05: Building Great Products As A Dev with Anne Thomas
In this episode, I had the pleasure of having Anne Thomas, co-founder of Design Packs (a Shopify App), discuss her story getting into building a Shopify app, working with a Shopify theme development agency, and doing a Shopify store performance audit and other things that you should check out in this episode.
Video Episode:
Show Notes:
- The Manager's Path (https://www.amazon.com/Managers-Path-Leaders-Navigating-Growth/dp/1491973897)
- Missive Email App: https://missiveapp.com/
- CodeDrops CSS Animation: https://tympanus.net/codrops/
- Anne Thomas LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annethomas8/
- Design Packs: https://design-packs.com/pages/aboutThe
- Unofficial Spotify Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/2fZyUfHLOnZathTk0bfz2Y
- Syntax.fm podcast: https://syntax.fm
Transcription:
You can hit the ground running, which is the big advantage like I'm not here to write boilerplate code
I just want to go and Laravel does that for me
Like you like you said if we write a query that's wrong. It's just it's slow internal application doesn't matter
They'll sit and wait for like 10 seconds. They don't care, but public facing they've gone. They've left
All right, let's do it. And I we published it
It got it went through review very quickly, which was unusual and they were like, this is great
We love it. Let's put it on the home page. And I was like, what?
Sometimes in an application for X and people are using it for Z
There wasn't any time for like show your apps are doing like how much monthly recurrent revenue where all your customers coming from
So we built like an internal dashboard for that. I
continued to grow the the perfect sharing app
For about a year and a half then that got quiet, which is it was great
This is one of the things that is good about the Shopify app
Development space and you got your first application
Approved and launch. There is no way back. You will be launching more applications
She will get into the system. There's no way back
So maybe if you have traction over the Shopify app store, you can launch to other platform
The Shopify application has been acquired. Can we know like at the value of the acquisition? I can say when I grew it
It was about
10,000 per month if someone from the Shopify partner developer team are listening to this part
hopefully we will have like a
integration with the Shopify instead of having the API key
Like a one click and you can connect directly to Shopify like misspelled keywords. They are normally quite a lot cheaper
If you are building a Shopify app right now
How you think you will be
Talk to them many times and they said yeah, we've got a big backlog which hey
Maybe all the vibe coding and loads of people are bringing out loads of apps
It does like I say a lot of times we all it because when you are using the provides
You don't have to think about the UI UX. You just need to think about the layout
And how you are building component or maybe you are ranking for a keyword
But the application is not offering that keyword in the future for you are ranking for SMS integration
But you don't have SMS you will have some issue. Maybe you will get a high bill from EWS because you expose your API key
So people I will be using you a three-pack it as a archive for this stuff
We just know what they are seeing but behind the scene or the dot code that's run this stuff to be able to view that
Stuff that you are seeing right now is not good enough for our production application
It's good for MVP and proof of concept, but it's not good for launching application and kitchen use
We've I coded his whole app and his database was a Google Sheet
And I'm just like what is going on here and do you think vibe coding or using a assistant
Made you feel that you are dumb because you will not be writing code and you will just be copying and pasting code
Spend more time with your family. It's valuable time
But you don't need to work 70 hours you can get it done
So welcome guys
We are the squad podcast a podcast we interview a software engineer to share the entrepreneur story
And here we are on season number two and we are currently on this episode number six and we have Benjamin
He is the founder of such insight and also a developer
He got his bachelor degree in information communication technology and also have been working as a
director and software engineer for the alias software and build custom software for other client and also been working as
software developer for a couple of company including
Superloop DPC and more about Benjamin story after this quick sponsored section
You
You
You
So thank you Benjamin for accepting my invitations will be a pleasure hosting you for today episode
So can you give the audience a more information about yourself?
I mentioned a couple of things in the intro, but I would love to have more insight about your story
Yeah, thanks very much for having me here. It's there. It's great. My first podcast. I'm sure
It will go well
And I want to ruin it for you
Yeah, like you mentioned, I've worked at quite a few different places and
Superloop was one of the one of the good ones. That was an internet service provider. So providing internet to people here in Australia
That was a very interesting time. I worked there
I worked there during COVID and they they forced us all to work from home
And then they forced us all to work four days a week and I was like, oh, this is interesting
I've got more time to work on my side projects
And then my side projects at the time would like working for different clients
So I asked them, hey, can I go to three days a week and they were like, no
You can't do that. Why would you want to do that?
So I yeah, I ended up leaving that place to work for myself building like custom solutions for
anyone no one to hire me
That's great. So thank you for the introduction
And one of the earliest question or the first question that I usually ask to the guest is how did you start with
Computers, especially as a web developer or a software developer
How was your first interaction with computer back then when you start working as a developer?
Yeah, so I've I've been working with computers for a while when I was really young I used to
Build them together take them in part to my friend's house
Because like we were young so we'd walk them over to our friend's house and play games together
And I always thought oh, I could build something with this
I could I could make some sort of program to hack into my friend's computer and do silly things
Which which was a lot of fun. I built some some random
I don't even know what it was written in but every time they close their CD drive it opened again
And it was very funny
Just watching that happen
But yeah, I went on from that to to actually go do a degree in computer software development
So during that part of that was like a did an internship where I really actually had real-world experience
which was great and
From there, I've been I've been doing it ever since it's over 10 years ago now. We're hiding lots of software
that's great and
You mentioned that you have bachelor degree in computer science and after that you did a new turn
And what was like at the technology that you have been working with the yeah back then
So my internship was part of my my degree and they were using C sharp
PHP and JavaScript and
That's that was it like nothing nothing really else like most of my stuff that I did then was in C sharp
Building like a desktop application for them, which thinking about it now. It should have been a web app, but
That's that's what happened that's sort of
Into the world of like PHP, which is what I do today
Makes sense. Yeah back in there was a lot of desktop application and currently in there like how I would say in the lead like
the recent like a five or seven years more
Webs like a website because everyone would love to have like a cloud-based application instead of installing in their desktop
Because you would love to have access
Whatever you would love like I have access to internet and it's always like a good for like a dream collaboration because yeah
It does like a hop with that and you mentioned that is like combo for C sharp and and I was kids like a
Unique combo. I never like I heard like a C sharp with times with like a rubber script
and you mentioned that you move to like a PHP Laravel and
I love Laravel. I have been working with Laravel in the recent stuff that I have been working as a
As an engineer with it was like a great experience
It was the first time using Laravel back then and this was a great experience
And I love Laravel as I mentioned in other episode and I don't like
PHP because like a lot of it have a lot of out of out of the box
Stuff that I just you can just plug and play you don't have to worry about like a session cookies and other
Like a stuff for rendering and it's great like a framework and it's been in always in the development
Which is great and what do you what is your take about Laravel as a framework for building web application?
