Should I Build It Should I Build It
07 May 2025
Productivity Chrome Extensions

I want to build an chrome extension that help users take note. This is ...

...not for work, just for personal purpose because during day life, there are so many things suddenly come up and we can not remember all those things and we need somewhere to note that down

Confidence
Engagement
Net use signal
Net buy signal

Idea type: Swamp

The market has seen several mediocre solutions that nobody loves. Unless you can offer something fundamentally different, you’ll likely struggle to stand out or make money.

Should You Build It?

Don't build it.

Your are here

Your idea for a personal note-taking Chrome extension falls into a crowded space where many similar solutions exist. Our analysis shows there are at least 9 similar products, which indicates high competition. The overall engagement for these types of extensions is low, with an average of just 1 comment per product. Given the competitive landscape and the lack of strong positive signals (net use and net buy are neutral), it's crucial to carefully evaluate whether your extension offers a truly unique value proposition that differentiates it from the existing options. Many existing note-taking extensions have struggled to gain significant traction, underscoring the challenges in this space. You need to really understand why those extensions failed or didn't take off and address these core issues in your product to have a chance. Because of the existing competition, this puts your idea in the 'Swamp' category. Tread carefully!

Recommendations

  1. First, deeply research existing note-taking extensions and understand why they haven't achieved widespread adoption. Analyze user reviews, identify pain points, and determine what unmet needs exist in the personal note-taking space. A common criticism is the lack of edit/delete functions, scalability issues, and spam handling. Make sure to address these issues in your product if you decide to move forward.
  2. If you decide to proceed, identify a specific niche or user group within the personal note-taking market that is currently underserved. Perhaps focus on a particular type of note-taking (e.g., visual notes, audio notes) or a specific user demographic (e.g., students, travelers). This focused approach will allow you to tailor your extension to their specific needs and stand out from the general note-taking apps.
  3. Consider building tools or integrations for existing note-taking platforms instead of creating a standalone extension. This could involve developing add-ons for popular apps like Evernote or OneNote, leveraging their existing user base and infrastructure. This could be easier than marketing a whole new product from scratch and can expose you to a userbase faster.
  4. Explore adjacent problems that might be more promising and less competitive. For example, instead of focusing solely on note-taking, you could develop an extension that helps users organize and prioritize their tasks, manage their time, or track their habits. This way you can combine some note-taking into a useful app, but focus on a particular problem to solve that makes you stand out from the rest.
  5. Develop a clear and compelling go-to-market strategy. How will you reach your target audience and convince them to switch from their existing note-taking solutions? Consider leveraging content marketing, social media, and partnerships to raise awareness and drive adoption. Focus on SEO from the start with good keyword research and ASO as well to get your extension to rank higher in the chrome store.
  6. Before investing significant time and resources, validate your idea with potential users. Create a prototype or mock-up of your extension and gather feedback on its features, usability, and value proposition. Use this feedback to iterate on your design and ensure that you're building something that people actually want to use.

Questions

  1. What are the top 3 features that your extension will offer that existing note-taking solutions don't, and how will these features address the unmet needs of your target audience?
  2. How will you monetize your extension (if at all), and what pricing model will you use? Have you considered alternative revenue streams, such as partnerships or sponsorships?
  3. Given the low engagement observed in similar products, how will you foster a strong sense of community around your extension and encourage users to actively use and recommend it to others?

Your are here

Your idea for a personal note-taking Chrome extension falls into a crowded space where many similar solutions exist. Our analysis shows there are at least 9 similar products, which indicates high competition. The overall engagement for these types of extensions is low, with an average of just 1 comment per product. Given the competitive landscape and the lack of strong positive signals (net use and net buy are neutral), it's crucial to carefully evaluate whether your extension offers a truly unique value proposition that differentiates it from the existing options. Many existing note-taking extensions have struggled to gain significant traction, underscoring the challenges in this space. You need to really understand why those extensions failed or didn't take off and address these core issues in your product to have a chance. Because of the existing competition, this puts your idea in the 'Swamp' category. Tread carefully!

Recommendations

  1. First, deeply research existing note-taking extensions and understand why they haven't achieved widespread adoption. Analyze user reviews, identify pain points, and determine what unmet needs exist in the personal note-taking space. A common criticism is the lack of edit/delete functions, scalability issues, and spam handling. Make sure to address these issues in your product if you decide to move forward.
  2. If you decide to proceed, identify a specific niche or user group within the personal note-taking market that is currently underserved. Perhaps focus on a particular type of note-taking (e.g., visual notes, audio notes) or a specific user demographic (e.g., students, travelers). This focused approach will allow you to tailor your extension to their specific needs and stand out from the general note-taking apps.
  3. Consider building tools or integrations for existing note-taking platforms instead of creating a standalone extension. This could involve developing add-ons for popular apps like Evernote or OneNote, leveraging their existing user base and infrastructure. This could be easier than marketing a whole new product from scratch and can expose you to a userbase faster.
  4. Explore adjacent problems that might be more promising and less competitive. For example, instead of focusing solely on note-taking, you could develop an extension that helps users organize and prioritize their tasks, manage their time, or track their habits. This way you can combine some note-taking into a useful app, but focus on a particular problem to solve that makes you stand out from the rest.
  5. Develop a clear and compelling go-to-market strategy. How will you reach your target audience and convince them to switch from their existing note-taking solutions? Consider leveraging content marketing, social media, and partnerships to raise awareness and drive adoption. Focus on SEO from the start with good keyword research and ASO as well to get your extension to rank higher in the chrome store.
  6. Before investing significant time and resources, validate your idea with potential users. Create a prototype or mock-up of your extension and gather feedback on its features, usability, and value proposition. Use this feedback to iterate on your design and ensure that you're building something that people actually want to use.

