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independence3 unconnected
applies to

b2b, no audience needed

confidence

high

evidence

8 claims · 5 articles · 4 receipts

window

2016-10-28 → 2026-06-24

3 builders who never spoke to each other

Build in the gap on somebody else's platform

Attach to an ecosystem that is growing fast and pick the job its users want that is too small for the platform to build itself, ideally on a store where demand outruns the number of listings. Keep the product standalone and integrated with rivals too, so a single decision by the host cannot end the business.

The method

  1. 01

    Attach your product to a platform that is growing fast, because most successful one-person software businesses extend or plug into one.

  2. 02

    Pick a gap on a fast-growing platform that is wanted by a decent share of its users but too small for the platform to build itself, and the platform's own staff may start sending you customers.

  3. 03

    Use one platform's integration as your entry point but keep the product standalone and integrated with rival platforms too, so you are not welded to a single host.

  4. 04

    Choose a store where demand outruns supply. Count the listings against the user base before you count the competitors.

  5. 05

    Hunt for listings with large install counts that have not been touched in years, then ship the maintained replacement.

What it returned

  • 137,000

    Roughly 137,000 extensions serve about 3 billion Chrome users, against roughly 1.6 million apps for about 2 billion Apple users.

  • Baremetrics and Stunning both built on Stripe, and Mailparser won many of its early customers through the growing automation tool Zapier

  • Described as catching the big wave, a phrase the author attributes to Justin Jackson

  • Tim Leland points to abandoned extensions still carrying high user numbers.

Sources

the second source

Three plays a week, for the phase you are in

No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.

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More in positioning

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the second source

Three plays a week, for the phase you are in

No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.

963 corroborated plays to draw from · 3 a week

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