I never considered myself an entrepreneur. An obsessive software developer, sure, with an inventive side that rears itself every once in a while. Two years ago I began writing a browser extension to fix an annoyance of mine. Nine months ago it was on TechCrunch. Today, it has 140K weekly users and I'm still toiling on the basics. It's unmonetized, just me, and I work on it almost full-time. Two days a week I contract for my previous employer to pay for necessities, but, other than that, I'm focused on my software.

I've learned a ton of great practices and I have no regrets about spending my days learning the finer points of writing quality code. That said, I can't help but think I'm not doing this "correctly." The start-up world feels so fast-paced. Grow quickly, get funded, exit, pivot, or die. I don't think that's quite for me. I'm just trying to make software I'm proud of, software I want to use.

What actions should I be considering? Should I just stay the course? My ideas for monetization require more coding power and have no validation behind them other than a hunch. The product fulfills a small enough niche as to make investors shy. I don't blame them, their fears are warranted. I wouldn't know what to do with an investment if I got one, anyway.

Is anyone a veteran of going down this path? What are steps I can take to grow my product when my brain is too exhausted to code?