Yeah, yeah, Laravel like to me I started with Laravel when it was back in its early days like version four
Well, I think it's version like 12 at the moment. So yeah, I started on it
When I moved to Australia, which was like almost 10 years ago
And it to me was my first framework. So out of the box
It just did everything like it does queuing. It does session management. Like you said, it does authentication
It does cron jobs everything everything you can think you don't need to
Use JavaScript and plug-and-play 50 different libraries. It's just out of the box. Here you go
You can there you can hit the ground running, which is the big advantage like art
I'm not here to write boilerplate code. I just want to go
And and Laravel does that for me. Yeah, that's true. That's true
You don't have to install the mini npm package to do like a key
And if I go no, that's true
That's a take for a
Oh, yes, yeah
Yes, PHP does have its downfalls like it's the language is
Interesting does some quirky things but they're working on it. They're trying to fix it like latest versions are much better
Lots of their strongly typed stuff. It's going in the right direction. Yeah, I think so. I think
Like the team behind Laravel is pushing a lot of work and especially with also the our lunch in Laravel cloud or
Think yeah, it's like a development. It's like a deployment frameworks
Will be like a some version for next jest will be same for Laravel
So it does plug and the play and you will have the Laravel app deployed
You don't have to worry about which is great thing because you know, like a like a deploying application
It does take time and you need to think about CI CD. So you can ship faster and
One of the things that I would like to ask you so after you mentioned that you did internet and been working at
Like a first intern. What was the second like our first full-time job that you have
Before like a working at super low super low. Yeah, so when I moved to Australia, I got a job and
I got a job in the first week that I arrived here, so I was in New Zealand before that and I moved to Australia
Because
New Zealand had an earthquake and I was like, okay, let's leave
So I was down in Christchurch in New Zealand. So I was like, okay, there's nothing
Nothing really job-wise I could probably get here and I've got family in Australia. So I thought, okay, I'll go to Australia
so I came to Adelaide in South Australia and I got a job the first week which was
Shocking to me. Like I don't have any experience. I'm a junior. I don't know what I'm doing and they I got a job for like a
Whole sale they wholesale like board games and video games. So I spend a lot of time
like
organizing
like shipments coming in
like
Application to run the business really so it was like an internal application. I worked on that and I was my first like
Intro to Larival as well
Which makes us
Interesting and
How long was this a lot? This is a full-time job lasting like much time
It did not last long
it lasted six months and
Okay, I
Wasn't looking for a different job. I was I was happy. I was learning lots and
I'm someone reached out to me on LinkedIn and they said hey, do you want to work here?
Here's a $50,000 paid rise. I was like, yes, I would love to work there. What do you do?
mix us
Yeah, so I worked at that next place a DPS publishing as a aged care and disability
services for for Australia. So that was a lot of them
high traffic
Websites, so I had to think about other things whereas I was doing internal application doesn't matter like there's 10 people
Maybe hitting it, but this other one was hundreds thousands of people hitting it. So I had to
learn a lot at that point and figure out what's going on like it
It wasn't scaling. We had to we had to do
big things to make it scale better and
Yeah, it was an interesting place to work
Yeah, interesting because you mentioned like a moving from internal to public facing applications would be different because like a tiny
like a function that is not like a scalable or like a
working correct it will be able to handle like a
Multiple transaction or something it will slow down or break the application
So you need to think twice about like a pushing the code before pushing is because internal also
Because it's internal people will have like a some knowledge about the system
But for like a public facing you will need to think about a lot of things about performance about UI UX
About scaling the application in terms of like a horizontal or vertical
So it's a good thing to be able to like to be faced with because it's a challenge to be able to work with like a scalable
like a system which also will
Open up a lot of
Like eyes for best practice on how I handle performance and other stuff. That's great
Yeah, we we definitely didn't do best practice to start with it was there
It was interesting because this is still like early days of Docker. Like it was yeah
So we yeah, we migrated to Docker and like EKS and in AWS and
It was interesting like I had to learn all that I didn't know any event and I became very very familiar with it
Very quickly because we needed and we needed to figure out how to scale this properly
Like it like you said if we write a query, that's wrong. It's just it's slow internal application doesn't matter
They'll sit and wait for like 10 seconds. They don't care, but public facing they've gone. They've left
Yes, yeah, that's true. You will have like a higher bounce rate
So people will be oh, yeah, like a leaving the application and also will have like a bad experience with the application
And also maybe losing revenue because of that
That's true. And and you mentioned is it like at this company's it was a startup because the thing that you mentioned about the stuff
Maybe I categorize as a startup, but maybe it's not can you like clarify that?
Yeah, so they're like publishing companies. So they they weren't really a startup the
Their their business in publishing was quite big, but their website side of it was not so big
So their website was what we were working on, but their publishing side
Like was was doing really well. So they're quite an old business like 20 something 30 some years
But yeah, they were doing printed like pamphlet stuff and not not really web stuff
So we had to bring out the scratching. Yeah, I got your point and after that you move to Superloop
I think just from your lengthy experience. Can you give what is a Superloop?
