u/Exotic_Pollution5870

I’m in my mid 30s and left my full time job around 2 years ago to build my own SaaS. I come from a tech background, so my thinking at the time was that building within an ecosystem with a clear distribution path would be easier than trying to build a standalone SaaS from scratch.

That’s what led me to the Shopify App Store.

In many ways, that decision helped. I could get installs organically. But it has also been a double edged sword. A lot of my time now goes into platform related issues, onboarding friction, Meta approvals, API limitations, policy changes, ranking fluctuations, review management, etc.

The current app is heavily dependent on two platforms: Shopify and WhatsApp/Meta.

Things haven’t exactly moved as fast as I expected though. I’m currently at around $800 MRR.

I’ve pivoted once during this journey.

Here’s roughly how the last 2+ years looked:

Months 1–3

Tried a few freelancing/consulting projects with the idea of identifying gaps worth building products around. Didn’t really find anything compelling.

Months 3–6

Built a free app for the Shopify App Store. Surprisingly, it did pretty well organically and eventually reached the first page.

Months 6–12

Decided to go bigger and built an email marketing + automation app for Shopify. Built and Published this app. Started some marketing alongside.

Months 12–18

Tried SEO, direct outreach, and content, but struggled to get meaningful conversions. Eventually realized the space was far more crowded than I had initially thought.

Months 18–24

Started monetizing the original free WhatsApp app by adding paid features and shifted focus from email automation to WhatsApp automation for Shopify stores. Grew from $0 to around $500 MRR.

Months 24–28

Mostly focused on onboarding improvements, fixing Meta/WhatsApp integration issues, reducing friction, and improving activation. Now at around $800 MRR.

What makes this difficult is that the app does solve a real problem. Some customers genuinely love it and get strong ROI from it. But growth feels painfully slow, and the market is extremely crowded.

At the same time, if I start another product today, there’s a high chance I’ll spend another year or so just getting back to this stage again.

So I’m honestly struggling to figure out whether this is simply what the journey looks like before things start compounding… or whether I’m just blinded by sunk cost fallacy and unwilling to let go.

If you were in this position, would you spend the next year doubling down on the existing product, or exploring entirely new ideas?

Would genuinely appreciate any thoughts from people who’ve been through this.

Hi everyone, I’m seeing something unusual and trying to break my head on this from past few hours 😞

A merchant upgraded to a paid subscription plan, but the subscription appears to be in Test mode on partner dashboard. Our appSubscriptionCreate mutation explicitly passes test: false, and even now when I test with other live stores, I don’t see the Test charge banner. Never had this issue before.

How could a merchant end up with a subscription charge in Test mode? Any insights would be really helpful.

--

Edit: Solved. It was a Shopify Staff store. It had a realistic name and billing plan name was Shopify Plus.

https://preview.redd.it/n5k5yhdk232h1.png?width=1453&format=png&auto=webp&s=8b35a8677b143747e2ef74c4a8577bd73ced787e

Hi Everyone! A customer is using Meta provided free number i.e. they selected Display Name only during embedded signup. Right now it shows the Meta number instead of Display Name. How much time does it usually take for the Business Display Name to be shown on the mobile app / desktop apps? Their Business Portfolio is verified and Display Name shows as "Name Visible to Customers" on WhatsApp Manager.

Hello everyone,

We are building a WhatsApp automation app for ecommerce brands, and one of our biggest blockers right now is onboarding customers through WhatsApp Embedded Signup.

We initially started with Gupshup APIs and had a joint solution with them. However, over the last few months, we noticed issues in their Embedded Signup flow. At one point, a different 3rd party entity name started appearing in their Embedded Signup, which made us cautious about depending fully on them.

Because of this, we built a direct Meta connection to onboard new customers. But now we are seeing drop offs due to Meta related issues during onboarding:

1. Some customers do not have a GST / Tax info to add in Business Details
2. Some customers face issues adding payment method. For some it works after few hours of adding Business Names and for some it fails even after few days.
3. Some customer use invalid display names even after sending the guidance, so we have started handholding onboarding to enusre they use correct names as displayed on their website, but that means scheduling a call with everyone in different timezones.
4. Each issue adds friction, and customers are more likely to abandon the setup. Every time we solve for a issue, something else shows up next time.

I wanted to ask a few specific questions:

1. Have you switched between working with BSPs and a direct Meta connection for your WhatsApp SaaS? What worked better for you?
2. Do you schedule onboarding calls and guide customers through the process, or do you keep it fully self serve with documentation and videos?
3. What does your onboarding success rate look like for WhatsApp API setup?
4. How do you handle display name rejection, payment method issues, and tax registration related blockers?
5. Would you recommend going back to a BSP to reduce onboarding friction, or is it better to keep improving the direct Meta onboarding flow?

Our onboarding success rate is currently less than 50 percent. I am trying to understand whether we are doing something wrong, or if this level of friction is common with WhatsApp API onboarding.

Any suggestions or experiences would be very helpful.