Isaac Levine - Software Engineer

The Problem

Frontstep.ai’s job is simple: capture new leads the moment they arrive, qualify them automatically by walking through the property manager’s questions, and notify the agent once every question has been answered.

The catch: most realtors still receive their leads by email (especially from Zillow or Apartments.com). We needed a way to reliably pull those emails into Frontstep without adding friction for the agent.

What followed was a very scrappy progression of solutions — first a Chrome extension, then a bookmark hack, and finally a proper email integration.

Phase 1: Chrome Extension

The first version was a Chrome extension. You’d log in to your Frontstep account, then open the extension on any New Lead email. One click, and it would forward that lead to Frontstep so we could take over the conversation.

It worked, but it was heavy. Users had to install an extension, remember to open it, sign in using their Frontstep account, and we had to maintain extension code + get approved on the Chrome web store.

Phase 2: The Bookmark Hack

Looking for something simpler, we shipped a bookmark. Yes, a browser bookmark.

I found out that Chrome lets you put JavaScript directly in the URL field of a bookmark. So from the Frontstep dashboard, users could just drag a “Send to Frontstep” bookmarklet into their bookmarks bar.

The JS code in the URL field would parse the HTML for the lead's information and send it off to our API endpoint.

When they were looking at a New Lead email, they’d click the bookmark to hand off the lead to Frontstep. Same effect as the extension, but less setup.

This was lighter and easier, but still not great. Realtors had to remember to click the bookmark, and in practice, people would forget. It was also pretty weird and confusing to explain to Realtors that clicking a bookmark would execute code to hand off the lead to Frontstep.

Phase 3: Direct Integration

Finally, we landed on the right answer: direct integration via email forwarding.

Now, when a new client joins Frontstep, they set up a simple mail forwarding rule from their inbox to a Frontstep-managed domain. We run our own SMTP server, parse those incoming messages, and automatically process the leads. No clicks, no extensions, no bookmarks.

Clients stay in full control by deciding exactly what gets forwarded, they can shut it off at any time, and don’t need to do anything else after setup. From that point on, they just start receiving fully qualified leads back in their inbox from Frontstep. One of our pilot users literally described it as “magic”.

Lesson Learned

This was a good reminder that the simplest possible hack is often the right starting point. The Chrome extension let us validate the workflow. The bookmark was a weird shortcut that removed a layer of friction. But the end goal was always: don’t make the realtor do anything extra.

Now, with the direct integration, Frontstep feels invisible. Leads just show up, and the AI handles the rest. Exactly how it should be.

We're seeing about a 25-30% qualification rate right now, and that's without even implementing follow-up yet. It's amazing how many more qualified leads a business can get when they're able to reach back out instantly 24/7.