Also, what was experience working there? Yeah, Superloop Superloop was fun
I enjoyed that place and so Superloop is internet service provider. So we provide broadband internet to
Australia
Which was yeah, lots and lots of fun
I learned a lot of stuff like I hadn't worked for a tech company doing tech which like
Interesting because everyone or most of the people there are like tech people and yeah, really interesting
Interesting to to work out. Yeah, I worked
Worked there for like two and a half years
I'm not sure but I worked there and I learned a lot more
I thought I was really good at Laravel and PHP and programming before I went there and then I went there
I was like, I don't know anything
The my my mentor there Michael was was very good. He he taught me a lot and
Yeah, it was
It was a different challenge from the last one that was that because this was
Most of the stuff we were doing was internal but like some of it was public facing
So like if you're signing up for home internet and you want it connected today
We've got to get that connected in under 15 minutes
So having all the systems in place to talk to like 15 different external services to provide that
We were doing that
Interesting. Do you think like a working out like internet service provider because I never like
Have to meet like as someone working at the internet service provider. You are the first of all and interesting like a
What are the the things that are unique to working out like internet service provider because it's a critical mission
I would say because you are providing customer with internet, which is currently it's a must
There isn't like I know like a way around it. So what do you think is is unique about working that and there?
What are the level of skill ability and challenge that you are facing day-to-day? Yeah, it's
Luckily for me as a developer, it's not
My problem to fix like when the internet goes down because that will be a networking problem
And most of the problems with network related to not a developer needs to fix something
As most of the work that I did was for like the call center and the people managing
Like your your account. So making sure you can get a static IP address. You can pay your bill
You can do all kinds of different things in your account
That was the most of the stuff that I was working with but all like the technical jogging from the networking people was like
Ridiculous. I didn't understand a lot of it. I didn't get most of it
I had to learn all about how the static IP isn't IPv6 works and how they connected to different things in Australia
Like it's gonna be different for every every place
All very confusing and I I didn't even know the states of Australia at that point and I had to learn those real quick as well
You will like I have the map of Australia in your mind because of that
Yeah, they kept asking me like what about this state. I'm like I thought what what would you mean like no
No, we've got we've got six states and two
Two territories. I'm like, what what's the territory? What's going on?
That's a good to know and you move like you mentioned that you moved to Australia you are like
From which country you are from originally if you mind I'm from the UK
Originally, okay, and I moved to I moved to New Zealand when I was like 16 and then I moved to Australia
10 years ago
Makes sense and you mentioned like in the first section of the episode that you are been working like a four days a week for this
Company the superloop one how was experience working like a four days and you all have like a three days of weekend
Is it like at the same time as working like a five days?
Because maybe like a it's like a 40 four days, but you will have a lot of things to do
Maybe you are like a working eight or ten hours. I'm not sure about the schedule
Is it the same thing or is the difference so we have like a three days of weekend instead of two?
Yeah, so it was a really interesting time because of COVID like they they
Had to put everyone down in the whole company to four days a week so they could afford to keep paying everyone because
Like it was like it wasn't really a startup
But it wasn't like a big company like they're not they weren't one of the big players at the time for internet
So they put everyone down to four days a week and we were that's it four days a week your normal hours
So that extra day gave me time to work on my
Side projects which was working for clients building building custom applications, which was which was great for me
I love that. I thought that was great. I had more time to work on what I wanted to work on
Yeah, that's true. There's a lot of start not not a loss
But there's a couple of startups that's currently doing this four days work
It like I could remember only like a buffer because someone that I know work for buffer
I'd only work in like a four days a week, which is good
But it's like a four days like I would say content condensed
I would say it's like an extra day, but she's like a including in the four days of work
But it's interesting that you will have like an extra day to be able to work on the stuff or maybe just
Relaxing taking care of your family depending on your responsibility. You mentioned you have been working on your side projects
I think it's like the like a custom solution for client
What like I think that's how you have you have built for clients back then when you have like this
Free site products up
Yeah, so I built quite a few
projects for clients and I
Built quite a few actually. Yeah, good one. Um, I built something called ready study go kits. It's a it's a child
Sports management software for Australia
So you you can sign up your child ages
0 to 6 and they can go enroll into any any centre around Australia and they
You know a child would do multi sport activities
So they had a version of this website currently and I
Made it better. We wrote it from scratch because it was
spaghetti code
So that was it. That was one of the big ones that was interesting. That's it. It's still running today
I still I still manage that for them
Still still do improvements. That's
That one was a fun one
and I built others most of them are like internal applications to run their business again, there's a
There is a guy that does all like rubber manufacturing
So all his orders and manufacturing process
He uses an app and it links into like Trello and all these are the external services
Makes sense
And did you like work like on some Shopify app during that time?
I
Did start yes, that was my first introduction to Shopify because I've been building like
loads and loads of apps like
Not small apps either for clients and my my good friend
From the uk I used to used to go to school with him
He was like Ben like let's do something everything everything is like
Going crazy at the moment Shopify is great. Let's let's build an app. I was like, yeah, let's build an app
so I spent two months and I built a digital downloads app and I
I cut a lot of corners that not that I would normally do and I
I was like, all right, let's do it and I we published it
it got it went through review very quickly, which was unusual and
They were like, this is great. We love it. Let's put it on the homepage and I was like, what?
That's ridiculous. It wasn't like fully working or anything and we're getting hundreds of installs
And it's just it's going crazy. Like I did not build this to scale very well at all
Did not expect this to happen
And it started taking up and I was like, oh, what do I do?
That's a good problem job and
In which in which year we are talking about like when you build this digital
Digital download app. Is it like during the covid?
