Issue#27: Building $1K -$10K MRR Micro SaaS products around Shopify ecosystem
No fluffy content. If your goal is to build a $100m ARR business, this is not the right post. Here I am are NOT going to talk about building the next Facebook or Twitter. If your goal is to make a $1K to $10K MRR, continue reading.
This post will cover one SAAS area and talk about multiple niches in this space. This post also explains more on how to do tech implementation, do market analysis, how the current players are doing, and also ends with a cost analysis to understand the overall cost for 100 users.
As per Shopify - “More than 1,700,000 merchants use Shopify to run their businesses. They come in all sizes, from all around the world, and each one is different. Shopify solves many of their hardest commerce problems out of the box”
Shopify is one of the most popular e-commerce platforms currently available. Building apps for Shopify solve day-to-day problems for merchants selling their products on Shopify. Let’s see some of the players in this space building apps around the Shopify ecosystem.
BoldCommerce: Creates customizable transaction experiences to enable commerce anywhere. BoldCommerce has multiple Shopify Apps and other ecommerce apps.
LeadDyno: Everything to launch & grow your affiliate program. Increase the revenue of your e-Commerce store or SaaS business. Quickly and easily set up our all in one affiliate tracking solution.
Super Lemon: WhatsApp plugin for Shopify stores Add a WhatsApp live chat button for customer support, send automated & manual abandoned cart recovery, order and delivery notifications and more with SuperLemon. Estimated revenue $25K MRR in less than 2 years.
ForsbergPlusTwo: Makes Shopify apps used by 75K stores world wide.
Growave: The all-in-one marketing platform for small and medium-sized Shopify stores.
Pixc: Pixc makes it quick, simple and affordable to get professional-level editing services for your product photos – so you can get back to growing your business. Not a Micro-SaaS service though but Pixc is profitable on Shopify store with all of its apps.
SmartrMail: SmartrMail is the easiest way to send emails that delight your customers and get more sales. Mitigated platform risk by extending the tools to multiple e-commerce platforms.
Bonify: Enterprise-Ready Shopify Apps. Both into building Shopify apps and and Shopify consulting.
See which Shopify App builder company is making $15K MRR
🔒 👉 [In Pro access only]
See which Shopify consulting company makes $30K per month
🔒 👉 [In Pro access only]
See which company is profitable with 15K installs on Shopify store with all of its apps.
🔒 👉 [In Pro access only]
See which company is making $130K/month with tools for email marketing.
🔒 👉 [In Pro access only]
See which company is making $100K per month with marketing apps for Shopify stores.
🔒 👉 [In Pro access only]
See who is making $300K per year with four shopify apps.
🔒 👉 [In Pro access only]
See which Shopify app crossed $25K MRR in less than 2 years.
🔒 👉 [In Pro access only]
See who is at $400K MRR with ecommerce apps.
🔒 👉 [In Pro access only]
See which apps are making $100K per month with affiliate marketing tools for ecommerce apps.
🔒 👉 [In Pro access only]
You can get Pro access here to get full reports/newsletter every week.
Negative Nancy says - “Shopify is only one of the many e-commerce platforms. What's so special about Shopify?”
Me - The goal is to pick a niche and build a profitable Micro-SaaS business. It doesn’t have to be Shopify but start somewhere.
Negative Nancy says - “I have no experience in the e-commerce side of things. Can I build an app for Shopify?”
Me - Go through the below technical and marketing chops where I covered how to start building a Shopify App and how to target initial users.
Negative Nancy says - “Shopify apps are usually low ticket sales”
Me - Not all Shopify apps are low-ticket apps. Apps are charging $40-$50 as well. But even in the case of low ticket sales as well, these could turn out to be profitable at scale as long as you don’t end up spending time on support tickets. If you want high ticket sales, you can consider building products for ‘Shopify Plus’ that are targeted at enterprise customers. (More on this in the next sections)
Negative Nancy says - “Almost all apps are already built in Shopify. I doubt if I can build something new.”
Me - Shopify is evolving continuously. There are multiple ways to build apps - either you pick a new functionality and build that or take an existing one and improve that with better support and automation. In the upcoming sections, we talk about the newest features that are in Beta in Shopify that you can use to build some cool new apps.
