e chose a standalone app over a ChatGPT app. Seeing DevDay, did we mess up?
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.
Now I'm stuck wondering if we made the wrong bet.
Here is what I'm trying to figure out:
If you are building for the ChatGPT ecosystem, how do you solve for distribution when OpenAI decides which app to suggest?
Does living inside someone else's platform (even one with 1B users) feel like the ultimate growth hack, or a massive risk if they change their terms?
Curious what other makers are betting on right now. Are you pivoting to build ChatGPT-native apps, or are you doubling down on standalone?
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I would not call it a mistake. My platform risk lesson came from the supply side: the app I am replacing generated music through an unofficial wrapper around another company's service, and it broke when the wrapper did. Nothing in my own code changed, the ground moved. Living inside ChatGPT is a similar bet on the distribution side: OpenAI decides when you get suggested, and that can change in one announcement. If anything I would treat a ChatGPT app as another channel into the product you own, not a replacement for it. Your 2,000 users found you on their own, that list is yours either way.