Heeey! How is your Q4 going?

For most apps it’s the best time of the year (1 month left for Black Friday)

Let’s jump into this email!

In today’s email we’re going to talk about:

• Our new version on WideBundle (V2)

• Shopify App Growth Blueprint: Improving your conversion rate

• Growth game vs cashflow game for a Shopify App

• Dealing with bad news about your business

Let’s go! 🔥

Our new version on WideBundle (V2)

In Morocco with the team, we released a huge update for WideBundle. We had spent time working on it.

And you remember, I usually tell you not to wait too long before launching things.

What I’m talking about is: Don’t launch something you don’t know if it will work.

But here is a good reason to do it

• Users tell you to add this for months

• And it’s a feature that takes time to build

These are the only reasons for spending time working on it.

So here comes the V2 of my app WideBundle 🔥

We now have more ways of creating bundles with better designs! It’s a huge update for us and for our users who have wanted it for a long time!

We had to prioritize and that’s how we only released it now (even though they asked for it many times)

Now, we’re doubling down more than ever on partnerships!

Here is the plan: If you have a Shopify App with at least 500 users, we’d LOVE collaborating on co-marketing activities!

If you want to, just reply to this email with your app name and we can work together!

And if you’re a partner, you own an agency, I’d love to show you what we’ve done during a call!

Shopify App Growth Blueprint: Improving your conversion rate

We continue with our series to help you level up your Shopify App game, and this time, we’re talking about conversion rate.

When I talk about conversation rate, I mean: from a free trial to a paying user - or - from a free user to a paying user

Everyone should work on it. It’s the last wall between you and the money.

Let’s break it down into smaller points:

1. What’s the conversion rate

2. How to track the conversion rate

3. The different pricing plans

4. Finding problems in your conversion rate

5. Finding improvements

Let’s go!

1- What’s the conversion rate

The conversion rate is the percentage of people who convert after your free trial or plan. The higher the rate, the better.

But most people think it’s just a matter of time. Actually, it’s more complicated. There are many steps between the moment your user is “activated” (it means he sets up your app totally) and the moment he’s paying.

And these steps are important because you may need to improve one of them.

For example, my Shopify app has a 14-day free trial. Some people may change the trial, the price, etc., to improve the conversion rate.

But one of the steps inside it is: did my user make a bundle sale during the trial?

If the answer is that only 15% of the people made a sale… how do you expect them to convert?

2- How to track the conversion rate

I personally use Mixpanel (because I’ve been using it for years) but solutions like Mantle exist (I’m sorry, I won’t be able to show you a tutorial about it because I never actually used it)

If you want to use Mixpanel, then you can download my course for free: https://matdesousa.gumroad.com/l/mixpanel

This is what I do:

• Whenever someone installs my app, I send the event “Install” so I know this guy installed and I can track it

• Whenever someone uninstalls my app, I send the event “Uninstall”

• Whenever someone is paying, I send the event “Is Paying”

Then every day I have a job running in the background checking if the user is still paying or not (through the app charge). If he’s still paying, I send the event “Is Paying”

That way I know every day when someone installed, when they started paying (if they ever started), and if they uninstall

So I can clearly track my conversion rate. Let’s imagine someone installs and take the free plan. Let’s say you have 100 installs. Then you see that 30 people did in the event “Is Paying” after a month. It means that your conversion rate is at 30%.

It’s the same for a free trial.

I can then (on Mixpanel) track the number of installs, uninstalls, conversion, etc…

3- The different pricing plans

Based on your pricing plans, the conversion rate may be different. So having a free plan and then a plan at $4/month, I suppose that you’d have a better conversion rate than if the plan was at $99/month for the same target user and the same product (most cases)

So when you try to improve your conversion rate, you’ll have to tweak your pricing slightly.

Make some tests:

• Does increasing the price reduce the conversion rate? Or even improve it?

• Does removing my free plan for a free trial improve it?

• etc

Everyone is afraid of changing the pricing. We’re like “It works, let’s not touch it”

But see it like that: Making some tests for 2 weeks won’t impact your MRR.

If it doesn’t work, you can just stop it. If it improves your conversion rate, congrats, you just found a better pricing!

4- Finding problems in your conversion rate

Aim for the maximum conversion rate. If you have a free trial, try to have at least 50%.

If you have a free plan, aim for 20%.

But it will always depend on your app, its value, your features, and your target.

See it like that: If your conversion rate is waaaay less than what I shared, consider there is room for improvement.

