it was during mid-late 2023. with @sourav, i was trying for something to get off the ground.
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tried a prompts API marketplace, find here. got some traction but obviously no one would pay (not that i didn’t expect that completely)
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also tried to launch a better features chatgpt ui (it was very bad at that time). some guy on twitter launched it, was building fast & made profit, so honestly this is what i thought to replicate. didn’t work as he had 50k+ followers too which adds up to brand. ngl he was earlier, better product too.
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a better project i launched was: shortkut(.)ai, an ai chrome extension. i built it from scratch, learnt a lot about extensions, browser security, cors, integrating google auth in v3 update was pain.
i launched it on producthunt too, got to top 15, got 50+ users too. it was a 0-1 moment. twitter thread, here.
lol, there were even massive funded startups in this space. i remember seeing a startup raising $40Million, that was some insane hype VC cycle, i was competing with that. i wasn’t able to make revenue here tbh.
later, i stopped working on these BUT biggest reason being because i knew i was chasing to make profits here and i myself knew these aren’t big fish work. this is small stuff and i wasn’t personally very motivated except the profits part. i didn’t wakeup feeling super excited to work on this or that my work is making a difference. i also wasn’t learning in depth about ai or becoming more a genuinely cracked engineer, i was using an api and building a wrapper which is not bad but i didn’t wanna feel that limited.