numbers as a verdict" is a good reminder, and the community-first, no-pitch approach is basically what's worked here on Indie Hackers specifically, just not anywhere else yet. good luck with your own launch early days for both of us in different ways.
Appreciate that, genuinely. Good luck with ClarityOS and the extensions too, sounds like you've already got real signal to work from even without the MRR yet. Hope the week off resets things.
With 422 installs and £0 revenue, I’d avoid reading this as “need another product” until you’ve separated usage from demand.
For each extension, I’d look for one of three signals:
Those are different problems. The first is activation, the second is weak pain/frequency, the third is packaging or pricing.
Before building the next thing, I’d pick the extension with the strongest repeat usage or clearest problem, then try to sell a paid version manually to 10 users. Not “would you pay?” but “I’m adding X paid outcome at £Y; do you want early access?”
If nobody says yes, you learned the current product has attention but not demand. If a few say yes, your path to MRR is probably narrowing the buyer and offer, not starting over.
this is the clearest breakdown I've read on this. activation vs weak pain/frequency vs packaging/pricing are genuinely three different problems and I've been treating "not enough installs convert" as one single issue this whole time. the manual "I'm adding X paid outcome at £Y, want early access" test rather than "would you pay" is exactly the kind of concrete thing I can actually do instead of guessing. going to try this on Prompt Helix specifically since it has the most installs and history to work with.
I'm curious what made you conclude the next opportunity is another product rather than trying to get ClarityOS to its first paying customers.
Was there a signal that the previous products had reached their ceiling, or are you still testing that assumption?
honest answer!! no clean signal, more just excitement about a new idea pulling attention away from finishing what's already started. you're right to call that out directly. ClarityOS is genuinely closer to a first paying customer than a brand new product would be, and I don't have good evidence the extensions have hit a ceiling I just haven't tested that assumption properly yet, which is exactly what a few others in this thread are pointing at too.
I appreciate the honesty. That distinction between reaching a ceiling and simply not testing the current path far enough is an important one.
I'd be interested in continuing the conversation by email if you're open to it. What's the best email to reach you on?