Adi Leviim and Mohammad El-Esawi built AI Toolbox, a browser extension that adds folders, full text search, bookmarks and bulk export across ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Grok. In an Indie Hackers interview Leviim says it has passed 35,000 active users across more than 150 countries, holds a 4.5 star rating on the Chrome Web Store and now does five figures a month, less than two years after launching in September 2024. He is clear about which channel did it, and it is not Google.
The strategy
The channel is the marketplace's own search bar. Asked what worked, he says "Chrome Web Store search, by a distance", because "someone typing 'export chatgpt conversations' has the problem right now". His rule for picking a platform to build on is that "search volume inside the marketplace beats audience size of the marketplace every time".
The idea came from reading complaints rather than having them. His advice: "Don't scan your own life for problems; go read other people's complaints in their own words (Reddit, forums, reviews)." He looked for the same frustration described repeatedly, and ignored the loud one off requests.
The first release, which he says cost about $32 and two weeks, did search and nothing else. Folders and export came later, from what users asked for.
The free tier is where the ranking gets converted. Capping folders converted badly. Capping search results at five converted well, because, as he puts it, "the search cap hits while you're actively hunting for something you know you wrote, and the product is telling you it found more". Export became the highest converting upgrade trigger.
Support closes the loop. He says "the cheapest acquisition we have is a person who wrote in annoyed and got a real answer instead of a template", because good answers produce ratings, ratings lift store ranking, and ranking produces installs.
Why it works
A marketplace search box is a queue of people with a stated problem and a payment method already on file. Nobody browses the Chrome Web Store for entertainment. Rankings there are also driven by installs and ratings, both of which you influence directly through the product and the inbox, rather than through links you have to beg for.
How to get users from the Chrome Web Store
Type your problem into the store search and see how many people are already searching for it. Ship the one feature that solves it, gate the free version at the moment the user feels the limit, and answer every support email personally so the reviews keep coming.
Credit: Adi Leviim on Indie Hackers