Hatching Growth #4: From ChatGPT’s Launch to YouTube Summary’s Breakout
Glasp’s note: This is Hatching Growth, a series of articles about how Glasp organically reached millions of users. In this series, we’ll highlight some that worked and some that didn’t, and the lessons we learned along the way. While we prefer not to use the term "user," please note that we’ll use it here for convenience 🙇♂️
In our first article, we shared how one-to-one outreach helped us reach our first 1,000 users. In the second, we explained how we built a repeatable growth engine through “SEO++” content and word-of-mouth. In the third, we looked at how we spotted the AI wave early with playful side projects, and how that positioned us for our biggest hit: YouTube Summary with ChatGPT.
In this fourth installment, we’ll share what happened immediately after ChatGPT’s launch in November 2022, including the quick experiment that unexpectedly went viral (ChatGPT Extension) and how it laid the foundation for YouTube Summary’s breakout.
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Why Share This Now?
Today, it’s easy to think of Glasp as “the YouTube Summary company.” But before that product, we had already launched something small yet pivotal: ChatGPT Extension.
Launched literally the day ChatGPT was released (or perhaps the day after), this extension validated the power of fast execution during a platform shift. Looking back, it became the bridge between playful side projects like DALL·E-dle and the massive success of YouTube Summary.
By sharing this story now, we want to illustrate:
How timing and speed can matter more than polish,
Why seemingly small experiments can snowball into a strategic advantage,
and how recognizing the limits of your approach (e.g., not having API access yet) still leaves room for breakout growth.
1. The First Experiment: ChatGPT Extension
On the very day (or perhaps the day after) ChatGPT launched in November 2022, we released a Chrome extension called ChatGPT Extension.
It was extremely simple that has about 20 lines of code. The extension floated ChatGPT on top of any webpage using an iframe. That meant you could, for example, read an article, highlight a phrase you didn’t understand, and instantly ask ChatGPT about it without switching tabs.
Despite its simplicity, it went viral: 100K–200K installs in the first week, making it the #2 most popular ChatGPT-related Chrome extension worldwide.
This experience taught us two things:
Move fast, even with imperfect ideas. The wave itself carries you.
Tiny experiments can punch above their weight.
2. Founder Mindset: Long Debates, Quick Prototypes
At Glasp, long discussions are part of the culture. On ChatGPT’s launch day, we debated for hours, sometimes six straight, on what this technology shift meant.
We tested prompts live together: asking ChatGPT to generate stories, extend unfinished narratives, or reframe settings like “medieval Europe.” Watching it spin up coherent text in seconds felt magical.
It was obvious: ChatGPT wasn’t just a novelty; it was a platform shift. And platform shifts reward those who ship fast. ChatGPT Extension was our way of putting that philosophy into action.
3. Mapping the Opportunity Space
After ChatGPT’s debut, the ecosystem exploded with “ChatGPT × X” products:
PDF summarizers
Gmail assistants
WhatsApp and Twitter bots
Google Search overlays
We stepped back and asked: What’s the underlying pattern here?
At that time, ChatGPT only supported text; image input wouldn’t arrive until March 2023 with GPT-4. So, the opportunities were constrained to what you could do with text alone.
Fundamentally, GPT could do two things with text:
Expansion – generate more, rephrase, elaborate.
Contraction – summarize, shorten, extract key points.
From there, it was about mapping which media formats had been tackled (PDF, emails, web articles) and which hadn’t. That’s when we realized something obvious yet overlooked: YouTube transcripts.
Glasp already supported highlighting YouTube transcripts. This gave us an advantage. If transcripts existed, why not summarize them? No one else was doing it, and the demand was massive.
That insight became the seed for YouTube Summary.
4. Why a Separate Extension for YouTube Summary
At the time, our Glasp extension already had ~30K installs. But we knew Chrome Web Store updates could take weeks to review. Waiting could mean losing the first-mover advantage.
So we made a strategic call: launch YouTube Summary as a separate extension. A brand-new extension usually gets approved in a day.
Technically, it was simple: it grabbed a YouTube transcript and passed it to the user’s own ChatGPT window. At that time, the ChatGPT API hadn’t been released yet (it only became available in March 2023), so building on top of the web interface was the only realistic option. We didn’t use the GPT API directly.