Yeah, it was um
mid 2020s so like
He proposed something I started building. Yeah, I spent two months. I think we launched in like october
August october in 2020
so late 2020 and yeah, this was before like built for Shopify or like
They're requiring you to do any any of this stuff
And because they they put it on the homepage, which you wouldn't get now unless you like built for Shopify and you did
blah blah blah
Yeah, and it was it was crazy. It was only there for like two weeks, but we got hundreds of installs and it was just
It was crazy
That's great. That's great to like have the app in the homepage because you will have like organic traffic and also you have like
You are being in the spotlight. So
Like the merchant will like I see the app in the in the homepage and you will have like some organic traffic
And that's great to be able to have the app in the homepage
So you can get that momentum for the app and especially because it's a new app
So we'll have like a great
Like a number of install for application and you will see
What are the people are using it for because sometimes you are building an application
For x and people are do are using it for z
And we're not like a
Why people are using it for z?
and because are people also people you are
Using it for z you will like a move and use that as a like advantage or a feature of the application that you can
Like a promote to other immersion
And this is like how you will like a find the product market fair for this kind of application
It's like a weird but yeah, this is how it works
Yes, I I completely agree with you like instincts going in were completely wrong like my friend that I built it with
He he was a Shopify store owner and he would sell digital files
But his problem was his files are really large and the digital download app
Apps were there, which I think there was only like two or three at the time
We're not very good for that. So we built it on the case of we're going to handle really large files
And we can do that like we've supported like up to five terabyte files
It would just work
Which that was even a fun challenge to build technically like I like when you're uploading it
I was like, I can't send this directly to my server to then send it to s3
That massive bandwidth cost for me
I we got to chunk that on the on the browser and send that straight to s3
Which like I didn't know that was possible and I figured it out
Yeah, that's the kind of challenge that's uh, like uh, you excited about other deploy. Yeah
Oh, yes
Yeah, so we won't even end with that like
thinking that this is what's going to happen and
turns out most people
are doing like three five meg files
Like we figured out we were catering for everyone like if you have massive files and it will still work
Yeah makes us that's a good thing because sometimes
Um
And I think sometimes it's a good thing to be able to think
In like the extreme side
So you end up in the safe space. So for example, you mentioned that the application is built to be able to support up to five terabytes of
Like a file and you like a I think
I couldn't imagine someone building more than five terabytes
Yes, it's like, uh, it would be like a uploading maybe some
Now the fire or something
It would be like extremely like a pretty like
Each case that I don't think it will be happen, but you are building it for
To be able to scale
Like the most extreme use case for that application, which is great and sometime which will like, uh, also be
maybe
Like a time consuming but yeah, you mentioned because it's like a
I think it will be a similar process of you are building it for five terabytes or like a hundred
Gigabytes because you are doing the multi-part
Forum upload for the file. It will be like a multi-part. So you are sending trunk for
Each duration, but yeah, I can imagine like about in
Someone for five terabytes or testing is you need to have like a five terabyte file to even test this application
Yes
Ridiculous that five terabyte was not even our limitation. It was we were using
Digital ocean spaces, which is basically s3 on digital ocean. Yes. I know that was their limitation
And not ours. So it was just like it's probably never going to happen. Let's not even account for that
Makes sense. That's great. And this is this application still like, uh,
Running or like a bit acquired or what?
Yeah, so
Yeah, yeah, there was so many different challenges with that like
Yeah, I need to get into it. But yeah, we spent a year growing that application
And then we started building another Shopify app
So I spent another year
building that app in like the background. So I was still working like
Basically full-time and working on this app. So I was working like 70 hour weeks and building another app in the background
And then we launched our second app
and that was a app
for
paying out profits
so if I
If you have a t-shirt shop and I collaborate with you and we build a design together every time that
T-shirt is then sold you would pay me like 10% or something
royalty for that
so we worked on that for one for a long time
and then we launched it and
We had iterated quite a few times to get exactly
What we thought the the market wanted
But yeah, that one that was slow growth on that one, but it was good
Yeah, we started pushing that to other platforms as well. So not just Shopify
By the end of it for like the a few years that I owned that one that was there
It was on to square space square Etsy
I
Got a lot of this we commerce and Shopify
There was a lot of third-party
apis I had to deal with
but yeah, so
Back to the original digital downloads app. I mean my partner split ways and he took the digital downloads app
and I took the profit sharing one which
We also had started another app
We were just doing loads of apps so we
There wasn't anything in the market at the time for like showing you how well
Your apps are doing like how much monthly recurring revenue where all your customers coming from
So we built like an internal dashboard for that
We we called that sess insights because it was like our insights to our sess applications. So I thought this was great
so
as part of like
Building that we thought maybe other people would be interested in using it
Like the the only thing out at the time was like partner metrics, which was quite basic
Yeah, so we we built that and we never actually launched it it got like
I think we got one beta tester to test it and then we we parted ways and
He took the digital downloads app. I took the profit sharing and the unlaunched app that didn't really do a whole lot at that point
So that one is still with him. He's still growing it. He's doing really well with it
Which is which is great. And I I stuck with the the profit sharing app. I
And the and the the sess insights app so I
I continued to grow the the profit sharing app
for about a year and a half and
Then that got acquired which was which was great
Yeah, and I
Thank you
I spent uh, I was working on sess insights at the time as well like to try
uh, actually launch it
So I I actually launched that so
Like you can see your metrics and your analytics your your lifetime value your way your customers are coming from all that
Uh insights for your app, which was great. So once I sold
The the other app I was working full-time on that, which is what I've been doing ever since
Which is uh, lots of fun. And I recently just got another app approved
and
due to go live next week
That's great. This is one of the things that is good about the Shopify app
development space
And you got your first application
approved and launched
There is no way back. You will be launching more application
It's kind of like a addiction. I would say
But like a many people that I know and I interview over this podcast
They will launch the the first application and after that they will launch the second one at the third one
It's like as you will get into the system. There's no way back
Yes, yep, I I completely agree with you
I see I I've looked at other other platforms and doing other like sass like a full-blown sass app and it
I just hate marketing. So I just I don't want to do it
So I if I can put it on Shopify and they market it for me and I just do a little bit
That's great. That's what I want. I don't need to build a hundred million dollar business just
small
Make me happy
Yeah, it makes sense
And also the one of the things that is good about the Shopify app development space is
Shopify as a platform is a good way to be able to test the application and you will have like some
Early traction and the stuff like that's because of the app store
So maybe if you have traction over the Shopify app store
You can launch to other platform and you mentioned like a third party application third party integration
You can do it with vex and other platform
and also you can also like have a successful application because
For example, uh, the recent story that's happened, which is the Shopify acquisition of checkout blog
Which starts as a Shopify application and the Shopify acquired for some good amount of money
So there's like a good chance that your application might get like acquired for some good amount of money
and you mentioned that
The Shopify application has been acquired. Can we know like the value of of the acquisition if you don't mind chain?