Questions

  1. What are the top 3 features that your extension will offer that existing note-taking solutions don't, and how will these features address the unmet needs of your target audience?
  2. How will you monetize your extension (if at all), and what pricing model will you use? Have you considered alternative revenue streams, such as partnerships or sponsorships?
  3. Given the low engagement observed in similar products, how will you foster a strong sense of community around your extension and encourage users to actively use and recommend it to others?

  • Confidence: High
    • Number of similar products: 9
  • Engagement: Low
    • Average number of comments: 1
  • Net use signal: 10.0%
    • Positive use signal: 10.0%
    • Negative use signal: 0.0%
  • Net buy signal: 0.0%
    • Positive buy signal: 0.0%
    • Negative buy signal: 0.0%

This chart summarizes all the similar products we found for your idea in a single plot.

The x-axis represents the overall feedback each product received. This is calculated from the net use and buy signals that were expressed in the comments. The maximum is +1, which means all comments (across all similar products) were positive, expressed a willingness to use & buy said product. The minimum is -1 and it means the exact opposite.

The y-axis captures the strength of the signal, i.e. how many people commented and how does this rank against other products in this category. The maximum is +1, which means these products were the most liked, upvoted and talked about launches recently. The minimum is 0, meaning zero engagement or feedback was received.

The sizes of the product dots are determined by the relevance to your idea, where 10 is the maximum.

Your idea is the big blueish dot, which should lie somewhere in the polygon defined by these products. It can be off-center because we use custom weighting to summarize these metrics.

Similar products

Relevance

A journal / notes browser extension I made

17 Jun 2023 Notes Productivity Chrome Extensions

Hello, I'd like to present, and have feedback on, a browser extension designed to take notes, and provide various small helpers. The extension is self-contained, using browser storage only.It's about feature complete for how I use it, but I miss a way to access the data from a smartphone - I may implement a way to sync data to an external service.

Avatar
1
1
Relevance

Markdown Notes Tab

08 Apr 2024 Notes Productivity Chrome Extensions

Hello HN! I've created a Google Chrome extension that turns your new tab screen into a note-taking app :DThe goal is to have all of your notes in a single place that is also hard to forget about since it's on every new tab you open. Hope you like it!

Avatar
2
2
Relevance

Minimal note-taking app

09 Aug 2023 Notes Productivity

No accounts, barely any UI chrome. Web-based note taking app with real-time collaboration. Visiting homepage generates a new note with a unique URL.

Users appreciate the early-web app aesthetic and the quick, straightforward text sharing with a fixed URL. Some are unsure of the use case, but find it accidentally cool. The real-time collaboration feature and use of ProseMirror are noted positively.

The product has received criticism for having an unclear intended use case, making it difficult for users to understand its purpose and how it can be effectively utilized.

Avatar
16
5
20.0%
5
16
20.0%
Relevance

a Chrome extension to see other users browsing the same websites as you

31 Aug 2023 Productivity Chrome Extensions

I was once reading some comments on HN, and someone was talking about a Chrome extension they had made for themselves to write memos/notes on any website they browsed. I thought this was brilliant!This idea immediately clicked in me, and my first thought was: "Why not make it so others can see your notes as well?". And soon it transformed into something much more complex where users could not only write notes, but also interact directly with other users of the extension through chat, gis, and cursors!It took me a few weeks, but I was able to read through docs, work on the extension itself (content script and service worker), socket.io, node, build up a website, publish it in the Chrome store.I've introduced it to my coworkers and a few other devs, and so far, each one of them came up with a different usage for the extension, but loved the idea of adding a social aspect to browsing.I thought it would be great sharing it with everyone around here and gather feedback from the HN crowd!

Users commend the product's launch and concept, with particular praise for its appearance and the idea behind it. Suggestions include adding source filtering and activity tracking features. There's interest in potential open sourcing and a browser extension development. Concerns are raised about content moderation, security, scalability, and user acquisition strategies. A couple of critical notes were made on the browser extension, indicating areas for improvement.

Users criticized the product for not effectively handling spam, the inconvenience of browser extensions, potential scaling issues, and the lack of edit/delete functions for notes, particularly with long text truncation.

Avatar
12
7
14.3%
7
12
14.3%
Top