Issue #15 - Building a Chrome Extension, Elastic Beanstalk Headaches & The Future of This Newsletter

Lately, I’ve been deep in the trenches working on a Chrome extension that calculates product prices in terms of working hours. The idea is simple: instead of just seeing a price tag, you’ll see how many hours of work that purchase actually costs you. It’s meant to be a reality check—one that could make you think twice before adding something to your cart. The name is Time for Price.

I’m really excited about this, but let me tell you… building it has been a journey.

The Struggles: Elastic Beanstalk & Chrome Extension Hurdles

If you’ve ever worked with AWS Elastic Beanstalk, you know it sounds like a convenient way to deploy an app—at least, that’s what I thought when I started. In reality, it turned into an unexpected challenge. My Spring Boot app wouldn’t run at first, then I ran into port issues where 8080 didn’t work, so I had to configure SERVER_PORT=5000 as a parameter for Elastic Beanstalk just to get it up and running. Then there was the headache of figuring out how to store my JAR file in S3 instead of the EC2 instance. And let’s not even talk about setting up SSL certificates—I’ll need to script the renewal process so it doesn’t break every time I update the app. That’s another issue. Whenever I upload a new version for my waitlist landing page - realizing I have something wrong and I need to fix it - I would need to create an entire new instance. This also made me get a new elastic ip, a new EC2 instance, etc., because simply uploading a new jar file didn’t work, or at least I’m not getting the idea down.

Another issue I realized is that Vercel doesn’t support jar or war files (java). So I decided to go with AWS. There are other services that I might have to check out later on the road. My goal is to create a factory like, where I test an idea with a landing page, and if it doesn’t work then move on to the next idea and not spend too much time configuring all of this over and over again.

That’s just the backend struggles. On the frontend, the Chrome extension itself has its own set of challenges. Injecting the right UI into different websites, making sure the calculation logic is solid, and figuring out how to present the data in a way that’s both useful and doesn’t annoy users—it’s all a balancing act.

But despite all of this, I’m pushing through, and I’m getting close to the point where I can start marketing the waitlist.

Marketing Plans: Reddit, X, Bluesky & This Newsletter

Once I got everything working smoothly, the next step was getting the word out. I’ll be launching a waitlist for the extension, and my plan is to market it across Reddit, X (Twitter), Bluesky, Product Hunt, and, of course, right here in this newsletter.

For Product Hunt I’m doing a launch where you can help me get it to other people. Make sure to check it out here. By the time this issue is out, the launch has taken place already so you should be able to upvote if you want (You should lol).

Reddit can be a goldmine if done right—there are plenty of communities where people love discussing personal finance, productivity, and mindful spending. X is great for reaching early adopters in the tech space, and Bluesky seems to be growing into a solid platform for organic discussions. And then there’s this newsletter, where I get to share the raw behind-the-scenes process with all of you.

That brings me to a question I’ve been thinking about a lot…

Where Should This Newsletter Go?

Right now, I’m figuring out which direction to take this newsletter. Should I focus on these behind-the-scenes updates—sharing the struggles, wins, and lessons I learn while building? Or should I mix in interviews with other builders, founders, and developers who are creating cool things? Maybe both?

I’d love to hear what you think. What kind of content would you enjoy the most? Just hit reply and let me know—I read every response.

Thanks for being here. More soon.