This email is a continuation of my previous email. If you haven't read it yet, you can do it by clicking here

The story behind WideBundle

In May 2020 I started my Shopify App WideBundle.

While writing this email, we have these stats:

This is just for WideBundle. I am not talking about WideReview here, my 2nd app.

And we had good growth, then small growth, and finally, the plateau.

Let's start from the beginning.

In 2020, while doing my final internship before graduation, I wanted to build a company.

If you've read my previous emails, I didn't want to create Shopify Apps again. I thought it wasn't for me.

But I tried to build a SaaS, a "normal" one, and it was as hard as a Shopify App.

And since I had only 6 months before graduation, I asked myself:

And so, I did what everyone should do when thinking about building a business. I thought about what were my unfair advantages.

The concept is simple, what do you have today to help you succeed with your business? Something other people don't have.

There is a great book that I recommend on this concept(not an affiliate link): https://www.amazon.com/The-Unfair-Advantage/dp/1788167546/

And so I knew:

1. I was a developer

2. I spent 3 years talking with merchants, so I knew their needs

3. A lot of merchants in the French market already knew me

4. I speak French, and French people love French products

5. I worked a lot with Shopify platform

6. Covid hit the world, and e-commerce was rising

Well. I guess I didn't have another choice. The easiest solution for me was to build a new Shopify App.

But this time, I had more knowledge, more time to work on my product, and I was ready.

I spent some time in Facebook groups talking to merchants, my friends and trying to understand what they wanted.

I tried to validate ideas, like: Do you want an app that does X?

But people were not really interested.

And one day, I was talking with a friend, a merchant. He sent me a Facebook post where someone was looking for a solution, and he said:

I replied:

But he insisted. And you know what?

If you have people continuously sending you DMs or emails to ask you about a solution or when you'll release your app, you probably have something bigger than you think.

But listen, I didn't make the same mistakes. I will not build something until I'm 100% SURE that people will buy it.

Validating the idea

So I quickly created a mockup in Photoshop and made a post on French Facebook Groups.

And remember, people already knew me. They trusted me, and even admins of Facebook Groups didn't mind that I asked people if they wanted an app.

I asked a couple of friends to like and comment to boost engagement.

The post was:

And I added my mockup to give context

We quickly got to 100 comments. I had people sending me DM to ask me the app's name or where they could find it. BOOM! I had validated the 1st step!

Building the idea

I spent less than 2 weeks getting the first product. It wasn't that hard.

I already knew how to create a Shopify App, and I knew exactly what I wanted to create as an MVP because I talked to people from the comments.

Not everyone replied. Around 40 people replied to my DMs. I don't know exactly the numbers.

But they gave me incredible insights!

I built the app.

And I didn't have to go through Shopify Approval Process. So I could launch the MVP only 2 weeks after the initial post.

So people were still interested. I didn't wait too long. I was not on the Shopify App Store, but I didn't need it.

Only 15 people finally installed the app. It's not a lot, but definitely enough to build the business.

My app was buggy, but I had created something that people wanted. With a vision for the product, people trusted me for this.

Providing excellent support

I listened to my customers, fixed the bugs, and even added features they asked me to build.

Everything I did was for them. It was me thinking about potential features. I only built what they wanted me to build.

I wasn't on the Shopify App Store, so I didn't need to get reviews, and you'll see why it's important.

I was asking people to share the app with their friends or colleagues. I kept sharing on Facebook Groups, and while improving the app, more users were coming.

I wasn't that focused on the acquisition. I just wanted to build something cool for my current users—something they'll love.

And it worked. I slowly grew to 50-60 users.

Scaling

People loved my app even if I didn't have a lot of users. So what did I do?

I contacted the influencers I already knew and asked them to share WideBundle with their community.

I created an affiliate link in-house. And they shared it.

I had more trust and more eyes on my product. And because the product was great, everyone was installing it.

Snowballing. That's also when I decided to go listed on the Shopify App Store.

And you know what is better than getting a lot of reviews?

Getting a lot of reviews quickly.

I jumped to page 1 on many keywords. I was getting more eyes on the product.

Then I received an email from Shopify saying WideBundle would be featured on the app store on September 2nd.

And that was it. WideBundle was growing.

How it is going

After November 2020, the growth was slower. WideBundle was great for Christmas, Black Friday, etc... so it was normal.

We were also in lockdown so people were on the internet all day.

But then, at some point, we reached that moment where the churn was equal to the growth and we stopped growing.

In 2022 we created a plan to break this plateau and grow again.

I'll share everything in this newsletter to help you do the same.

So see you next week,

Mat