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

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

#131

Post by davidw »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #43

I’m surprised at all the comments focusing on the negative here. I found the story inspiring: they bootstrapped a business, grew revenue, hired some people, and grew revenue further. The founder created value and captured some of that value. The fact that the business can no longer acquire new customers is sad, but it’s only a small part of the story. The founder’s 6 year journey is probably more interesting than wha…

Yeah, the story isn't one of those "THIS IS SO UNFAAAAAAIR" things. It's just a description of what happened.

Depending on the costs, 600,000 euros a month is pretty good even if it doesn't last forever.

> If I sound bitter - I’m not. I like Shopify. I own Shopify stock. I believe they’re completely dominating the e-commerce platform space and none of their current competitors stand a chance of catching up. I know they did what’s best for their business and this is the end I expected.

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

#132

Post by mcemilg »

> Our affiliate program was simple. You bring a customer and we pay you 15-25% of the revenue we make from that customer. Forever.

there is a very thin line between a pyramid/ponzi scheme and a generous affiliate program.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_scheme

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

#133

Post by altairprime »

shopi-throw wrote: post #128

I work at Shopify. This was inevitable. Shopify is Checkout. Checkout hijacks like this are taken extremely seriously because it diverts GMV and provides an inconsistent buyer experience that Shopify doesn't control. I'm honestly surprised the company didn't take stronger action here.

Taking stronger action would alienate the affected Shopify customers and create bad press for them. Their selected level of action is just sufficient to keep everyone happy except the one person that is their competitor. Presumably, then, they deemed it “insufficiently profitable” to shut the existing customers down.

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

#134

Post by ed »

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…

Atlassian has this policy for 3rd-party developers too. It feels pretty reasonable, to be honest. Developers still get to advertise against phrases relevant to their niche (and I have to imagine the keyword “shopify” would be a poor performer anyway unless you’re building a shopify competitor).

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

#135

Post by ed »

brianwawok wrote: post #119
shopify_throw wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been the case for years. You weren’t allowed to bid on any search terms related to Shopify on Google Ads. Lots of Partners did though.

You did not read my post. I did not bid on Shopify. I bid on "e-commerce sales" Shopify is insisting, and in the new terms mandating, I add a "Negative search term" of Shopify to my bid for "e-commerce sales" Go look up negative search terms if you aren't familiar.

You didn’t specify but I assume you are only required to add [shopify] (exact match) as a negative KW, which is very different from shopify (broad match).

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

#136

Post by Dylan16807 »

HWR_14 wrote: post #111
spamizbad wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a product built by 2 people it was enough for both of them to retire (albeit humbly) or seed a more ambitious company. Anyway, their best move was to take the money. They gambled that, even after noticing their work and our customer's feedback, we wouldn't turn around make our product better. They lost that bet.

That sounds about where I was thinking. You have to imagine that you're not paying as much for the product as a sign on bonus for the talent that has demonstrated the ability to improve the value of your product quite a bit over the four years of being locked in.

Enough money to retire on sounds even more like an "insanely high amount" when I think of it as a sign-on bonus.

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

#137

Post by J_Shelby_J »

davidw wrote: post #131
rahimnathwani wrote: post #43

I’m surprised at all the comments focusing on the negative here. I found the story inspiring: they bootstrapped a business, grew revenue, hired some people, and grew revenue further. The founder created value and captured some of that value. The fact that the business can no longer acquire new customers is sad, but it’s only a small part of the story. The founder’s 6 year journey is probably more interesting than wha…

Yeah, the story isn't one of those "THIS IS SO UNFAAAAAAIR" things. It's just a description of what happened. Depending on the costs, 600,000 euros a month is pretty good even if it doesn't last forever. > If I sound bitter - I’m not. I like Shopify. I own Shopify stock. I believe they’re completely dominating the e-commerce platform space and none of their current competitors stand a chance of catching up. I know th…

I don’t understand how Shopify can maintain market dominance as just a middleman value extractor. Probably why they’re forcing their app. I deleted my account and haven’t used Shopify since they wouldn’t let me get my order tracking any way besides the app. As someone who worked adjacent to logistics it was just the hardest hard “no” of all time for me. Money moves to easily now days to build a monopoly on e-commerce.

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

#138

Post by darkarmani »

lolinder wrote: post #42

The author set up a business in what they knew was a gray area. 6 months later the ToS were updated to explicitly ban what they were doing, and they got an email that pretty clearly implied that they would need to make major changes but wouldn't be shut down right away, but the author chose to interpret silence as authorization to keep scaling. About 8 months later Shopify's COO told them explicitly that Shopify didn…

> The COO of the company you've built your product on told you that they don't want you to keep running your business.

That doesn't sound like a reasonable request. It's not like the COO is paying them anything to stop running their business. Can you imagine if Microsoft shutdown, because IBM asked them nicely to stop their business back in the 80s?

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

#139

Post by darkarmani »

thinkingkong wrote: post #15

Theyre lucky they let this last as long as they did. Lots of other teams and products built on top of someone elses ecosystem havent been as lucky. I think the term we use for this is being “Sherlocked” back from when Apple copied Sherlock and turned it into spotlight. Anyway theyre joining the ranks of famously successful short lived products. Glad they made bank in the meantime.

And the quicksilver app (command+spacebar).

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

#140

Post by hintymad »

J_Shelby_J wrote: post #137
davidw wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the story isn't one of those "THIS IS SO UNFAAAAAAIR" things. It's just a description of what happened. Depending on the costs, 600,000 euros a month is pretty good even if it doesn't last forever. > If I sound bitter - I’m not. I like Shopify. I own Shopify stock. I believe they’re completely dominating the e-commerce platform space and none of their current competitors stand a chance of catching up. I know th…

I don’t understand how Shopify can maintain market dominance as just a middleman value extractor. Probably why they’re forcing their app. I deleted my account and haven’t used Shopify since they wouldn’t let me get my order tracking any way besides the app. As someone who worked adjacent to logistics it was just the hardest hard “no” of all time for me. Money moves to easily now days to build a monopoly on e-commerce…

Similar to how Alibaba did with Taobao and TMall in China and Southeast Asia? Aggregators do offer values.
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