Dion Almaer

Software, Development, Products

Shopify

Web Developers are Shopify Developers

tl;dr By staying close to the Web platform, web developers can use all of their web knowledge, and use the latest features as they become available. There is a difference between using the web platform vs. web technologies, a subtle difference I have seen in the past. If we are doing it right, anyone can learn the technical side of Shopify quickly as it’s so familiar, and I have seen developers start as tinkerers through themes and small apps… but also see how the key component isn’t learning the tech, but learning commerce.

The Shopify Platform and Ecosystem is very aligned to the Web. We want to empower our merchants to be long term successful, and that means using all of the channels available, but ultimately driving the LTV with their customers, which means building the brand connection to them vs. aggregators such as Amazon. To do this, merchants need to differentiate, which is where developers come in. They make their commerce sites come to life. They empower the merchants through tooling. And this can be through the developer ecosystem providing functionality through their apps and themes, or through agencies helping customize directly, or with in house developers doing that work.

How can we enable this to work for our merchants and developers?

Stay close to the Web platform

The largest developer community in the world is the web developer community. It is as broad as is the Web itself, offering experiences from content to commerce to apps and even games. We want any web developer to look at building on the Shopify platform and instantly feel at home. You know how to work with backend APIs and JSON. You know how to handle layout. You know how to build on the Web.

If we are close to the web platform itself, Web developers have fewer technical details to learn before being productive, and spend more time on their commerce offerings.

And as the Web evolves, Shopify developers can quickly use new platform primitives without having to wait for the Shopify platform itself to use them.

Losing your Mojo

I have seen how this manifests in past lives. One example that tells the tale is the Mojo framework that you used to build the first applications for webOS. While it used JavaScript, CSS, and HTML, you couldn’t rock up with your jQuery and node knowledge and build something. You had to learn Mojo.

It’s tempting as a platform to build these abstractions, because you want to bake in knowledge of the platform into a “happy path” framework. But, be careful, as you are throwing away a huge number of advantages. One of the first things I did was hack webOS to allow me to just render a “normal” web application within the Mojo lifecycle.

With Shopify you can bring the knowledge of the Web with you.

Approachability

Some of us, who have seen the Web evolve over a couple decades, may bemoan parts of the platform. But I still contend that it’s the best platform to approach and start playing with. Part of this is because of the various entries to “development” on the Web.

I know a huge number of developers who started by hacking on some HTML. Some took their WordPress site and played with the themes. Then they built some plugins. And their journey continued from there. I often did this myself! The first version of SeekingAlpha was WordPress. Then we hacked on it to become a blog network. I was new to PHP at the time, and although it didn’t tickle my brain like Ruby and Perl did before… I had to see what it was about, and I couldn’t argue that it wasn’t productive.

We have this approachability at Shopify. You can start tweaking the theme for your store, or you can create your own one. Liquid is a templating library that is simple to use. You can go a long way in making your stores your own through themes, and then installing and customizing apps… including your own custom apps.

And for when you truly need customization that you aren’t able to get through the online store, you can build custom storefronts and reach for our own Hydrogen or other web frameworks. It’s all just talking to an API and building a web frontend after all!

We will always want to make building commerce experiences as simple as possible, giving you the canvas to bring your vision to life. We have so much more to offer here, as we open up the platform in new ways.

As I work with the developer community, I find that while the platform can and will improve, the key isn’t learning the tech, but instead…

Learning Commerce

If you think about an average shopping website, you quickly see that they are often quite different, and have many custom flows and options… they can be complex. I find commerce deceptively deep and broad, which is exactly why there are opportunities for so many merchants and developers, and so many niche use cases that can be large niches indeed.

When jumping into Shopify for the first time, you will want to put effort into understanding commerce and all of the surfaces that Shopify opens up for you.

It is important for us to help you learn the structure *and* opportunities of commerce.

There are many paths to get into Shopify development. As I meet more in the community I see agencies with commerce experts, former merchant developers, as well as entrepreneurial developers who dive in with passion to enable merchant growth and help make commerce great for everyone. 

I will talk more about the magic of agency developers in another post, but for now… if you are a Web developer, Shopify is here to enable you to leverage your web skills directly.