I
Can't tell you the value because it was in my contract to not say but I can see when I grew it. It was about
10,000 per month that it was okay. That's great. So thank you for sharing that so we can like uh
imagine the value
That's me. You could work it out. I can't say you could work it out. There's lots of calculators out there
Yeah, you can like uh, like you do your calculation on your own
Yes, that's right. And the one of the things that you currently working on it
Which is uh, such insight which is the Shopify a platform for
Other Shopify app developer and founder to be able to get all the metrics in one place
For all the stuff that is you are working on and then can you know more about what are the metrics that we can track?
and for example
Is it like a something similar to mixed panel?
For example, you will have an EPI or a widget to be able to insert in a Shopify application. So we can know
Like a resource of traffic or you need to like a connected with google analytics. So we can know more about
How the integration will be working with the Shopify application. So test insights
Uh grew out of need that I needed it because I didn't know what was going on
All I saw was the the Shopify partner dashboard and
That just gives you what they're going to pay you like it doesn't tell me how many refunds or what's my lifetime value?
or should I be spending x amount of money on ads because
Oh, yeah, I just didn't know any of that. So you're essentially you're just connecting your
You Shopify partner account like Shopify gives you a partner API and you can access that and it'll
That'll pull in all your transactions and all your events from your app
So if I install your app and then uninstall your app and
We can see those events so we can piece all that data together and create
Like all sorts of metrics of monthly recurring revenue lifetime value
How many active subscribers you've got like how many installs uninstalls?
What's uh, what's your retention rate?
Loads and loads of metrics so then
Like that's great. You can see your metrics
Then you need to know like where's your customers coming from how they get into you
What keywords are they searching on the app store? So then we added the integration to google analytics
So it's a one click like click login with your google account and it's all connected
We start pulling in data from google analytics apis and we can we can then push all that data together and figure out
Hey, these are the keywords that are driving your lifetime value up for these plans and these are the keywords that are
Getting the most of use but the most installs all sorts of interesting data around that
Interesting that's great. So you can know all about the key metrics about the application and all the stuff is like a
Getting all the information from other provider in one place so you can know
All the things that you need to know about the application and also which also make
If you would like to sell the application
You can know the valuation of the application because you will know all the metrics that are
Like for the application
And one of the things that you mentioned is like a one click install for google analytics
I am hoping it will be the same
And if someone from the Shopify partner developer team are listening to this part, hopefully we will have like a
integration with the Shopify instead of having the
The api key it would be just like a one click and you can connect directly to Shopify because people might get like
Maybe is this because of the copying of the api key instead of just connecting because
Yeah, because of like because you already know what
The stuff that will be shared because I'm
I built like a small
Stuff to be able to pull the data from the Shopify party api
And people would be hesitation because you need to copy the api key and it's not like the best UI
I'm hoping to be able to have like a auth for a Shopify partner. Yeah, instead of
api key if someone is listening
This is like I might take please
Yes, please. I've even looked into that like they do a lot in their own
Like between looks like microservices and I've tried like can I do this like can I
Hook in and use one of their client ideas and see if I can I can use this but
I can't yes, but it's it's annoying like
Like even I'll get lots of people saying are you gonna take over my apps and like
Yeah, what am I gonna do? I can't do anything. I can read your data
I can't take over your app
The only mutation that you can do with the Shopify partner api is to
Like a half up credit. So this is the only thing that you can do
You can it's already like a read only so you can just like a read all the event
And nothing will be like a done harm will teach your application. We're not be destroying the application
Yeah, we're just showing you all your data
Yeah, and easy to see way. That's it
And there's like a pricing plan for like a using it and where people can
Go to be able to test this application and to connect with their platform with their Shopify. Yeah
Yeah, so we we offer sets in search for free until you're earning
I think it's just over two and a half thousand per month
So that gives you gives you all the insights free, which is great. And then it's just a flat rate of $49
That's it. It doesn't matter if you're making
10k per month or
500k per month. It's the same
Makes sense. Okay. That's great
and
There will be like a other integration with other like a provider or something that is in the way
There is one of the things that is like, uh, for example, I'm not sure but I think it would be
For example, uh acquire.com have an integration to be able to verify the revenue for Stripe
But I think it would be from the acquire.com not side not from the platform
Yeah, I've tried reaching out to them as well. So I could be their provider for that but
Like hey, if you if you're watching, please reach back out to me. I would love to work with you
Yeah, I think it will be a great integration because people can know that this
Insight is verified by a third-party application because you can like a fake the revenue and all stuff
But if it's verify, you will have like a the address is verify by
The the platform and I think
If someone from the team of acquire.com are watching this
I think it will be a great addition to be able because they have like a special category for Shopify application
They do yeah, it will be great to be able to have
Someone to be able to verify that they are like Stripe
And it will be good addition for that because there's a lot of Shopify app currently in the acquire.com
And I think this one it will be a great addition to that and also partnership
With platform it does take some time, but yeah, this is the reality
Yeah, so yeah when I sold my last Shopify app like the the broker that I used
He was looking at since I just rule the metrics because he was like, this is great
Like he previously was just calculating it all himself
He would get he would get people to export all their data from upon the dashboard and he would calculate all himself
And he was like, this is great. I don't have to do any of this
I put the sales pitch together and I just got all this data. It's easy
Interesting and this like has some other feature that you have in the roadmap
If you don't mind sharing for such insight that people can like expect from the platform in the next upcoming months or weeks
Yeah, so we just launched a a great new feature that was a keyword tracking on like the
the
merchant forums
So the the merchant forums that
merchants are on and they're typing. I don't know whatever
I've broken my
My store or this pixel thing isn't working
Like we track those keywords and then we can send notifications. So we just launched that feature which is
quite useful, but
the the one feature that we're working on at the moment is
Wouldn't say it's a new feature. It's more providing your
your insights to
Keywords that people are using on the
the app store
better
