Failing Thrice, Then Building A $40K/Month Shopify App By The Age Of 25
Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?
Hey! I’m Mat De Sousa. I’m 25, live in Paris, and founded WideBundle. WideBundle is a Shopify App that I created in May 2020. I was in my last year of engineering school and had to do an internship, but I asked if I could build a company instead of doing it. And they agreed!
WideBundle helps Shopify merchants create bundles and offers on their Shopify store to increase their average order value. We make people earn more!
If you don’t know what Shopify is, it’s a platform that makes creating an online store easy. Anyone can start selling without technical knowledge, and what’s fantastic is that Shopify allows developers to create modules that merchants can install to get more features. We can then put our app into the Shopify App Store and reach millions of merchants!
WideBundle wasn’t my first Shopify App. We have to go back to 2017 when I discovered Shopify. I learned how to make a Shopify App and made three apps that failed.
We didn’t have a lot of documentation about building an app when I started, and there was nothing about marketing, so I had to learn all by myself.
Today, WideBundle makes over $40,000 monthly, with 5 people working full-time. And I made a mission to help others build and grow their own Shopify App.
Because today I just want to be the guy I wanted to meet when I started ❤️
What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?
While learning, I built one Shopify App in 2017 and grew it to $1,000 MRR. However, I got stuck and didn’t know what to do. After a few months, Shopify made some updates, forcing me to shut down my app. So I consider this app a failure.
I thought I could grow Shopify Apps so I tried to build another one but failed. I wasn’t able to get a single user and had to stop it. I built a third one, but it failed the same way. No one wanted it. I had spent months working on the 2 apps. They were “perfect” in my opinion but it wasn’t good for the people. So I shut it down. Then I gave up, and only in 2020, when I had to do this internship, I decided to give Shopify Apps another try.
I used the same languages as the previous apps. Everything in HTML, CSS, Javascript, and PHP. No fancy language, just what I already knew.
But this time, I wanted to do it properly. I used Shopify Facebook Groups and communities to read people’s problems and questions, add comments and start conversations. It’s a long job that only a few people want to do, but it works.
At some point, I found 3 people who wanted the same thing but it didn’t exist in the Shopify App Store. They wanted features from a bundled app that didn’t exist. And if 3 people want it, maybe there are more.
And after collecting some information, I created a mockup to validate it. I opened Photoshop and designed what the app would look like. Validation was something I had never done for other apps, and I think it’s the reason why this one succeeded.
I then posted this mockup in a French Facebook group and asked people if they wanted it. I then asked a couple of friends to give some early engagement with a like and comment.
I then received over 100 comments!
I then contacted every comment by DM to know more about what they wanted. Not everyone replied, but it didn’t matter.
Then I started working on the app with the simplest version possible in 2 weeks. I contacted the people back, and only 10-12 took it. But it was the start of something.
Take us through the process of building the first version of your product.
I had a technical background because I learned to code when I was 13 to build stuff for video games. I wasn’t the best developer, and I’m still not. But I love to say that you don’t have to be the best. You just have to be good enough to build what you want.
Because, in the end, your users don’t care about it. They only care about what your product will do for them.
I also learned Photoshop, so the process was quite simple.
I started to write on a piece of paper what would be the product's first version because I wanted to release something fast. Then I took Photoshop and started to design the dashboard, the app widget, etc.
I coded the widget using HTML, CSS, and Javascript. I used Shopify API with the “script tag” endpoint so that my widget could be loaded into Shopify stores. It wasn’t that complicated, I learned how to do it in 2017 and Shopify became better at creating documentation.
I started with the widget and not the dashboard because it was not important initially. It allowed me to show people I was working on something. They don’t care about the dashboard. They care about how it will appear on their Shopify Store.
Then I finished with the dashboard, and in 14 days, I had something working. Not everyone on Shopify could use it because I focussed only on some people based on the messages I received. And for them, it was enough because they wanted it so badly.
My first users were the ones from the Facebook Group, and then I kept contacting people who commented and posted in the communities.
Today Facebook groups are a bit dead. I mean, they are not as good as before. But communities still work. You just need to do more work to find them.
There are still Facebook Groups but they can be private. This is the case for one of the groups I’m in where you have to take an e-commerce course if you want to be inside.
There are also Discord communities that are more trendy.
Today, most people come from word of mouth, Shopify recommendations, App Store searches, App partnerships, Influencers, Youtube, or even Twitter.
We diversified our acquisition channels.
I remember coding in a 1-room apartment because I had followed my girlfriend in southern France. She was doing a “real” internship, and we had to move.
It wasn’t a luxury but I had enough to build my business. Here is a picture of me in this apartment. The desk was right next to the bed.
Honestly, it wasn’t the best apartment. My girlfriend took it because it was close to her internship. But the place was not well-frequented and the smell was very strong. Anyway, I had a bed, a desk, and my computer so I was rich enough.
Describe the process of launching the business.
I never had an actual launch. When the app was working at 30% I started to get people in it. We had a lot of bugs so the first weeks were only for fixing the problems.
My first users were the ones from the Facebook Group, and then I kept contacting people who commented and posted in the communities. We slowly grew that way but after August, we started to have real traction when we launched the business with influencers and the Shopify App Store.
We already knew a few influencers and contacted the other ones. I also asked other people to introduce me to other influencers and the deal was simple: we offered 30% on average for all the users they referred. We created a system to track installations and they had a specific to share with their community. We had influencers posting on Instagram, sending emails, creating Youtube videos, etc.
