BSSA #X - I rarely told you how it all started

Hey, it’s Mat 😁

There are now over 2,500 people reading this newsletter. That’s wild. And it also means a lot of you are new.

I shared in the past how I ended up building Shopify Apps and how I learned everything. And I guess it’s time to do it again.

So this week, I’m doing something a bit different.

Over the next few days, I’m going to share my full story, not just to show you where I came from, but to help you understand how I ended up building profitable Shopify Apps.

It’s the same story that shaped the lessons I’ve packed into the Shopify App Growth Blueprint. And if you're building your own app (or thinking about it), I think it will help you see things differently.

Let’s rewind.

Before I built Shopify Apps like WideBundle... I was just a kid who loved video games.

It was 2010. I was 13 years old, obsessed with a French MMORPG called Dofus. But then, the game changed, and not for the better. Players hated the update. So we looked for ways to play the old version again.

That’s how I discovered private servers, and stepped into the world of code.

I had no clue what I was doing, but I wanted to help. So I learned HTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript. I built sites. Designed interfaces. Fixed bugs. And little by little, I started to become the guy people asked for help.

There was this French website called "Le Site du Zéro", it literally means "The Beginner’s Site." That’s where I learned everything. They had full courses to teach coding from scratch. That site changed everything for me. Today it’s called OpenClassrooms.

I even had a mentor, a 16-year-old kid who was already getting paid €500 to build websites. I was 14, he was 16, and I looked up to him like he was some kind of superhero. He helped me improve my designs, understand structure, and build confidence.

Over the years, I created websites for Dofus private servers, and even made my first few euros online. But I didn’t jump directly from there into building Shopify Apps. Not even close.

In the next email, I’ll tell you about the two projects I thought would make me rich, and how they ended up being painful but essential failures.

Make sure to keep an eye on your inbox tomorrow. I’ll send you the next part of the story then.

Talk soon,

Mat