It always made sense to build integrations for Screenjar. It's the first thing people mention when I tell them that growth is slow.

For context, Screenjar makes it easy to request screen recordings from customers and is ideal for diagnosing tricky customer support issues. Integrating with help desk software and live chat tools would massively improve the workflow.

I've held off at until now because I didn't want to spend time writing code when I should be focussing on finding more customers. Growth is slow and I don't have any great ideas about how to change that, so integrations seem like a low risk move, especially if I can build them quickly.

I decided to integrate with Help Scout first because it's what most existing customers use. It's also what most people who show interest in Screenjar use.

Building the integration

Before writing any code, I spent some time digging into the docs to see what was possible. While I couldn't build the exact workflow I hoped for, it was possible to create a pretty slick integration with very little work.

I contacted the Help Scout team to try learn more about what it takes to get featured in their marketplace. They were super helpful and responded with all of the information I needed. They decide on which integrations to feature based on what the integration does, how it's built, and whether Help Scout customers are already using it.

They want ~15 Help Scout customers using the integration before they consider featuring it. Screenjar doesn't have 15 customers, so my chances of getting featured any time soon are pretty slim.

The whole point of building the integration is to reach new customers. Without being on the marketplace, that's not going to happen.

I decided to go ahead with the integration anyway, mostly because it seemed like it would be super quick to build and because existing Screenjar customers would benefit from it.

It took a couple of days to get the integration live and write installation instructions.

Without access to the Help Scout marketplace, installing the integration involves creating a custom Help Scout app adding some details from the Screenjar account area.

When I was confident that the integration was working well, I emailed the instructions to existing Screenjar customers who use Help Scout. They all installed it without any issues. A couple of friends who use Help Scout also agreed to try the integration and provide feedback.

At this point, I'm still below the minimum required 15 installs. It turns out building integrations with SaaS marketplaces might only be a good approach if you already have a good base of customers. Hopefully I'll hit that magic number soon and get featured.

Until then, I need to reevaluate whether integrating Screenjar with other platforms is the best use of my time. If I do go down that path, my first step will be finding out the minimum requirements for getting featured.