They were influencers sharing tips on how to grow a successful Shopify store so it was a no-brainer for us.
Launching in the Shopify App Store was easy but took some time. Shopify wants your app to be perfect so they will reject your submissions for simple details (for example if you didn’t add a capital letter to “Shopify”).
And for some people, it can even take months. But most of the time, between 2 weeks to 5 weeks you get your submission approved.
We had to do a few changes regarding some broken links and changes in the listing to be accepted.
And most of my work here was to contact my users and listen to their feedback. They would explain what they wanted on the app, what wasn’t clear, and what wasn’t working.
And from there I would implement everything to make the app better. We had feedback regarding the dashboard design and new features.
It was like a huge snowball thanks to all these channels. In September 2020, we were already at $3,000 MRR; in December, we reached $10,000 MRR. It was my biggest success so far.
At that time, the website was a single landing page without any design and just a few texts explaining the product's value, but most people were directly redirected to the Shopify App Store.
I kept everything simple: 1 problem, 1 target, and 1 product. Nothing fancy. The goal was just to redirect people to that simple page from the groups. I didn’t work on SEO or stuff like that. The website was built in less than 2 days to serve only one purpose: Talking about the problem I was solving and redirecting to the App Store, that’s it.
And there were advantages to that: I was flexible, I could add new features quickly and it was cheap to run the business—only a few hundred dollars for the server, the tools, etc.
And I think I did it the proper way. If you’re not ashamed of the first version of your product, you launched too late. And I think that’s why I never had an actual launch because I didn’t wait to have something good enough. I just launched when I could do it.
Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?
The most important lesson (and the reason why my first Shopify App failed) is to read data. I used tools like Mixpanel to track every action my users take to understand how they use my app. It also allows me to break down the actions based on specific segments.
Using it I can monitor the business and understand what metric is wrong. Because most people focus only on acquisition but if you put water in a bucket with holes then you will lose it. It’s the same thing with the acquisition.
That’s why I wanted to focus on what comes after the acquisition. So I monitored a few numbers like the activation rate, the conversion rate, the number of people who uninstall the same day, the time it took to do the onboarding, etc.
With these metrics, I could see where the problem was. For example, initially, we had trouble with the activation rate because only a few people would use the app.
And when you know what is wrong in your business you can take the actions to fix these numbers and narrow the potential solutions. Because people who don’t track data will just take guesses, make an update and see that nothing changes.
So even before considering marketing tips or acquisition channels, we looked at more simple and specific things.
Then we never used ads. We didn’t have to. Facebook groups were enough for initial traction and then we launched on the Shopify App Store and influencers. And it was a huge snowball effect.
And one of the things we do better than anyone supports. We provide excellent support with great response time and custom replies. We try to go the extra mile so our users can be fully satisfied. It means every problem should have an answer, we can’t say to the user that we don’t have solutions.
Then using these conversations with the users we were able to understand what problems they faced during the installation and so we crafted a simple but powerful onboarding directly in the dashboard that we regularly change based on the metrics.
We regularly look at the activation rate to understand what we can do better.
Since then we started partnerships with other Shopify Apps because it worked well.
How are you doing today and what does the future look like?
We were lucky enough to be profitable since month 1. Today we are doing $40,000 per month with 5 people and we’re still growing.
Our primary focus for this year is churn and ARPU because they are 2 weaknesses of the business that would allow us to grow faster.
We average 60 installs per day with a 25% churn. The subscription is only $16 per month and we want to improve these numbers by the end of the year.
In 5 years I’d like to have multiple Shopify Apps (5 is the golden number) and generate more than $3M per year.
Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?
The goal was to create multiple Shopify Apps. We created WideBundle in May 2020 and I launched a second app in 2021: WideReview. But I under-expected the work for 1 app so we ended up with an app to maintain that isn’t working so well because we’re focused on the first app.
If I could start again I would focus only on 1 app and only after delegating the app completely would I start another one.
Focus is a necessary trait to have.
On the other hand, using data to track what happens on my app was the best move, and I recommend it to everyone.
What platform/tools do you use for your business?
We use Northflank for the servers. They helped us when we started to have hundreds of installs and didn’t know how to handle this.
We use Mixpanel to track our data, which is by far the best tool to do this for me.
We have Notion to structure our processes and Slack to communicate with the team.
The other tools are Klaviyo for emails, Loom for video recording, Sentry for bug tracking, Github for version control, Crisp for customer support.
What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?
The best book that could have saved me so many years is “Zero To Sold” by Arvid Kahl, who shares how he built and exited his SaaS business from creation to sale.
He shares a step by step processes that any new SaaS entrepreneur should read.
I also love the book “Contagious” by Jonah Berger to understand what makes a product viral.
And I will finish with the book “The Unfair Advantages” by Ash Ali & Hasan Kubba to know why some people succeed when others don’t.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?
Don’t procrastinate. Start with something and most importantly, start with a problem. With a problem, finding potential customers and selling your product is easier.
Then build an MVP, always, don’t try to make your product perfect. Build a working version of your SaaS and ship it quickly.
Track your data to understand what is happening in your business otherwise, you’re blind.
Where can we go to learn more?
The best place to follow me is Twitter where I share my products and my journey while teaching others to do the same.
If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!
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