How I launched a Chrome extension for Shopify developers within 14 hours

Coming up with the idea

While co-developing a Shopify app, I had to make a lot of test purchases, and I grew sick of mindlessly clicking through the checkout flow and entering payment details.

This consumed a lot of time and, more importantly, it was a distraction from focusing on the issue at hand. Context switching can be a pain.

To solve this issue, I decided to write a quick Chrome extension that would automatically click through the Shopify checkout flow.

Implementation

I had never developed a Chrome extension, so I asked ChatGPT to create a first draft for me. The actual code it produced was useless but it gave me the basic file structure of a Chrome extension. That saved me 30 minutes of reading documentation.

The rest consisted of writing various DOM mutations:

1. Detect whether we’re on a Shopify checkout page
2. Autofill all form fields on the page
3. Submit the form

Publishing

Publishing the extension was quite easy due to Google’s good documentation.

However, extensions require manual review before being listed on the store. In my case, this delayed publishing by 1 day, which was totally acceptable.

Getting my first user

I sent the extension to the developer whose Shopify app I worked on. I already knew he would find the extension useful, which was great, and he’s been happily using it for a few days now.

Monetization

I decided to monetize the extension only indirectly.

Given that only ~500 people on this planet would ever find it useful, it would not make economic sense to spend a lot of time marketing the extension as a monthly subscription. Developers hate subscriptions anyway.

Instead, I decided to use the extension to generate leads for my software development coaching and freelance services. After 15 years of software development, coaching other developers and doing freelance work pays far better than this extension ever could.

Where to find the extension

Here: https://checkoutbreeze.com

Questions?

If you have any questions, I’m happy to answer them.