with valuable
like actionable
Information, so saying hey, this is the keyword. This is how it's doing over time
Maybe you should be putting this into your listing or maybe you should promote this a bit better
On your the description part on this underneath your app
Yeah, promoting like insights like that. That's actionable is what we're working on at the moment
Interesting and also this thing could also benefit from if you are like going to the shop if I up store ads
so you can know which
Keyword to alter target for bedding so you can know
Yes, I have I'd love to do something with ads and
like trying
Track it over time of how much ad and ad would cost like the the best
Whatever they call it the best
Best match price or the prices in there like tracking that over time for different things, but
Shopify say if you you're not a match for your app, then we're going to give you
Higher value or it's going to cost more
So I'm trying to figure out something there like maybe like a chrome plugin that you install and it like sends data back to us
And we can like track that for you
I don't know so it's something interesting like that. I'd like to do
Also, you can like export the the SVG of the data that you have in the ads
And maybe you can use that to be able to calculate
Like the amount spent on each one
Maybe it will be a great like a thing to be able to do because you will already know
Which like a keyword are doing great for the number of install and it's like a cost effective in term of
the cost of installing and click because you need to calculate the
The cost per click and the cost per installed to be able to know if this will be like a benefit for beneficial for you
Yeah, yeah, because we would have the data already for how well the keyword is doing but yeah like
That would be great. Also things like misspelled keywords. They are normally quite a lot cheaper
And but we could figure those out for you like if we had like a current plugin like hey
This would only cost you like one dollar instead of the five dollars you're paying
And it's probably gonna break
Makes us because it's like a
It's in the same category, but it's like a different keyword than the keyword that people are searching for it's like a
To be able to know or like to hack not the hack
But it will be that to be able to figure out a cost effective way to be able to
Do well over the same keyword. That's great
And what is your take right now on the Shopify app store because you already mean in the
Shopify app store since
2020 and it's currently like a bin like a almost five years
What is your take about the Shopify app store?
Is it saturated?
How hard is the competitor right now with the the new Shopify store and the new
I would say new Shopify regulation and approval process. So what is
If you are building a Shopify app right now
How you think you will be building it
Yes, so for me I
Different different categories are saturated, but
Then in different categories, there's apps that look like someone spent a weekend
And they built it and somehow it's on the app store
So there is definitely still a lot of opportunity there
For my latest app that just went through a review. It took nine weeks, which is very unusual
They they I
Talked to them many times and they said yeah, we've got a big backlog which hey
Maybe all the vibe coding and loads of people are bringing out loads of apps
You know
That's true
But yeah, you're talking about the vibe for the later on
Yes
Yes
I think there's still there's still good opportunity like
For me my my other two apps were not embedded. They were not
Written in react like Shopify want you to like my new app is it's embedded. It's in react
It's using all Polaris components. It's like building a new app today. If you're not going for built the Shopify
You're not going to rank as well
Yeah, that's true. That's true. I think it does make sense because
and also because
People are already familiar to Polaris because it's already been like in the Shopify admin dashboard
So it will be much easier for them to be able to figure out all the layouts and it will be familiar to them
and also because when you are building using react especially react you will have access to like a
A bridge so you can like have access to the toss to the save bar
There's a lot of components that will be helpful to be able to integrate with your application
So you can and also it does like a save you a lot of time to be honest because
When you are using the Polaris, you don't have to think about the UI UX
You just need to think about the layout
And how you are building components and you just need to follow the best practice that they are mentioned in the Shopify Polaris
site and it will be great because you don't have to think more about the UI because
I like a talking about myself. I don't like I'm like to build the UI component
I just would like to be able to plug and play because I'm not the best UI
Engineer, I would say or a UI developer, but I have a good eye on design
So I think for me to be able to just use Polaris to be able to plug and they use the component to be much easier than just
writing
The UI component from scratch because it does take time and you need to be able to think about it
So just I think it's much recommended way to be able just to use what is already there
So it will be saving time and maybe
If you are not comfortable with the Polaris you can just use it for the EVP or the proof of concept
So you can like approve the traction there and later on you can build your like you can have like a some team of
Designer that will be building
like a your
Custom UI design. So I think it will be a good starter because
Time to develop and time to market will be much shorter if you are using like a watch is already built
And it's already been proved that he's working. So you don't have to think about it
I wasn't a react developer before I started this later sat by I wrote everything in vue.js, which is
In my opinion much superior. You don't have to think about
like re-render cycles or
Or any of these hooks. It just works. It's easy
So I had to learn react, which is which is fine. I get it. I understand it like
it's great my
My only problem with using Polaris is
Like you are saying I don't have any design input. It just it's all boring. It all looks the same as Shopify, which
It's good and it's bad
I I wouldn't like a little bit more input, but if that's how Shopify want it that's how Shopify want it and
It keeps the merchants happy keeps them in the same like environment
That's fine. I'd spend most of my time reading the doc. So like how does this component work?
Yeah, that's true
I got your point about like being boring. That's true. And also sometimes when you are offering more customization
people are will be
Not utilizing the components as you expected for example
If they offer more customization option
People are will be using it on the other way. That's Shopify expect them to be working
So they're like a restructuring the number of customization that you can do so people can use it as
Shopify want them to be used
I got the point about being boring. It's true because every apps really looks the same
You don't have like a lot of input. It's in like, for example, you will have like some
Let's say the badge you will have some a list of bad that tones that you can only use for example
For a button, you will have like a tree variant or for variant primary secondary tree or tree and
And that's it. So you have to use them if you don't use them
You need to build something custom which does the exam. So it's like a trade-off. So there is like a pros and cons
To be able to if you would like to see build something custom
You can go this out, but it will be taking you time
if you want like a faster and
Like a good way to people to just get something done, you can use valorize
it's like some
You have to choose one of the path
When so when you're using Polaris are you using any other?
