I run growth for a small AI startup. When we launched a few months ago, we had a massive internal debate: do we build natively inside ChatGPT, or do we build a standalone web app and try to drive our own traffic?
We ultimately chose standalone. We wanted to own the user relationship, control the UI, and not rely on someone else's platform risk. We spent months on SEO and paid ads to get our first 2,000 users.
Then OpenAI had their DevDay announcements. Seeing that ChatGPT can now suggest an app mid-chat, run it natively, and let people sign in with their ChatGPT account completely changed the game. When you look at the stat that 1B+ people open ChatGPT every week, building a standalone app suddenly feels like setting up a lemonade stand in the middle of a desert.
