Built a paid Chrome extension solo in 6 weeks, got rejected twice, finally live and making my first sales today.

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Hey everyone, wanted to share the raw reality of shipping my first paid product today after a grueling 6-week solo sprint. What I built: Tabby is a browser companion that monitors hardware RAM pressure in real-time and automatically puts idle tabs to sleep when your system struggles. Unlike native Chrome/Edge memory savers that run on hidden, rigid time clocks, Tabby uses a smart scoring system to sleep your least-visited tabs first, protects forms with unsaved text, and gives you a visual dashboard of what's happening. (Plus, it has a little companion cat whose mood changes based on how stressed your RAM is). The Technical Setup: RAM Tracking: Built a custom background script that hooks into the browser's system memory API to track active hardware loads rather than relying on an arbitrary idle timer. State Protection: Implemented form-state listeners so that if a user is midway through writing an email or a post, the tab is strictly blacklisted from sleeping. The Challenges & What I Learned: The Approval Hell: The Chrome Web Store rejected the extension twice before finally approving it. Figuring out their specific manifest permissions and answering their safety questionnaires was a massive roadblock. The Billing Hurdle: Setting up secure license validation and payment processing took way more time and caused more headaches than writing the core product logic itself. The Mindset Shift: Shifting from "developer" to "marketer" is terrifying. But I hit my first handful of sales today right after launching, which felt surreal. The Goal Right Now: It is a $4.99 one-time purchase, but right now I am focusing purely on feedback and building in public over revenue. I want to improve the product based on real developer usage, so I am giving away 20 premium tester codes for full complimentary access. Because automated spam filters hate new accounts posting direct store links, just drop a comment below if you want to test it out. I will reply directly with the code and the link. Would love to hear from other solo devs, how long did your first web store approval take, and how do you handle the anxiety of launch day?   submitted by   /u/Dry-Interest-361 [link]   [comments]