The Bootstrapped Experience Podcast: Recent Episodes
Jack Kowalsky & Bjorn Forsberg
Two bootstrappers building SaaS apps on Shopify, sharing their experiences along the way. TBX is a weekly podcast by Jack Kowalski of NeatShift and Bjorn Forsberg of FORSBERG+two.
- Jacks Unite pre-meetup event
- Unite itself: unite.shopify.com
- What did you like most about the event?
- Which talks were best?
- Location, food etc.
- Coming soon: App Store Listing changes
- Coming soon: Re-categorization of App Store (again)
- Whatâs next for you?
Shopify Editions - Summer 2022
Shopify Embedded app improvements:
- https://shopify.dev/apps/tools/app-bridge/actions/fullscreen
- https://shopify.dev/apps/tools/app-bridge/actions/menu/navigation
- https://shopify.dev/apps/design-guidelines
SASI - https://sasi.unionworks.co.uk
SEO & Marketing - https://statamic.com
Raising prices - Translateci.com | orderlyemails.com
This week we thought we'd have nothing to talk about, because we'd just met in person earlier in the week. Turns out we did, and this is one of our longest episodes!
- TranslateCI: https://translateci.com/ (Shopify App Store Listing in Beta)
- Lemon.io for hiring: https://lemon.io
- Polaris for Rails: https://polarisviewcomponents.org
- Polaris for Vue: https://github.com/HulkApps/polaris-vue
- https://inertiajs.com
Jack has some big news, that we can finally talk about! We also talk about building new apps, multi-language and the Shopify App Store listings and much more.
Jack works on getting technical articles written for TranslateCI, and we talk about the hard things about writting in general. Bjorn follows up on the new Marketing campaign, Facebook Ads and more.
This week Jack and Björn talk about finding balance between support and business development, building in public, latest changes in the Shopify App Store and a whole lot more.
- London, co-working and personal assistants
- TranslateCI: https://translateci.com/
- Sponsorship of Laracasts: https://laracasts.com/
- App Bridge 2.0 upgrades finished for Order Printer Pro: https://apps.shopify.com/order-printer-pro
- Planning of Basecamp using Shape Up: https://basecamp.com/shapeup
- Marketing Campaigns
- New App Store experiments
- @JustSteveKing - Laravel programmer with great tutorials: https://twitter.com/JustSteveKing
- App Store Redesign AMA: https://twitter.com/ShopifyDevs/status/1479091995389878273
- Gov UK view component library: https://design-system.service.gov.uk/components/
- Translate.ci: https://www.translate.ci
- FORSBERG+two blog: https://www.forsbergplustwo.com/blogs/news
- Github Marketplace: https://github.com/marketplace
- Laravel Shift: https://laravelshift.com
- Migration to Shopify App Bridge 2.0: https://shopify.dev/apps/tools/app-bridge/migrating-legacy
- Vishwesh Shetty's Shopify AppStore Marketing Consultation: https://vishshet.gumroad.com/l/ykcTQD
The Bootstrapped Experience now includes a full written transcript, powered by Otter.ai
Shopify Unite 2021: https://www.shopify.com/partners/blog/shopify-unite-announcements-2021
API Release notes: https://shopify.dev/api/release-notes/2021-07
- FORSBERG+two's new app logos: https://twitter.com/FORSBERGtwo/status/1398208344310038531
- Shopify Voice & Tone style guide: https://polaris.shopify.com/content/voice-and-tone
- Mailchimp Voice & Tone style guide: https://styleguide.mailchimp.com/voice-and-tone
- New Shopify App Store categories: https://shopify.dev/concepts/app-store/getting-your-app-approved/app-categories
- Jekyll for static sites and emails: https://jekyllrb.com/
- Amazon EventBridge: https://aws.amazon.com/eventbridge/
- Shoryuken for Ruby: https://github.com/ruby-shoryuken/shoryuken
- Twitter thread on negative reviews: https://twitter.com/benfkennedy/status/1389329279708585985
- The Support Heroes: https://www.thesupportheroes.com/
- Shopify Plus Certified Apps: https://apps.shopify.com/collections/plus-certified-apps
- New Shopify App Store design
- Finding motivation
- Worst bug experiences
- View Components: https://viewcomponents.org
- Partner Metrics Ideas: https://partnermetrics.io/overview
- Webhooks: De-duping via hash signature
- Amazon event-bridge, a better alternative? https://shopify.dev/tutorials/manage-webhook-events-with-eventbridge
- Laravel Vapour (AWS helper): https://vapor.laravel.com/
- Hatchbox for Ruby on Rails: https://www.hatchbox.io/
- Whatâs the reason for the slowdown in Shopify app installs?
