Background

• 30+ immigrant, unemployed for a few weeks now
• 10+ years product/ux design experience
• First-time founder
• day 367ish of this journey
• 3430 hours worked on this app myself (1956 hours in 2025 + 1474 hours in 2026)
• Savings poured into R&D

Results

• Hit 400 active merchants
• Got a handful of heart-warming reviews, especially about our UX
• Fewer theme compatibility headaches after a team change (huge relief)
• Seeing more organic clicks from SEO/AEO surprisingly. SEO still feels like flying blind to me.
• Forced to work on my app full-time due to the layoff a few weeks ago

Challenges

• Merchants liked us about our simplicity, but our features are NOT rich/powerful enough yet comparing with the competitors existed for 5-10 years
• We're attracting more starters and less mature merchants
• Feature prioritisation is mostly based off customer support tickets & gut feeling.
• Backlog feels endless

Mental stuff

• Every time we released a new feature, I thought things would be easier. In fact it's just consistently hard 😄
• Noticing myself mentally procrastinate doing marketing work. e.g. I should've posted on Linkedin 2 weeks ago
• It's a mental game. You got to know yourself and got to know how to make yourself to move forward.

Goals of the upcoming 3 months

• 600+ new active merchants in the next 3 months
• 20+ total reviews by the end of September

Anyone going through similar journey? Solo founder? Women in the Shopify space?

My Shopify App

Here's my current workflow:
Script writing → Me
Recording & voiceover → Me with Screen Studio
Video to exact Subtitles/SRT → AI
Captions → Remotion Subtitle

It's still super time consuming to do video tutorials. I'm hoping to cut down the time from 5 hours to maybe 1-2 hours per video.

Do you have alternative ways of doing that?

from my experience Intercom isn't perfect (e.g. messages are not consistently showing up on the list, message from my app goes to my website live chat box)
it's an expensive software but all kinds of small problems.
Fin answers the questions but not really solving my problem
when asking for human agents, there were no reply for days

i'm sure that there are probably a few things that i didn't do right myself, but they just seem to not care about their users at all

is there a reliable one that you use for your startup? i need the AI chatbot plus the regular chatbox feature

found some winning ai apps published in the recent year (specifically those ones with a tiny team or even solo founders like myself) and dived deeper into their marketing channels

legal and illegal things they did to drive growth

• One app publicly admits that they hired 5–10 Shopify store owners on Upwork to "trial + give feedback + leave reviews"
• Cold-start channel commonalities Top 3: ASO · GEO · Upwork-reviews
• Founder personal blog + monthly MRR disclosure (build-in-public)
• Primary keyword SEO + GEO optimization (own 1 word in the first 30 days)
• Pick 1 vertical that "general AI does poorly" to build reputation
• "Built for Shopify" badge = algorithm-promoted entry ticket
• No reliance on paid ads + affiliate. The cost structure of indie apps dictates that "content + ASO + word-of-mouth" is the main battlefield.

https://preview.redd.it/f0ksmc0lzg3h1.png?width=2176&format=png&auto=webp&s=bc51350998aeeebdb223d2da1ea526bdee52bd32

https://preview.redd.it/p2bpop200h3h1.png?width=2186&format=png&auto=webp&s=4219c1f03555f3674be3e54acec6fd38a638b69c

I've worked on this app for 2500+ hours.

I've tried most of the obvious marketing channels: SEO, Google/Meta ads, content, outreach, etc.

Around Christmas 2025, I got a handful of paying customers, which felt like real validation.

But things have not gotten easier.

The app now has 200+ active installs, but retention is not where I want it to be. Features ship slower than I expected. Shopify setup complexity is much deeper than I thought. Every feature touches edge cases, merchant workflows, theme differences, and support questions.

A little over 2 months ago, I made the app completely free.

I thought that would remove friction and increase installs much faster. The reality is: even when your app is free, you still don't automatically get flooded with users. You still have to do marketing. You still have to earn trust.

You still have to ship. You still compete with apps that already have reviews, rankings, and brand recognition.

The highs are real, like when a merchant leaves a 5-star review.