One reason I am so excited about the Shopify opportunity is that I think we can legitimately bring it to a massive population. Shopify can be both the most approachable platform for anyone new to development, and also offer all of the knobs and platform customization to let you build the most custom experiences imaginable.

/fin

The Shopify Entrepreneurial Developer

From Hello World to IPO

tl;dr We often talk about how Shopify supports entrepreneurs from the first day of their journey building a business all the way to huge merchants that grow to become unicorns, or go public, and are just plain successful. Now it’s time to show the role of developers in helping this growth, but also how our developers themselves can grow from sustainable businesses to having their own IPOs.

When I joined Shopify, I wanted to understand what was unique about the platform and ecosystem, and the role that developers play. Shopify is merchant obsessed, so it was important to understand the role of merchants.

Supporting the merchant journey

I was very excited at the long tail opportunity, and how we deeply care about helping someone from their idea around commerce all the way to becoming a huge merchant. In a general sense, you can see how the life cycle progresses, and how developers come into that journey.

  • Have an idea? To get started it’s as simple as creating your store on Shopify
  • There is a world of configuration available to you, and with free themes and apps available you can make your store yours
  • Once you make some sales and prove to yourself that this is working you can then decide to invest more. This ability to delay capital expenditures is really important, and can allow you to try a few things without the cost of each shot.
    • You can look at paid themes
    • You can outsource development to the app store and install apps that work for you from the ecosystem
  • Now your sales have gone from strength to strength, you can once again invest more:
    • Hire an agency that can help you really customize to your needs, building your own apps and themes
    • It may be time to hire an in house developer
  • As your needs for customization grow, you may find yourself wanting to build some headless commerce experiences, with your developers looking into Hydrogen and other options

You have as much as possible out of the box, and in the ecosystem, and you have room to expand along with your business. This is exciting, especially when you compare wanting to build an app and having to put $10k or more to get an MVP… and you have no idea of the returns.

It’s vital that we allow entrepreneurs to do more with less, helping them to prioritize both time and money.

Developers scale

If you look at the developers role in the life cycle above, you see how they help the entire ecosystem scale.

The core Shopify platform will always be looking to enable the core functionality that all merchants need.

It is also true that the platform itself will never be able to offer all of the customizations that merchants need. We won’t be experts in every niche that is “commerce”. Even if we were, the admin UI would grow to be unwieldy and infinite. At our heart we want merchants to be able to be creative, innovative and unique. We understand they need to differentiate. We understand that they want to build long term relationships with their customers. It is through this legion of commerce that we all differentiate from the large online silos that offer relatively similar transactional experiences.

This is where the entrepreneurial developer comes in.

You can find a niche that serves many merchants. It may not make sense for an individual merchant to build certain functionality as the cost doesn’t warrant the LTV boost. However, this is where the power of aggregation comes in. An entrepreneurial developer can build that functionality and sell it to many merchants, and now the math works out for everyone.

For example, a developer can build the functionality that allows you to point your phone at your feet, and you see what they look like with those socks or shoes on. Just like that, every merchant who sells footwear can get that functionality.

There are so many opportunities to come in and solve problems for merchants. You can target types of commerce, experiences and their brand, integrations, helping with conversion, helping them understand their business, making commerce more enjoyable and fun, and so much more.

Here are some exemplars, from solo founders to small teams who are at various stages of growth.

It’s a perfect time to become a Shopify Developer. You can build a business quickly, and with the growth that we are seeing, Harley won’t just be tweeting about the brands that are IPO’ing, it will be time to showcase you, the developers. Can you tell I’m excited?

/fin

Shopify Reflections: Learnings on my first Black Friday!

It’s my first Thanksgiving and Black Friday at a commerce company since my time at Walmart Labs. It’s always a reflective time and I found myself thinking about the initial months at Shopify. You never really know what a new place with feel like, no matter the process and time you get to spend during the recruitment period.

How has it been and what have I learned?

The developer opportunity is huge

I knew that Shopify was a rocket ship and how it was a platform for millions of merchants. What I didn’t fully understand before joining was the size of the developer opportunity. If you were looking to make a bet on an app ecosystem, and believe in the commerce space and helping entrepreneurs, I think the ROI is bigger diving in and building on Shopify compared to other platforms that are much more saturated and hard to get awareness on. With commerce you can find a niche that helps multiple merchants and build true win win situations. You help the merchants, and are in the critical flow of $$$.