- App Store Ads Attribution and Optimization. Recommend this video series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ho1ax1CloS0
- Playing with Rails Turbo Frames: https://boringrails.com/tips/turboframe-lazy-load-skeleton
- Deprecation of EASDK and migrating to App Bridge 2.0: https://shopify.dev/changelog/easdk-being-removed-and-embedded-apps-must-migrate-to-app-bridge
- Google Adwords Tip: Make sure the ad text (not target keywords) contains âShopify Appâ. Increases quality of clicks (and thereby optimizes your budget)
Windy, aTailwind tool: https://usewindy.com
Brand guidelines creation: https://canva.com
OrderlyPrint: https://forsbergplustwo.com/pages/orderlyprint
Shopify App Store Analytics: https://www.appstoreanalytics.io
Neat A/B Testing: https://neatab.com
- LiveWire: https://laravel-livewire.com/
- StimulusJS:Â https://stimulus.hotwire.dev/
- Keir Whitaker (Shopify App Marketing Audit and Roadmap):Â https://keirwhitaker.com/
- Burnout
- Yearly pricing
- Upgrading Shopify API versions
- Book: Essentialism: https://www.audible.com/pd/Essentialism-Audiobook/B00IWZ6XGA
Translate CI: https://translateci.com/
Shopify Polaris: https://polaris.shopify.com
Partner Metrics for Shopify: https://partnermetrics.io
- Traction by Justin Mares
- AIDA framework (copywriting formula, aim for 150 words for an explainer, roughly)
- Fivrr.com
- Bread n Beyond (explainer videos)
- Shopify App Store Ads
This week we get into the details of an incident with one of Bjorn's apps (more on that next week) which got it unpublished from the app store for a week, Jack goes on a wild goose chase with the Assets API and shares some great tools for Laravel developers.
Spatie.be: https://spatie.be/
OrderlyEmails: https://apps.shopify.com/email-templates
StimulusJS: https://stimulus.hotwire.dev/
This week Jack hits a roadblock with Superhero, Bjorn get's excited about AppKit and the new Polaris Figma UI kit, and some exciting news coming for PartnerMetrics.
Superhero: https://www.trysuperhero.com/
Polaris Figma Design Kit: https://www.figma.com/@shopify
PartnerMetrics: https://partnermetrics.io
Jack submits a new Shopify app called "Superhero", Bjorn hires his wife for marketing and bookkeeping, and both reflect on 2020 and the year ahead! We also have a special guest appearance from Jack's cat đ
Show notes:
Doing Content Right - E-Book
Jack's new app: Superhero
Smiirl counter
This week we discuss Jack's coming plans to record screencasts for TranslateCI, we share our experiences with the Shopify App Store Ads and we get into our preferred ways of creating logos and creative assets.
Show notes:TranslateCI: https://translateci.com/
Figma logo design course: https://howtoproduct.co/#logo-design-course
Shopify app ads: https://shopify.dev/concepts/app-store/advertising
Looka (logo designer): https://looka.com
Manypixels: https://www.manypixels.co/
Neat A/B: https://apps.shopify.com/neat-ab
FORSBERG+two: https://www.forsbergplustwo.com / https://apps.shopify.com/partners/forsberg-two
Welcome to the first episode of The Bootstrapped Podcast. In this episode, Jack and Bjorn introduce themselves, talk about what they are working on, hiring employees and the new Partners API coming from Shopify.
- We are working on the audio quality, so next weeks episode will be better :)