Then, to find where the problem is there are 2 things:

1. Qualitative data (talking to people)

2. Quantitative data (tracking the numbers)

The first one will give you insights that can’t be tracked.

For the 1st one, contact all the people who didn’t end up paying, and those who ended up paying.

Ask them what they preferred on the app, what they didn’t like, why they didn’t convert. And go deep for each question. Always follow-up with another question based on their previous response.

For the 2nd one, you can do the same thing, put the people who converted, and those who didn’t, in a bucket.

Find out what events or actions the group with people who converted did, that the others didn’t.

For example, you may check how many sales on average they have. Perhaps you’ll find out the first group has 2 sales on average, while the other has 10 sales.

Then, in this case, improving your conversion rate can be achieved by creating content to help your users make sales! And this is just one idea based on the problem you just found.

What you then have to do is to list all the actions your users do to convert.

It could be:

• Using your app to do X more

• Getting sales

• etc

And then track these events to understand where there is a problem (based on the time it takes to achieve them for example)

5- Finding improvements

Based on the qualitative data, you may find directement improvements.

But with quantitative data, it may not be that easy. Numbers show you the problems, but they don’t talk.

You’ll have to make guesses and then, one by one, try to fix them.

For example:

• My users don’t have sales

  1. I will try to create content

  2. I will try to target different users

These are some guesses. You can work on them and see the impact on your conversion rate. Implementing these examples takes time, but it may be faster for others.

Growth game vs cashflow game for a Shopify App

I noticed 2 ways of building a Shopify App Business.

The cashflow way and the growth way

Both are great but totally different.

The cashflow way is to optimize for profits and reduce work

The growth way is to optimize for growth and work a lot

You can technically make way more money with the growth game, but running the cashflow game will be easier.

If you want to play the cashflow game, stay lean, don’t focus about growing. (If you stay around $25K per month it’s the perfect spot, even though you can grow more).

With this amount you will have support but not that much. And instead of focussing on growth, try to automatize your business, remove everything that isn’t necessary, delegate small tasks and create processes for everything (until anyone can operate your business)

If you want to play the growth game, work a lot. There is no other way. Your profits will be lower because you’ll have to hire to handle this growth, but that’s fine because you can go after $100K monthly and even more.

It can also be an incredible exit.

Both are great. But they’re not for everyone.

The mistake you have to avoid is doing both. Trying to grow quickly while working only a few hours, or trying to work a lot but keeping low MRR, etc.

Dealing with bad news about your business

We always receive bad news. And when you receive one, you receive all the others simultaneously.

That’s what this business is about. And there is nothing we can do about it. Everyone is affected.

Even though you think others don’t have problems because they don’t show it.

The first question you should ask yourself when receiving bad news is:

Does it change your plan for the next 4 months?

You had things planned, so if the problem doesn’t affect your plan, just forget about it. It’s bad news, yet, but since it doesn’t change your plans, it means you have to stop worrying about it.

This simple question can reduce your stress.

Second thing you should do if it impacts your plan.

Make a decision. Right now.

What action will I take and what decision do I make now that I know it?

Stress comes from a lack of decisions and too many choices.

Make a decision and move on. You don’t know if it’s the best one, but take one.

→ One of your best partner decided to stop with you.

Ok that’s really sad, it was bringing you many installs. You can spend weeks now worrying about what you're gonna do.

But you’re not weak.

1. Does it change your plan for the next 4 months? → I you have a plan that comes before that, then forget about it

For example: We have a big product roadmap and we’re focused with ads, we won’t think about it. Fine, just forget about it then.

2. If it does change your plan, for example: we’re going to lose all our installs → Make a decision fast

If you just wait for it to happen, complaining, nothing will change. So make a quick decision.

For example: Ok, in the next 2 months we’ll contact 20 different potential partners similar to this one, we’re going to send 1 email this week and 2 follow ups next week. We’re going to dedicate one person to this, responsible for the calls and then I’ll handle the technical integration.

That’s it. You took the information, you made your decision, now follow your plan and move on.

Another example: Shopify decided to unlist your app for 2 weeks because you didn’t respect guidelines so you won’t get new installs.

You can complain about it, or you can make a decision right now: Okay we’re going to review all our helpdesk articles since we’ll have fewer installs, perhaps fewer support conversations, we’ll have time to do it and we’ll have 2 meetings calls this week to work on the strategy

Take the information. Make a decision.

Thanks for reading this email. Feel free to share it with a friend, a partner, or a customer.

So see you in the next email!

Mat 😁