like
Styling as well, like are you throwing tailwind in there or you're just writing custom styles as well
Sometimes I like a some application or some components. I will be using tailwind for that
so it will be like a maybe some mix of Polaris and
Tyluin but she will be because it's been a long time since I like I was running CSS
And Tyluin is just I already like I've been familiar with so sometimes it just will be mixing Polaris and
And Tyluin CSS as for some I would say some common use case that
There is not like a not a Shopify component that will do that for me
So I just need to figure out a way to be able to do it myself
But it's not like something that is I would say
Ui for example, you just need something maybe to do with the custom height or
Maybe some great the layout that I would like to have that is I need to figure out a
Solution for that using Polaris. So it does make sense to be able to just use Tyluin CSS for that
Yeah, yeah, okay. That's good because I I've been using it in my latest app and
Most of the time I'm just using it for like margin and padding between elements because
I can't figure out how to do it in Polaris and I'm just like, that's too hard. Let's just
Let's just put a margin top three on this
It works
Rapid and div just good move on
Makes sense
and
So I think we already mentioned
everything about Polaris the trade-off of
The what do you think is
Needed to be able to have a good
Uplistin for your Shopify application if you are building it right now because
Uplistin is one of the things that you need to focus on is your marketing landing page of your Shopify application
So what do you think is needed or he need to be able to be careful with when you are
building the Uplistin
I would say
your initial run of your app listing
is
Not hugely important because it's going to change like you should be tracking like how
How well you're ranking and changing it based on that like if you your keywords that you're putting in there like you should be
Doing research for your competitors doing
Sort of matching those but you don't want identical things. You need to stand out
like
Yeah, everyone can make it an image and we write some pretty tech chat gbt or regular some text
That's great, but you need to be going back and actually iterating on it. Like you can't just leave it
and just expect it to go up in the rankings
Makes sense. Yeah, it's like a and it will be a continuous iteration of
Like the Uplistin because you need to change it and to track it using google analytics to see
Why because you might like have a higher bounce rate because of
Maybe the keyword is ranking well, but it's not convergent. So maybe it could be
Yeah, you could be getting could be getting the people in like you could be ranking well for the keywords
Which is great and then they come in and like your
Your feature section doesn't attract them enough like you may need to alter that
Or maybe you are ranking for a keyword, but the application is not offering that keyword in the feature
For example, you are offering sms integration, but you don't have like a ranking for sms integration
But you don't have sms integration. Maybe it could be
Yes. Yeah, so those sort of things you're initial run if you're launching an app now like
It's probably gonna change in a week
Just like all your code that you're writing if you if you're writing code and you know
Like, you know, you're gonna throw away in a week. You're gonna write better code
It might be anyway, because you know, you're gonna throw it away. So
You're gonna refactor it refactor your listing page. Yeah, it's the same concept as yeah, that's a good thing
Yeah, and we mentioned the vibe coding and I would love to get your take in vibe coding because
it's been
I I'm not seeing as a
A hype currently because it's been like a maybe over three months or something to be able
That's people are wiping with the code and there's like a some
One yc competitor video about vibe coding. So what is your take about vibe coding? So
And do you think is it enough to be able to build as an application a production one?
Yeah, I
I'm probably very much against it all like I I see a lot of it on social media and I don't even
I don't do social media. I stay away from all that because
it's
I want to code. That's what I'm here to do. I I enjoy writing code
So I I see all these people vibe coding like the whole application that they think is production ready
Which is just hard coded a bunch of variables and like api keys and they were in it fully in javascript
So it's all visible to the browser
If you don't know what you're writing and you don't understand it, it's not you're never going to be able to scale it
it's
I think vibe coding is good if you want to do like an mvp
It will get you get it out like a non-coder could
Sort of do it which is great an mvp and then
Don't try launch that
It's not going to be great. You could get like a few people on there to give you initial feedback and the direction but
Not it's not there yet. I think it's going in the right direction, but
For me, it's not there yet
Makes sense. I think I agree with you about this point. It's not good yet. It's not good enough. And also if you are not technical
I think you should know the basic of programming
I think you just know what
the
The model is writing for you because maybe they are exposing some epi key in the front end. That is critical
so
You will have some issue. Maybe you will get a high bill from ews because you expose your epi key
So people I will be using your s3 bucket as a archive for this stuff
So maybe you think about this stuff and I'm see there is like a path to be able to
Have it in the next maybe few months or few years. I'm not sure about that
But it's currently good enough to be able to have a production ready application that is scalable and secure because
One of the things that is I would say that I'm concerned about is security
So exposing stuff stuff in the UI that shouldn't be in the in the front end. So this is very critical stuff
So also if you are not technical you might not know that is wrong
so
Maybe it's in what you are seeing because not technical people. We just know what they are seeing
But behind the scene or the that code that's run this stuff to be able to view that
Stuff that you are seeing right now is not good enough for a production application
It's good for a vp and proof of concept
But it's not good for launching application and getting user because you might get screwed because of that
Yes, I I completely agree with you like it could be writing anything for you like even like it
A docker file and it just might open a random port for you and you don't know what that means. You don't know what line
line
That's on you don't understand
You've just now opened an entry for for someone to take it down
Yeah, that's true
I've talked to lots of people like I I do demos for assessing sites and I've talked to lots of like app owners and I talked to one
one guy who
Basically vibrated his whole app and his database was a google sheet
And I'm just like what is going on here. You need to switch that to like an actual database
like come on
Yeah, it's scary
I can imagine the latency and the the schema for that database
Yes
I cannot stress enough the people that are using it
Because I mentioned it's good for MVP. So if the people if the owner like an
Test application is working, but it's not like a something that is scalable. It's not good enough
Even if you would like to get some user because
They will have like a lot of shit in your stuff because you will be exposing access token in the google sheet
So that's worse than exposing it in database
I know yeah, I completely agree with you. I I also think like the
prompt in
Like a normal editor where it prompts you to write the next line
I'm not a big fan of that either because most of the time I had it turned on today because my id did update
And it like I stopped and then waited and it wrote the line for me
So most of the time I'm just stopping waiting like I'm not actually doing anything. I'm just pressing tap
So I turned that off very quickly because I started writing it before it was writing it
I mean
It's not doing anything like I can write it in the same amount of time. It's writing it
Like yes, I guess like boilerplate to be generated, but like normal everyday code is just
It's what I that's what I like to do. Why why would I let someone else do it?