I have been chatting with Shopify developers week on week and learning about their experiences ramping up and building to success. It is vital that we work together to improve the full developer success lifecycle:

  • Find an idea and validate it
  • Make it as easy as possible to build it fast
  • Get it in front of merchants so they can install it and now you work together to drive both of your businesses.

I am seeing small teams that build large businesses in short time frames, and large crews building a portfolio of products. There are theme developers who are able to build beautiful creations that fit the varied types of commerce, and agencies who are deep experts available to jump in to build the perfect commerce site that is individual and personal.

One experience that tells the tale occurred in my initial onboarding. One of the opportunities that everyone at Shopify gets as they start is to spend some time with merchants on the lines of support. It’s a genius move as you get to learn the product and build strong empathy with merchants. This was one of the many onboarding moments that showed how Shopify respects the opportunity. We are growing fast, but there’s so much room to improve.

One merchant was a coffee shop in a small town in Texas. The COVID pandemic forced them to pivot and they used Shopify to get online. At first they thought it was a way to stay in business and allow their locals to pickup their brew. But over time they started to explore options, courtesy of the app platform, and one was game changing. They installed a B2B wholesale app and started to see small bulk orders for their beans. Then the bulk orders got larger so much so that the reason they called support was to get some help with the performance of very large orders. This business transformed from a local coffee shop to becoming a global supplier.

Founders at the helm matter

I really love working at a place that still has strong founders at the helm. Tobi is incredible engaged and it’s so fun to see. Unlike other spots I have been in where founders got a lil distracted and often wanted to build other businesses on the side, the team here understands how early we are on the mission and show how excited they are to build a company with real longevity. I have already witnessed how fast the team can make decisions as they focus on making commerce great for everyone. This speed of purpose is refreshing.

Growth mode is just… fun

The company is still very much in hyper growth. This means that there is much more to do than you have time for, and there is huge scope for everyone.

I am spending much more time on hiring, and really excited to bring on new members to the team and building our impact together. The folks I have found at Shopify have been passionate and exceptional, and combining that with some of the best from the broader community has me incredible jazzed for what we can pull off in 2022. There is so much across the platform, tooling, education, I am chomping at the bit to deliver and constantly improve it.

I was impressed with my hiring experience, and with a flow of great people at various stages of it, I’ve been incredibly happy to hear them mirror my own thoughts. The high order bit is that the process is truly focused on candidates having the chance to really show what they bring to the table. It’s nice being able to wholeheartedly recommend giving us a chance and seeing if there is a fit, and not worrying that folks will have a poor experience, or get unlucky with the draw.

Web is a first class citizen

I don’t have to fight for execs or teams to care about the Web here. Commerce transcends all platforms of course, but there is a truly understanding of the role the Web plays strategically for all of our merchants. The importance not just of channels, and the ability to sell on others territory, but the vital role of having a direct connection with buyers and having them coming to you and your site.

You see in projects such as Hydrogen that Shopify understands the responsibility of being a great citizen with the Web, and we are doing more and more, whenever we find areas where we think our expertise can help.

I remember being in other commerce companies when the feeling was that the Web was dead and mobile native was all that mattered. It was all about the gold rush to installs. It was humbling.

Don’t just extrpolate!

I remember seeing the engagement charts, and to be honest you could see how many believed the lines would keep going and crossing. In reality, even for big brands, this wasn’t the case. And for smaller niches it was much different. As someone who feels the Web is quite special, it’s nice to work somewhere that gets it.

Serving merchants, developers, and entrepreneurs

It is much more meaningful to see the success of merchants around the world hit their goals, and surpass them. Supporting a diverse long tail of commerce hits me in the same way that it did when working on the web platform itself. I don’t want large silos that take all the winnings and have all of the power, so working on a true platform with a vibrant ecosystem is important to me.

So, a few months in, and I’m more charged than ever to help make Shopify the best platform for developers touching commerce in any way shape or form!

The right thing to do, is the right thing to do.