Reporty (acquired.)
A Better Slack Bot
I won’t be sharing any more updates on Reporty because it’s been acquired for a nice 5-figure sum!
How did we get here? I’ll share more after I take a few days to celebrate but the big things were:
- Build a simple, micro-app that helps Shopify stores solve a problem
- Focus on delivering great customer service so you retain the people who bet on you
- Once you solve a customer issue, ask for a review so that you can show other people your app is a 5-star experience
- Do 2 and 3 over and over.
- Used MicroAcquire to find potential buyers and then Escrow to handle the transaction.
You might see the new owner post updates here as I know he's building in public, and I'm super excited for him to take Reporty even further.
For me, the money is now deposited and I’m going to take it easy before turning my sights on a new project: Eventhome.io. If you're interested in selling tickets to a virtual event, please join the waitlist and I'll be in touch soon!
Though December was the month that Shoppy had to be renamed to Reporty beacuse Shopify felt the original named infringed on their IP (more here: https://www.indiehackers.com/post/loved-shopify-for-years-but-today-soured-my-experience-41ce7564a0), Decemer was also the month that Shoppy hit $362 in gross MRR, which means that Reporty now makes >$4k in gross annualized revenue.
I've never had a side project make this much before so it feels great!
This year, the goal is to find either 1) make >$1k in ARR or 2) find a new owner for Reporty so I can focus on Coffee Chats.
Either way, I'm happy with Reporty as it was my first production Rails app I built on my own!
As of March, Shoppy has sent over 300,000 notifications to over 250 stores.
Shoppy now has more than 10 paying customers and just shy of $2,000 in annual recurring revenue.
The app has also gotten 3 requests for an acquisition though I'm holding off.
It's pretty crazy to see a small idea--better Slack notifications from Shopify--now helps so many store owners all over the world.
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Congrats! Keep up the good work.
Shoppy hit 3 paying customers, $45 in gross MRR and $15 in profit per month. Huge milestone for a tiny idea.
TL;DR - I just finished developing my first Shopify app--Shoppy, a free app that gives you updates about orders sent directly to Slack and you can even upgrade to Elite and get daily, weekly, or monthly order summaries to make reporting easier. Get the free beta app here: https://shoppy.emerald.io. Since this is my first app, any feedback you have is appreciated!
https://www.indiehackers.com/forum/show-ih-shoppy-a-better-shopify-slack-app-ad42bddd42
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Hi Chris,
Big congrats on getting this far, i love this way of creating product for your own problems.
I'm in the same boat as you probably were some months ago. I run a Shopify store, found a problem and now trying to learn myself to code. I'm going with Rails as well.
Though i'm running into quite a few roadblocks. Can you tell me how you went about learning and building your product? What was some of the most helpful resources you found?
Would love to pick your brain a bit, and give some in return. Let me know if you're open.
Best,
Daniel
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Hi Daniel -
Two resources that really helped:
- Michael Hartl's free online tutorial to get started with Rails: https://www.railstutorial.org/book/beginning#sec-installing_rails
- The base shopify_app github: https://github.com/Shopify/shopify_app
I also wrote a blog post about building a Shopify Rails app and addressed 3 common mistakes I encountered and their fixes: https://hackernoon.com/3-common-mistakes-to-avoid-when-building-your-first-shopify-app-cc9006f06009
Happy to chat more!
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congrats!
Thank you @8bit!
Please share the link to escrow service
Escrow.com. They took a super small, single digit % fee for the transaction so it was much better than Flippa. To protect myself, the buyer and I both signed a contract and recorded our video meeting where we transferred assets over.
Congrats! How long did he take in total to go from step 1 to 5 ?
About 2 years. During that time, it helped to have a full time job but hopefully my next idea (Eventhome.io) can become a bigger exit
This comment was deleted 2 years ago
Thanks!