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Bootstrapping to €600k MRR and getting killed by Shopify: Checkout X

leteyski.com

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Re: Bootstrapping to €600k MRR and getting killed by Shopify: Checkout X

#101

Post by Philpax »

sdfghswe wrote: post #96
jcollins1991 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good afternoon - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> Good afternoon - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Yes, good afternoon. Have you actually read what you're linking? > Please don't complain that a submission is inappropriate. If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it. Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead. If you flag, please don't also comment that you did.

> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.

Re: Bootstrapping to €600k MRR and getting killed by Shopify: Checkout X

#102

Post by CPLX »

brianwawok wrote: post #19

Well, I can relate as I just got an email that Shopify changed their partner TOS today because of me. They had demanded that I add a negative keyword "Shopify" to all of my Google ads. I declined, because - it wasn't in our partnership agreement and I in fact DID want clients who used Shopify to find my business. (I am in the e-commerce space selling a product that works for many marketplaces including Shopify). Just…

So you have to exclude the word Shopify, or just not use it?

Like if you bid on the phrase "Checkout Software" and people searching for "Shopify Checkout Software" were reaching you that would be against the TOS? You'd have to tell Google to suppress your ad from reaching people in that way?

Or you're just not allowed to bid on the word "Shopify" if you're a partner or whatever?

The latter seems inappropriate but at least arguable to some extent.

But the former, where you're actually required to suppress the results, seems anti-competitive to the point of being actionable, and is certainly not an ethical business practice.

Curious which one it is.

Re: Bootstrapping to €600k MRR and getting killed by Shopify: Checkout X

#103

Post by dangus »

orasis wrote: post #61
wongarsu wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can still be a great business strategy, as long as you're aware of exactly the points you outlined. You just can't run a normal startup strategy of subsidized growth, instead you have to rush through the product lifecycle towards cash cow status and make hay while the sun is shining. Once $bigcorp kills your business by implementing their backlog you pivot to something else, with the advantage of already having a…

I wouldn’t call it a “great” business strategy if your shelf life is limited. We have a finite amount of life energy to put into our businesses and I’d prefer to give it to something that can generate an annuity.

Almost all businesses have a limited shelf life and/or a business cycle of growth and decline. The scale is just different.

Does Exxon stop drilling for oil just because it won’t be possible someday?

Re: Bootstrapping to €600k MRR and getting killed by Shopify: Checkout X

#104

Post by sdfghswe »

Philpax wrote: post #101
sdfghswe wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Good afternoon - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Yes, good afternoon. Have you actually read what you're linking? > Please don't complain that a submission is inappropriate. If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it. Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead. If you flag, please don't also comment that you did.

> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.

> Please don't complain that a submission is inappropriate. If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it. Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead. If you flag, please don't also comment that you did.

Re: Bootstrapping to €600k MRR and getting killed by Shopify: Checkout X

#106

Post by alexfoo »

sharps_xp wrote: post #16

I'm impressed a single individual got to 600K MRR by himself. Only a few people can say that they've done that. Who knows when shopify would've taken their checkout experience seriously were it not for this guy. you can have interesting experience, build temporary things, be proud of it, and move on to the next thing.

He didn't get to 600K MRR by himself:

" The highest headcount we had a at a particular time was 16 people - all remote "

First hire came at "around 100 customers". So that was probably EUR10k/MRR given the average monthly revenue per store.

Still very impressive!

Re: Bootstrapping to €600k MRR and getting killed by Shopify: Checkout X

#108

Post by justinclift »

CharlesW wrote: post #66
matrix_overload wrote: post #4

This is a very expected outcome if you are creating your business around improving a larger business' product. You are effectively doing the product/market fit for them, for free. Once they see that your solution works, they will just knock it off, or ban you altogether. It used to be seen by companies as bad PR/karma a couple of decades ago, but not anymore.

> You are effectively doing the product/market fit for them, for free. Once they see that your solution works, they will just knock it off, or ban you altogether. Or buy you. https://9to5mac.com/2023/07/01/apple-shortcuts-workflow-mana... In this case, the TFA notes that Shopify offered the ISV a path forward and Mr. Leteyski chose "go to war" (Option B). He killed the business, not Shopify. He may chalk that up as a…

> Shopify offered the ISV a path forward ...

It sounded more like the "path forward" was to wait 2 years for the new Shopify APIs to come out.

That's not even slightly a credible in-good-faith option. :(

Re: Bootstrapping to €600k MRR and getting killed by Shopify: Checkout X

#109

Post by kubota »

nolok wrote: post #6

"I built my business on top of someone else's product without any gurantee whatsoever of being able to continue in the future, and when it became valuable for them to stop me they did". Doesn't matter if you're a twitter client, a facebook app, a shopify app, a reddit client or whatever, either what you offer is negligible, or you did their research for them and now they can take over.

I feel like many niche AI startups that use ChatGPT / X as their foundation might learn this the hard way.

Re: Bootstrapping to €600k MRR and getting killed by Shopify: Checkout X

#110

Post by altdataseller »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #29
spamizbad wrote: post #3

I'm not a business expert or an entrepreneur, but I've been around this industry long enough to know: Unless your intention is to flip your startup into an acquisition, I would recommend against plays like this. Specifically, tying yourself up to a closed ecosystem by building what amounts to a (albeit very nice and powerful) super-feature. I am saying this because I work for a large-ish company where someone did thi…

But at the same time, if you are bootstrapped, profitable and can iterate fast, building on top of an existing platform is a fantastic way to get customers. You have a captive audience, you can understand the market easily, and can launch products fast since the tech stack is already well defined. Not every business has to be sold for $100M or be around forever. A well-run bootstrapped startup like the OP’s can make…

Exactly, and people are forgetting what's the alternative? Doing absolutely nothing, twiddling your thumbs because you CAN'T find another good market opportunity and earning less?
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