boilerplate yes, I completely agree
Yeah, I'm I'm using like currently I'm using ai to be able to assist me for
Some stuff admin of the stuff for example
Maybe there's some repetitive stuff or some UI stuff that I just wouldn't like to have
The overall layout, but sometimes I don't like the output of like the the model
So I just stop it and the right to myself
And do you think vibe coding or using a assistant
Made you feel that you are dumb because you will not be writing code
And you will just be copying and pasting code and maybe
You don't really the cold line by line
So it will be like a losing that
That flame of building the application
That's yeah
I don't usually use it for like writing code if I'm writing something that doesn't matter
That I'm going to throw away in like two minutes and I don't need to know how it works
Like the actual raw details like I'll
Generate it copy paste it use it. I don't need to waste my time to
To figure that out, but yeah
Most of the time it just it doesn't know the context of everything
I'm trying to do like I've got thousands of files in some apps
And it's just like it's never going to know about this thing over in the other place
And what makes that unique that we have to do it this way it just
Yeah
Yeah, it makes sense. That's true. And sometimes because it doesn't have a lot of causes
So you will have inconsistent code
Structure, maybe you are doing it
This way in this folder or this
utility function, but you are doing it the other way using this function. So it will be
Yeah, very inconsistent
Yeah, and consistent in terms of like the the code which is not good if you are like a good life to just get the application
But it's good. Yeah, there is like a some good use case for AI
And hopefully it's not the time to be able to replace as full time
No, it's it's going to be lots of people like vibe coding stuff
And then it's going to like take off and then any real developer to come in and make it better
So I I don't think it's going to take over our jobs any time soon
Yeah, I think it will just like
Increase the level of barrier for a good developer because
If you are like a dust doing x as developer right now
You should be doing like a 2x or 3x as developer because there is like a someone helping you assistant with some stuff
So it does need to be better. So there's like I would say
A big like a bigger expectation for a developer right now before this AI wave or like a vibe coding stuff
Yes, yeah, I agree. I I do think it has its place, but it's not gonna
It's not going to take a lot of jobs
Yeah, not soon even though all these people on social media. You recognize it
Like they're not in reality
yep
Like the reality is different and one of the things that I usually ask
In the later section of the podcast
It's what are the challenges and the lessons that you learn as someone building such application in this area. So
What are the things that you would like to say to
The earliest version of yourself when you start doing this house or like a tech entrepreneurship
So it's just like I would say reflection
I would say
Yeah, yeah, that's interesting
I would say
You don't need to sweat for the details
And spend more time outside
Spend more time with your family like it's it's valuable time like you don't need to work 70 hours
You can get it done. You can just
You don't need to do every single thing an mvp
That is really an mvp is fine. You don't need to do every feature
spend the rest of the time with your family
Hmm, that's great. That's interesting point to mention like
Yeah, it's like a unique one. It's like at the first time that I hear it over the podcast. Yeah, that's a great point because
At the end his family was married because
You are building this mvp to be able to have a good life or to make money or because you are enjoyed or both
So I think at the end of the time if you will be spending that money with your family
So you need to to spend some time with family because they are not like a there for a long time
So you need to spend some time with them. Yeah, because
Yeah, that's it. That's the whole point like we work really is to provide for for our family
Like I I don't really working 70 hours a day. I want to spend my time with my wife and my daughter. It's
That's what I want to do
I do
Do this in the meantime, maybe it'll take off. Maybe it won't take off
Hmm, that's a great point to mention. Yeah, it's really great point to mention interesting
And do you have like any resources that you would love to share with us or the audience as you currently listen to the podcast
Maybe books youtube channel
podcast
Right here, it's a great book. Okay, this is the best playbook
Rob. Yeah by Rob Worley
He runs like microcomf
Yes
Yeah, his book is is very good. I've also got like the lean startup next to my bed
It's a great book as well
um
Yeah, I like a lot of what Rob Worley does
Would recommend him
I didn't just get a different book the other day all about um personal
Personal development the power to be disliked or something
Are the courage to be disliked
Okay, I've heard it's very good and I have not I have not read it yet
Do you have any online resources that you would love to share with us?
I really don't do like any social media
I'm it doesn't have to be social media. It doesn't have to be social media
Maybe like a community that is online. Maybe already like maybe I'm thinking of
Top of mind. Maybe the indie hacker community if you already know it
Oh, yeah, uh, yeah, so the the only really community that I
I participate in a lot is
The php australia community
so for like php and lara vote like a
I would say um in that I go to the lara con in australia. I'm friends with the with the owner
the runner organizer
Which is which is great. I
um, I was thinking of submitting a talk this year to that but I
I don't know like I pitched him the idea of talking about sass implications
And he was like businesses and their employees here. Why would we send?
Why would I give you a talk about leaving a business and starting your own?
I was like, ah, yeah, that's what it makes and that's back
We cover great go round for your story
And you mentioned great point and think people will be benefits from that
and for people that would love to connect with you
If you have something that people can go to you
Even it's like a maybe your personal website. It doesn't have to be social media
Yeah, I I'm on linkedin. You can find me on linkedin
It's just search my name and you'll probably find me
um
Yeah, that's probably the best way to find me. I don't do any other social media if I do it's
I've probably written a script to do it
Okay, that's it
So I think I will be putting all the link that we mentioned in the show notes
So if you are listening from youtube, you will see that in the video description
If you are listening from apple podcast purify or amazon music, you will find that in the show notes
So you can just go there and check it out. Also, we have the official website of the other let's go podcast
So you can check it out
You can get lists of all the podcasts as we have and you will have also the show not there
So thank you so much Benjamin for
Spending the time with us to be able to share your story and
It was a pleasure to be able to host you for this episode and to share your story
With the all the stuff that you mentioned and the grace point that you cover for this episode
And this is your take for the last word
Thank you very much for having me. It was uh, it was an honor my first uh podcast. I feel like I'm I'm thrown in
That's great. That's great to you