InstallInsight: Chrome extension install attribution

Shows extension developers which installs are real users and which are noise

Problem

The Chrome Web Store dashboard is misleading: one developer saw 188 installs in a week but only 7 weekly active users. Install requests mix failures, bots, and bizarre geo (82% from Romania) that doesn't match actual usage. Independent developers are making growth decisions blindly on top of this number.

Solution

A lightweight analytics SDK plus dashboard: paste a few lines of JS into the extension to capture real activation events (first feature use, retention, country, browser version), reconcile them against store install requests, flag fake/invalid installs, and compute true acquisition cost. The core view is 'install requests vs. real activations'.

Users

Solo or small-team Chrome extension developers and indie hackers who just launched and want to validate channels

MVP

A copy-paste tracking snippet; a dashboard with daily install requests, real activations, and week-2 retention curves; breakdown by country and browser version; one-click shareable weekly report link

Revenue

Free tier up to 10k events/month; Pro at $9/mo for unlimited events and retention analysis; tiered pricing by number of extensions

Why now

Browser extensions are one of the cheapest acquisition channels for indie developers, yet platform data opacity is a long-standing complaint; the analytics-SDK model is proven, and vertical adaptation is enough