The lows are also real, like when someone says your app "smells like a scam"

Have you ever had a moment as a solo founder where you genuinely wanted to give up, even just for a second?

https://preview.redd.it/9tqp6a4sro2h1.png?width=1778&format=png&auto=webp&s=2c1241fd58e3c49db35179d9c10bb1e15976598c

I don't understand...
It hurts...

https://preview.redd.it/08vz4flcwg2h1.png?width=946&format=png&auto=webp&s=db71c2adb5a15d3f1a1910d503b153844be3b71c

https://preview.redd.it/dv0wo5p5wg2h1.png?width=906&format=png&auto=webp&s=8a66c55a03916cefedf8dd7e962ea2c2b8716aea

there're constantly updates from Shopify
theme updates
Merchant's store there're 100+ shopify themes, and also many 3-rd party themes, etc
it's really a pain to ensuring all the themes work, and also work reliably when updates are made

we do live customizer (aka live preview) on the product image area and that needs to find the selector of different themes

for anyone has experienced similar situation, I'm crying for help

is there a reliable, systematic approach there? or is it mostly going to be manual update each time?

for us, trying to cover the 95%+ the theme compatibility is painful and challenging
Shopify constantly make updates and changes
merchants constantly make changes to their stores and themes

sometimes it feels too difficult when you want to make sure everything is perfect and polished

what's the challenge part in your daily development life?

source from storeleads and summarised by Claude code

Insight 1: Denmark B2B density is #1 globally (Most counterintuitive)

B2B stores as a share of each country's total Shopify stores, ranked:

• 🥇 Denmark: 12.18% (2,125 / 17,445)
• 🥈 New Zealand: 11.38% (2,926 / 25,714)
• 🥉 Australia: 10.98% (15,029 / 136,932)
• Canada: 10.82%
• France: 8.85%
• USA: 8.65%
• UK: 7.93%
• Germany: 5.32% (Europe's largest industrial economy, yet surprisingly low density)
• India: 3.87%
• Spain: 3.01% (lowest)

Insight 2: 130K 'Dual-Channel Merchants' — DTC-Facing, B2B-Operating

• 142,530 stores have Wholesale/Retailers Page
• 12,044 stores distribute via the Faire platform
• ~130,000 stores run their own wholesale operation (independent of wholesale marketplaces)

The wholesale entry point for these stores is invisible to regular consumers — same Shopify backend, same inventory, but with dedicated wholesale pricing and dealer portals. This is the most underestimated ecosystem on Shopify.

Insight 3: $100B B2B GMV (conservative lower bound)

• 210,572 B2B stores have revenue data
• Median annual revenue: $474K
• p75 annual revenue: $3.46M
• p90 annual revenue: $14.76M

Insight 4: 19% of Shopify Plus stores are B2B

• Platform-wide Plus stores: 73,428 (2.55% of the full platform)
• Plus share among B2B stores: 6.55% (2.6× the platform average)
• 🎯 Flipping it around: of 73,428 Plus stores, 19% are B2B merchants

Shopify's 2022 launch of Shopify B2B (a Plus-exclusive feature) was no accident — they already knew that nearly 1 in 5 high-end customers were doing wholesale/B2B. This was a data-driven strategic move.

Insight 5: The 10 Most Surprising B2B Categories

• Office supplies: 11,975 stores
• Business services: 8,678 stores
• 🌱 Agriculture & Forestry: 7,826 stores ← 3rd largest!
• Industrial materials & equipment: 6,272 stores
• 🧪 Chemical industry: 4,602 stores
• Security products: 3,531 stores
• Renewable energy: 2,361 stores
• Construction & maintenance: 2,247 stores
• Packaging: 1,974 stores
• Military / Defense: 1,619 stores

Agriculture is #3, chemicals is #5, renewable energy is #7. Procurement teams in these traditional industries are placing Shopify orders for animal feed, industrial solvents, and solar panels.

Insight 6: The Historical Footprint of Shopify Wholesale Channel Launching in 2016

• 2015: 1,241 new B2B stores created
• 🚀 2016: 17,359 (+1,299%)
• 2017: 12,082 (pullback)

When Shopify launched the Wholesale Channel in 2016, new B2B stores jumped 13× that same year — the clearest example of a platform feature driving merchant behavior.

The second acceleration from 2023–2025 (21K → 25K → 29K) corresponds to the ongoing maturation of Shopify B2B (a Plus-exclusive feature).