Deep-dive
Most people think Shopify Apps are not real SaaS and are not great revenue generators. Build an app to power Shopify’s 1,700,000+ merchants. If everything works well, a simple Shopify app can generate a few thousand dollars per month. It still needs some good amount of work on getting good reviews and playing a bit with SEO.
Working on platform-based apps brings a ready-made audience using the platform. While there is a platform risk, the risk can be mitigated in various ways by providing the same app on other platforms in most cases. This is what BoldCommerce by extending the same apps and functionality to multiple e-commerce platforms including Shopify. Now BoldCommerce makes $400K in monthly revenues.
Working on ‘Shopify apps’ brings you close to 1M customers using Shopify and making money. Note that these are real people making money and are usually happy to pay for any solution that helps them either to make more money or save time.
Shopify takes 20% of all sales - either subscription, one-time sales, or activity-based sales. For any transaction that happens in the app, you would get only 80% of the transaction value. If you charge $10 for an activity, you get $8 for the transaction. If your monthly subscription costs $20/month, you would get $16/month (every month) as long as the subscription continues. So, when you consider setting a price tag or evaluating the app idea, keep the Shopify charges in mind.
Most of these might not look like a Micro-SaaS opportunity but if you consider Shopify as a niche, these products can give recurring monthly revenue. The advantage of building these tools is that you can extend this functionality to more platforms to increase the MRR.
Some niches
Automate Product reviews/Video reviews and social proofs: Every business needs reviews and social proof. In most cases, social proof or the number of positive reviews automatically makes visitors biased to purchase the product. Create a simple Micro-SaaS tool for Shopify that lets store owners send email requests to provide reviews. The tool should provide enough capabilities to pick email templates, schedule based on time or activity. For example, store owners should be able to configure to request a review after ‘X’ number of days of purchase or ‘X’ number of days of delivery. Also, create an add-on to gift coupons for purchasers who provided reviews. Gifting coupons in exchange for positive reviews is against store terms. But you can request feedback and provide some kind of gift coupon. Another possible add-on is to be able to capture video reviews from the purchasers. Video reviews tremendously create a positive impact for prospective buyers.
Abandoned cart: The abandoned cart is an everyday problem for store owners. Be it Shopify or other e-commerce stores, abandoned cart is one of the major problems for stores. The abandoned cart provides is almost like revenue hanging in there that needs to be grabbed. Automating follow-ups for abandoned cart recovery via Email, SMS, Telegram, Whatapp will be a great feature for stores. The tool should be able to record abandoned carts and then should be able to send a message via any platform to reach the customers. Add-on like ‘extra discount coupons’ can be provided to provide discount coupons to the people who added items to the cart and never finished the purchase process.
Shopify to Slack/FB/Whatsapp/Telegram/anywhere: Create a tool for store owners to receive alerts over Slack/Facebook/Telegram/Whatsapp or anywhere for major notifications like order placed, order canceled, order delivered, etc. Provide add-ons like shared inbox so that multiple people (typically support staff) can receive the same message and take necessary actions. Provide an add-on so that tech-savvy store owners can provide their webhook as well to receive the events. This way store owners can integrate event listening to pretty much any platform with the use of webhooks.
Automate ads: Placing ads is the easiest way to get more sales for most of the stores. Create a Micro-SaaS that automates this process. For store owners who have enough budget and want to allocate some budget for ads should be able to use this new Micro SaaS tool that automated the entire ad process. Provide add-ons with readymade banners that can be edited for the store color, logo and be used for advertising. The tool should be able to connect with various ad platforms like Google Ads, FB Ads, Reddit Ads, Instagram Ads, and store owners should be able to automate and enable ads on these platforms right from the Shopify app.
🔒 👉 [Get 400% more additional ideas in this niche and access to 700+ additional ideas across all niches from Pro version].
Technical chops
🔒[Accessible only for Pro customers]
Marketing chops
🔒[Accessible only for Pro customers]
Cost Analysis for 100 customers
🔒[Accessible only for Pro customers]