Making $4,000 Monthly Helping People Stay Focused
How a weekend project to "scratch his own itch" blossomed into a money-making side hus
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Hello! Can you introduce yourself and tell us about your business?
I'm Peter Hartree, a British guy based in France and Iceland. I've been making things for the web since I was 12, and I have a degree in philosophy. My world view is heavily influenced by a philosopher called Nick Bostrom.
The main focus of my career has been on reducing the probability of catastrophic and existential risks, particularly those posed by advanced AI. I've also run a bunch of side projects over the years—a couple of software projects, a co-working space in Reykjavik, Iceland, some pop-up events, and so on.
Inbox When Ready is one of these side projects.
So what is it? In short: a Chrome extension that helps people reclaim their focus from the constant pull of their Gmail inbox.
The core feature is simple: it hides your inbox by default when you open Gmail, so you can compose emails, search your archives, or handle other tasks without getting distracted by your inbox. It’s a simple intervention, but users often report regaining 30-60 minutes of focused work time each week. The extension has ~5,000 monthly active users and has generated ~$200K in revenue since launch.
How did you start this business? Take us through the process.
On a morning back in 2015, I was doing some programming work and needed to email a client. I opened Gmail with that specific intention, but my attention was immediately hijacked by new messages in my inbox. Thirty minutes later, when I finally remembered why I'd opened Gmail in the first place, I had a realisation: Gmail would be far less of an attentional liability if my inbox were simply hidden by default.
I hacked together a Chrome extension the following day. The first version took a few hours build—just some JavaScript to hide the inbox element and add a show/hide button to Gmail's interface. I used it myself for a few weeks, found it helpful, then published it on the Chrome Web Store and shared it with a couple of friends, then basically forgot about it and went back to my day job at 80,000 Hours.
Maybe half a year later I noticed that the extension had acquired nearly a hundred users, mostly via organic sharing between my acquaintances. I started to think that perhaps I should work on it some more and try to get it out to more people.
How did you get your first initial customers?
I first did another round of work on the extension to add a couple extra features, polish off some rough edges, and add some “please share this” CTAs.
Then I made a list of several hundred people who I thought might benefit from Inbox When Ready. This included friends and colleagues, but also strangers I found through careful searching:
People who'd left reviews for similar productivity extensions
Gmail users on Twitter complaining about email overload
Folks discussing email productivity on Reddit and other forums
I wrote personal emails to each person. About 20% tried the extension, and crucially, many of these early users became advocates, posting reviews and mentioning it on social media.
After that I shifted focus to "supernodes"—people with larger audiences interested in digital wellness. This led to endorsements from people like Tristan Harris and Ezra Klein, which created small but meaningful growth spurts.
Since launch, what are your marketing strategies or channels to get new customers?
The free version of the extension adds an email signature at the bottom of people's emails, which says "I'm using Inbox When Ready to protect my focus." This has been the most important long-term visitor acquisition channel—more than half of new users come via that signature.
A lot of users hate the signature and uninstall the extension because of it. But some users actively like it—more than a dozen who upgraded to the paid version (where the signature is disabled) have emailed me to ask how to add the signature back again.
I've experimented with a few other marketing approaches over the years (e.g. newsletter features, paid acquisition via social media, B2B outreach), but none of those have really moved the needle. I could have tried a lot harder at marketing over the years, but this project's status as a side project has meant I've never gotten around to it. And I do regret that because I think there's a bunch more potential in this project, and if I grew the revenue by a 3-5X, it would be really life-changing. But the truth is, I just have other priorities.
How does your business make money?
The free version adds an "I'm using Inbox When Ready" signature to outgoing emails. If you find that annoying, you can upgrade to PRO for $48/year.
Everyone gets a 14-day free trial of PRO when they first install. I also offer free PRO licenses to anyone who genuinely can't afford it—there’s a note on the “upgrade” page which encourages them to just email me.
Over the past few years revenue has been stable at $3,000-$4,000 a month, and the marginal running costs are roughly 5 hours of my time per month, plus accountancy fees.
I've tracked all the time I've worked on this project over the past 10 years. It comes to roughly six months full-time equivalent, so the all-time hourly rate is roughly $200 / hour. That's pretty good.
It's something like 10 minutes of customer support per week. I've worked pretty hard to automate and streamline the support systems over the years.
Then every now and then I do a round of development work to improve features, fix bugs, etc.
Where can we go to learn more about you and your business?
Where to learn more:
Try Inbox When Ready: inboxwhenready.org
Twitter: @peterhartree
Personal site: pjh.is