This had three major upsides:
Speed: No backend integration meant instant shipping.
Zero cost: We didn’t have to cover API fees, critical since we weren’t monetizing.
Lower friction: Free access made it appealing to anyone.
The downside? We couldn’t store context or user chat history, which in hindsight was strategically valuable. But at that moment, the priority was speed > perfection.
5. Growth: From Zero to One Million Installs
The results were immediate and dramatic. YouTube Summary took off faster than ChatGPT Extension, hitting tens of thousands of installs within days.
By February 4, 2024—just 14 months later—it had reached 1 million installs. All of this happened with zero ad spend.
How did it spread?
Social virality: X and LinkedIn influencers with hundreds of thousands of followers shared it.
Post on X by Mushtaq Bilal, PhD (835K views)
Post on X by Andrew Lokenauth (557K views)
Post on X by Longevity Dad (350K views)
Post on LinkedIn by Generative AI (6.2M followers)
Post on LinkedIn by Zain Kahn (935K followers)
Post on LinkedIn by Dr. Joerg Storm (686K followers)
YouTube amplification: Creators with 200K–2M subscribers showcased it in their videos.
10 Insane AI Tools Every Creator Should Be Using on Think Media (3.32M subscribers)
How To Summarize Any Youtube Video In Seconds (With Transcript) Using AI - ONE CLICK! on Kingy AI (940K subscribers)
3 ChatGPT Extensions You need to Download Immediately! on Design with Canva (548K subscribers)
8 Chrome Extensions You Probably Didn't Know Exist! on Aurelius Tjin (535K subscribers)
Press coverage: Forbes, Microsoft News, Business Insider, and Lifehacker amplified awareness even more.
Compared to the year it took to reach 30K users pre-ChatGPT, the difference was night and day. With YouTube Summary, it felt like undeniable PMF—growth was happening on its own. We truly appreciate everyone who helped spread it 🙏
6. Lessons Learned
Trends are leverage. Riding a wave at the right moment multiplies growth far more than any individual tactic.
PMF feels different. With the right product, metrics grow without constant effort. It feels like the market is pulling you forward.
Distribution matters. Twitter/X and LinkedIn fueled the initial spike; YouTube creators pushed it global.
Competition is inevitable. Dozens of copycats appeared, but our free, well-known version made it hard for others to survive.
Monetization trade-offs. Not charging helped us dominate the category, but limited our ability to reinvest aggressively.
Think long-term. Even if YouTube Summary wasn’t our ultimate mission, it became a powerful growth engine for Glasp.
Side Note: Surviving Chrome Web Store Policy
One unexpected challenge arose when our ChatGPT Extension—which had grown to over 300,000 installs—was flagged by the Chrome Web Store. We received an alert that it could be removed within 30 days for violating Chrome’s Single Purpose Policy (sometimes enforced as ‘low-value utility’), and extensions offering just one basic function were at risk of removal.
Losing it would have been a huge setback. Our solution? We added the YouTube Summary feature to the existing ChatGPT Extension. This gave the extension multiple utilities, resolved the policy violation, and ensured it stayed live.
As a result, we ended up with two extensions—both offering YouTube Summary, but one framed as a ChatGPT Extension and the other as a standalone YouTube Summary extension.
👉 If you ever face the risk of your extension being removed under Chrome’s “Single Purpose” policy, this is a useful tip to remember.
Summary
In Hatching Growth #4, we explored how Glasp moved immediately after ChatGPT’s release—first with ChatGPT Extension, then with YouTube Summary, which went on to become our breakout product.
The key takeaways:
Don’t wait for perfection—speed matters most in platform shifts.
Watch for overlooked opportunities (like YouTube transcripts).
Recognize that PMF feels like the market is carrying you, not you pushing uphill.
In the next installment, we’ll share what happened after YouTube Summary’s breakout—the growth hacks, experiments, and mistakes that shaped the next stage of Glasp’s journey.
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Really enjoyed revisiting this story. It shows how speed and timing can sometimes outweigh polish, and how small experiments like ChatGPT Extension can open the door to something much bigger. The leap from spotting YouTube transcripts to building YouTube Summary highlights the value of paying attention to overlooked opportunities.
Thank you for reading! Hope our insights and experiences help you understand how to grow a product! If you have any questions about either this content or other topic, please leave a comment! It helps us create new posts.