Interlayer
Increase your Ecommerce, Website and Blog traffic in minutes
The Shopify App officially launched on the Shopify App Store last Saturday!
Within hours it hit the no. 1 position in the "Trending" section and stayed there until yesterday.
Being the no. 1 trending app means a huge spike in traffic. I worked the whole weekend to fix some minor hiccups and keep the server setup up- and running. Turns out there are a lot of real-world use cases I haven't foreseen.
Overall I'm really happy with the outcome. More than 400 merchants are currently using the app.
I already have some plans for future updates but I'll observe and wait a little bit to gather more data and understand what merchants are looking for next.
Today I finally launched the Beta for the Shopify integration 🥳
I went over to Reddit and Twitter to find some beta tests who are willing to test-drive the app on their stores.
Unfortunately Shopify had some hiccups right before I launched with their Admin panel which caused some issues during the app installation. Luckily enough those were resolved in a timely manner.
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Congrats! How did you organize the beta launch? Has your app already been reviewed by Shopify, but is not visible in the App Store yet? Or are you creating a "custom app" for each beta request?
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Thanks Lukasz!
That's a really good question. The Shopify App review process usually takes between ~15 and ~20 days. I'm currently getting all the resources together to enter the review process early next week (I should be done by Monday).The whole process is a little bit involved. That's why I decided to launch earlier with beta testers. Apparently Shopify doesn't offer something similar to Apples TestFlight. However after looking around I found this: https://community.shopify.com/c/Shopify-APIs-SDKs/Beta-process-for-unpublished-in-development-apps-in-real-stores/m-p/388218
The gist of it is that you can create a custom URL for merchants who can then use that URL to install the app.
What I did is I added a form on my landing page where the user can submit her Shopify store information. This form will then use that information to generate the install URL and redirect the user to the app install page. The install process is the same as if the user installed the app via the Shopify App Store.
The only thing one has to keep in mind is that Shopify will display a warning at the top of the screen that the app isn't reviewed yet. People joining the beta should be aware of that, otherwise they might churn (that's why I also added an E-Mail capture to follow-up if merchants churn during the install process).
In terms of Marketing I got the message out via Twitter and Reddit. I'm also active on Quora, trying to be helpful and providing value along the way.
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Oh, and do you remember when did you create your app in the partner dashboard? I used the same approach with my first app, but it's not possible with new apps. For apps created after October 2019 Shopify shows the following error message:
This app needs to be reviewed by Shopify before it can be installed. Contact the app developer for more information about this app.Take a look at this forums thread:
https://community.shopify.com/c/Shopify-Apps/New-App-Should-Be-Reviewed-Message/td-p/620135
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Interesting! Thanks for sharing!
I "recycled" an old app I created a while back. Maybe that's why it was still working. It's sad that that they've changed their policies. But I get that it's better in terms of security given the data you could potentially harvest and the damage you can do to a store.
Generally speaking I'd do things differently if I'd start all over again. Especially since Shopify displays a message that the app is not reviewed and one should trust the app developer before installing it. I'd simply capture the merchants E-Mail address and their Shopify store name and do a manual onboarding with them. That way you can also ask questions and see how and where they have struggles.
In fact I just changed my landing page to do just that.
Thanks again for sharing the link 👍
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If you recycled an old app then it makes sense that you were able to install it on production stores before review.
I remember that before my app was published around half of the visitors who filled in my install form were dropping off most likely because of the warning.
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Interesting! Thanks for sharing.
Yes, it's been a wild ride with a couple of unexpected obstacles. Shopify went down the exact moment when I started to spread the word on Reddit and Twitter. At the same time it's a really involved process to get everything ready for the review process.
I hope that it pays off. At the same time I'm wondering how one can validate and especially test a Shopify App Store idea given that it's not possible anymore to easily onboard users as beta testers.
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Interlayers main goal is to help any website owner, whether she's operating an ecommerce store, a personal website or a blog to reach her target audience effortlessly.
While ambitious, it's too broad of a goal when starting out.
There is the saying that one should start with a niche and I agree with that.
After doing some brainstorming I made the decision to focus on the ecommerce sector first. To further narrow it down I'm focusing on Shopify store owners who want to attract more interested visitors to their store.
Today I published a new, dedicated Shopify-focused landing page here: https://interlayer.io/shopify
After looking deeper into the analytics it was apparent that the current landing page wasn't communicating the products value proposition in a clear and easy to understand manner.
The last days I sat down to create a brand new landing page from scratch. This turned out to be a great exercise as I'm really happy with the outcome.
The new page was just deployed to Netlify and can be found here: https://interlayer.io/
After pondering a little bit more about the idea and the potential solution to the problem I'm trying to solve I decided to set a deadline and implement the solution in no less than 2 weeks.
As many of us do I had many different ideas for features but eventually hat to cut them down to a handful given the aforementioned time constraint.
Given my background in Cloud Computing and Machine Learning I was able to implement the first Prototype in 2 weeks using a Tech stack of Python + PostgreSQL on the backend (Flask, SQLAlchemy, Numpy, NLTK) with a vanilla JavaScript "frontend" (the Widget code).
At the end of the day it took me roughly 3 weeks because I hadn't planned for the Landing Page and the actual deployment.
Getting interested readers to visit your blog and enjoy your content is hard.
Sure, you can play the SEO game but it takes months until you're ranked high enough in search engines such that organic traffic flocks to your website.
As a reader I'm always interested in related, complementary content. Usually I end up with a bunch of tabs I go through after an exhaustive Google search.
As a content producer / blogger I'm interested to get in front of my target audience as easily and quickly as possible.
After thinking a little bit more about it I figured that we can combine both problems into 1 single solution:
A Widget website owners cam embed into their sites which will surface relevant and complementary content to their visitors. Such content can be from the site itself or from other sites using Interlayer.io.
This way I delight my users with relevant, additional recommendations while also getting visitors from other websites who use the Interlayer Widget on their sites.
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