#40 - Build A Successful Shopify App - Winter Editions 🚀

Shopify just hit again. 😱

Only a few months after Summer Editions with hundreds of updates… They release Winter Editions! Again with 100 updates!

And even if I feel like all the updates are incredible, some people don’t think that way.

In fact, some people think the contrary: “Shopify is eating their ecosystem”.

I’ve read that a lot since Winter Editions so let’s talk about it. Here is what we’ll see:

• Platform risk: What it is and how to deal with it

• My opinion about “Shopify is eating their ecosystem”

• How do we deal with the updates and react quickly to them

Platform Risk

When you build a business you always have Risks and Opportunities. No matter what business you have.

And you can have even more risks when you’re building SaaS and you rely on other tools to run it.

If you use Stripe, an email provider like Klaviyo or anything else you expose your business to risk. Because at any moment they can:

• Go bankrupt, so you can’t use them anymore

• Shutdown your account

• Make significant changes that impact you

• Raise their prices

• etc…

But they are necessary to run your business because you won’t create all the systems yourself. Why would you create a payment processor if you can use one that already exists? Same for emails! They are necessary.

Yet you have to choose them wisely:

• What is the risk?

• Is the value they provide higher than the risk?

That’s why people go with the most famous tool or why they use the tool their friends recommend because it lowers the risk.

Now when you build an app that works only on a platform like a Shopify App, a Stripe app, a chrome extension, etc… you get something new: The platform risk.

If you use Klaviyo and they shut down your account, you’ll panic but you’ll start using something else.

Yet if you have a Shopify App and must stop it you must stop it for any reason, you can’t change the platform like that. It’s not a tool that you plug or unplug.

That is why Platform risk for a business like ours is even more important and you should review the Risks and the Opportunities. So let’s do it together:

Risks:

• Shopify removes your app from the App Store

• Shopify creates your app natively into the platform

• Shopify makes your app useless

• Shopify goes out of business

• Shopify can change the algorithm of the App Store

Opportunities:

• Benefit from Shopify brand

• Free traffic channel (App Store)

• Get exposed to millions of potential users

• Don’t worry about payments/taxes

• Growing platform with more merchants

Now that you know the risks and the opportunities the question is: Are you willing to take that risk?

And if you’re reading this I guess it’s yes. And in my opinion, it’s a good decision. Opportunities are higher than risks. Yet risks won’t just impact your business but might kill it.

So the goal is to prepare for them and change your vision and your roadmap based on it.

You can:

• Build your app on other platforms too

• Build many apps (to avoid one being killed)

• Use 2 different features to make a super feature (to prevent your app from being created natively)

• Give value that is not in features (Support/Services for example)

But I highly suggest that you take risks and think about what would be your solution if each of them happened. What would you do?

Shopify is eating their ecosystem

I disagree. Let’s say it now.

Shopify is a multiple-sided business: They have many different targets:

• Merchants

• Shopify App Founders

• Theme Creators

• Agencies

• Freelancers

And they have to please everyone but where should they place the cursor?

If they release many features, merchants will be happy but App Founders will be mad. And the contrary is true.

So you have to understand what target is the main pillar to understand what Shopify will do in the future and prepare your business for that.

The main pillar is merchants. Without them, all of the other targets are not relevant. So Shopify will update the platform to please merchants mainly (if they ever have to make changes)

So Summer Editions or Winter Editions are the logical things to do for them! And yet they make sure that everyone is still happy.

I own WideBundle. A Bundle App. They will release a bundle app too with new features using Functions.

They could’ve stopped here and become the best bundle app on the market, but they didn’t do it. Instead, they gave us the tools to update our bundle app the same way as theirs. And that’s important.

From what I see, Shopify is trying to implement native things in their platform so that App developers can build better apps.

So you can be free to build your apps and stay updated with changes to make sure that you can improve your app whenever it’s needed

Dealing with updates and reacting quickly

This is another skill to have when you build on top of a platform. You need to be flexible enough to react instantly to any change.

Here is the framework:

1) Stay up to date with new changes

Follow all the Shopify Twitter accounts. Follow the blog. Follow influencers in the market (including myself) so you know when new updates are coming

2) Read the updates carefully

Reading the updates carefully means reading while keeping in mind: “Is it affecting me? Is it affecting my competitors?” for each update

3) Reacting

As soon as you know that something is affecting you, you need to understand when it will impact you and how bad it will be so you know the situation's urgency.

Then you have a few steps:

• How will it impact you? → If you don’t know yet you need to read everything you can about it (you or someone from your team)

• What will you need to do to use this new impacting update? → So you can prepare a plan.

• Are we able to implement everything with my current team? → If no you’ll need to find people who will (or learn if you have time)

• Prepare a plan to implement it.

And this should happen in the week following the update! Because as soon as the plan is prepared, you won’t have to stress anymore. And if you still fear it means you didn’t do one of the steps properly

I hope this email was helpful! Reply to it to let me know your thoughts about what I’ve written!

See you next week,

Mat