How I vibe a coded a Chrome Extension and gained a 100 users, for free

A simple guide to solving simple, real problems for yourself and others

So, I've had this problem since a while. To merge pdfs, I've had to use either Small PDF or Adobe PDF, both of which either had shady data practices or cost an arm and a leg.

So one day, I decided to build a pdf merge application using lovable. And I did.

Here is the link.

Problem Emerged.

It was hard to convince people this would work offline or not send data to any servers.

Bookmarks would be a hard thing to do to encourage adaption. So, I thought of going the pwa route. But that was still not the most efficient use of my time. So I forked to Chrome Extension.

I used v0.dev to create the first version, and it worked well offline as well using pdf.js.

Publishing it was a bit of a work but it took 3 tried and worked well. Also shipped a version the next week with some more features.

Link to the extension.

Marketing:

I used Ozbargain and LinkedIn as my go to platforms. Of course people were sceptical but many were quite positive and used it. Looks like I had solved a real problem and people were liking it.

More enhancements:

People were asking for Fill and Sign feature. v0 free plan ran out so I used cursor to build it out. It was easier than I thought.

I built a Firefox extension as well yesterday and am awaiting review.

Lessons:

1. Solve a real problem

2. Find people with similar problems and market to them

3. Build based on feedbacks

4. Find and use the best tool for the job (I used v0, lovable, Gemini and Cursor)