Insight 7: B2B App Blue ocean signal for developers

Annual installs for apps containing the keyword 'B2B' in their description:

• 2021: 31 installs
• 2022: 120 (+287%)
• 2023: 765 (+538%)
• 2024: 1,275 (+67%)
• 🔥 2025: 2,028 (+59%)

Growth trend: B2B New stores created YoY

• 2020: 22,333 (+35.3%)
• 2021: 22,471 (+0.6%)
• 2022: 17,837 (−20.6%, post-pandemic pullback)
• 2023: 21,412 (+20.0%)
• 2024: 25,203 (+17.7%)
• 🏆 2025: 29,304 (+16.3%, all-time high)
• 2026 first 4 months: 8,996 (annualised ~27,000, on par with 2025)

was curious on how many apps do stores use, here's what i found

• Top 1,000 (highest traffic): avg 26.1 apps, median 26, 90th pct 37
• Top 1%: avg 18.5 apps, median 18, 90th pct 28
• Top 10%: avg 13.6 apps, median 13, 90th pct 20
• Top 25%: avg 11.8 apps, median 11, 90th pct 18
• Middle 50%: avg 8.0 apps, median 8, 90th pct 12
• Bottom 25%: avg 6.4 apps, median 5, 90th pct 11
• ALL Shopify: avg 8.6 apps, median 8, 90th pct 14

The most tightly coupled pairs (all stores)

• Apple Pay ↔ Google Pay: 91% / 99% — essentially always together
• Google Analytics ↔ GTM: 93% — GA almost always deployed through GTM
• Google Analytics 4 ↔ UA: 100% — GA4 never deployed alone
• Facebook Pixel ↔ Google Ads Pixel: 86% / 53%

What changes in top 10% stores

• Stores with judge 90% also run Google Ads Pixel
• Stores with TikTok Pixel: 92% also run Google Ads Pixel
• Stores with Pinterest Pixel: 91% also run Google Ads Pixel
• Stores with Klaviyo: 89% also run Google Ads Pixel

90%+ of stores using any of these apps are also running Google Ads. At the top tier, paid search is essentially table stakes — everything else gets layered on top of it.

TikTok Pixel co-occurs with Google Ads at 92% in high-traffic stores. TikTok isn't replacing Google — it's added on top of an existing paid acquisition stack.

The 'standard kit' in the top 10%

• Checkout: Apple Pay + Google Pay + Shop Pay + PayPal (all four, ~70-90% rate each)
• Paid acquisition: Google Ads Pixel + Facebook Pixel (~70% run both), TikTok Pixel (~30%)
• Email: Klaviyo (41% of top-10% stores vs 14% across all stores)
• Reviews: judge Me (25% of top-10%, dominant over Yotpo)
• Tag deployment: Google Tag Manager (50% of top-10% stores)

What's mostly absent even in top stores

• A/B testing tools: <1%
• Personalization engines: <1%
• Dedicated search tools: <0.5%

NOTE THAT IT'S SUMMARISED BY CLAUDE CODE AND DATA FROM STORELEADS

our current cost breakdown of using digital ocean

1. Managed database ($36 per month)
2. front-end droplet for prod ($24 per month)
3. back-end droplet for prod ($24 per month)
4. front-end droplet for staging ($6 per month)
5. back-end droplet for staging ($6 per month)
6. object storage ($5 per month)

total is $110 including Australian GST

we have less than 200 merchants with us now and the app is currently free, so looking for a more cost-effective way

i'm a non-technical app founder so i may use inaccurate terms here

what's your cost looks like? and are you happy with it?

The top 10 themes:

1. Dawn — 115,766 stores (22.3%)
2. Debut — 29,508 (5.7%)
3. Custom theme — 25,120 (4.8%)
4. Prestige — 15,306 (2.95%)
5. Impulse — 14,053 (2.71%)
6. Craft — 11,337 (2.19%)
7. Horizon — 10,971 (2.12%)
8. Refresh — 10,819 (2.09%)
9. Spotlight — 8,692 (1.68%)
10. Sense — 7,712 (1.49%)

Free vs paid (of the 341,866 stores where pricing was identifiable):
- Free: 236,174 (69%)
- Paid: 105,692 (31%)

Top 15 paid themes:

1. Prestige
2. Impulse
3. Symmetry
4. Ella
5. Impact
6. Warehouse
7. Broadcast
8. Empire
9. Pipeline
10. Motion
11. Focal
12. Be Yours
13. Kalles
14. Expanse
15. Venue

Developer market share:
- Shopify official: 236,174 (45.5%)
- Maestrooo: 30,577 (5.9%)
- Archetype: 27,755 (5.3%)
- Starter: 10,613 (2.0%)
- Clean Canvas: 6,755 (1.3%)
- Pixel Union: 6,436 (1.2%)
- Groupthought: 4,752 (0.9%)
- The4: 3,240 (0.6%)