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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

#81

Post by matsemann »

lolinder wrote: post #47
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.

It's worse than that—within 6 months of them starting to operate Shopify updated the ToS to make it clear that the app they already knew was a grey area was actually formally banned. They received an email that said they wouldn't be shut down right away, which the author took to mean "carry on!" Then Shopify's COO called them personally to tell them to knock it off, and they used a technicality in the phrasing of the…

Why should Shopify be allowed to decide what two other businesses (merchant and OP) willingly do just because they own the platform?

No, they shouldn't have to play whack-a-mole, I'd argue they shouldn't be allowed to.

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

#82

Post by spamizbad »

HWR_14 wrote: post #24
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…

I feel fairly confident your "insanely high amount" wasn't as high as you feel it was.

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.

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

#83

Post by xwdv »

wongarsu wrote: post #46
chefandy wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not even like they were making some cool thing that just happened to only run on AWS or something. It's more like: "We improved an important but comparatively small core feature of a huge, complex service built, owned, run, maintained, and constantly improved by one company. They probably had our whole business on a Trello card in their long-term project board from the moment we started. Then, out of nowhere, th…

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…

Heh, deep company backlogs are a great place to mine for startup ideas.

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

#84

Post by henry2023 »

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.

"After everything, I still believe that Shopify built their platform and they should be able to do whatever they want with it."

He acknowledges this in the post.

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

#85

Post by axus »

chefandy wrote: post #26
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.

It's not even like they were making some cool thing that just happened to only run on AWS or something. It's more like: "We improved an important but comparatively small core feature of a huge, complex service built, owned, run, maintained, and constantly improved by one company. They probably had our whole business on a Trello card in their long-term project board from the moment we started. Then, out of nowhere, th…

After reading the article, I think the turning point was when Terms of Service were unilaterally changed to forbid selling his service to new customers. If he'd been permitted to keep selling to new customers, he'd have been able to continue.

Would a good analogy would be Apple banning other web browsers on iPhone, because they are an important part of the iPhone experience?

His conclusion was that this was a limited time opportunity, which he profited from and it has come to an end.

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

#86

Post by lolinder »

drited wrote: post #63
lolinder wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worse than that—within 6 months of them starting to operate Shopify updated the ToS to make it clear that the app they already knew was a grey area was actually formally banned. They received an email that said they wouldn't be shut down right away, which the author took to mean "carry on!" Then Shopify's COO called them personally to tell them to knock it off, and they used a technicality in the phrasing of the…

Aren't authorised? You seem to be way to accepting of authority for my liking. We should be rooting for the small guys like this who shake monopolies out of their complacency.

I'm perfectly happy for someone to shake up a monopoly. I'm not okay with people acting entitled to do so on top of someone else's platform when that someone else has made it clear they're not welcome.

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

#87

Post by sjducb »

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…

This guy clearly made several million euros. That’s a massive win.

Sure founding a billion euro company is better, but if you don’t have a billion euro idea then starting a million euro company is worthwhile.

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

#88

Post by WJW »

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.

Financial technology has you covered: spend your finite life energy providing the feature until the bigco implements it themselves, then buy an annuity with the profits you made in the meantime.

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

#89

Post by pixl97 »

HWR_14 wrote: post #24
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…

I feel fairly confident your "insanely high amount" wasn't as high as you feel it was.

Better than 0 I guess

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

#90

Post by smilespray »

axus wrote: post #85
chefandy wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not even like they were making some cool thing that just happened to only run on AWS or something. It's more like: "We improved an important but comparatively small core feature of a huge, complex service built, owned, run, maintained, and constantly improved by one company. They probably had our whole business on a Trello card in their long-term project board from the moment we started. Then, out of nowhere, th…

After reading the article, I think the turning point was when Terms of Service were unilaterally changed to forbid selling his service to new customers. If he'd been permitted to keep selling to new customers, he'd have been able to continue. Would a good analogy would be Apple banning other web browsers on iPhone, because they are an important part of the iPhone experience? His conclusion was that this was a limited…

Apple bans other browser engines because can they run arbitrary code, which is not allowed per the store rules. They are fine with other browsers on top of WebKit.
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