Ilya Brotzky

🚀 Summer Editions just dropped and it’s another massive release from Shopify! Just in time for editions.dev tomorrow in Toronto. Shopify is rolling out fantastic new features that I’m excited to dive into. 1. Managed Markets (formerly Markets Pro) Duties included in prices, making international sales seamless. This simplifies cross-border transactions for our merchants, enhancing global reach and customer satisfaction. The last nail in the coffin for the managed markets vs Global-e debate! 2. Search and Discovery Enhanced search capabilities allowing merchants to efficiently manage large inventories. We built a store with 1 million SKUs using this feature, demonstrating its robustness. This reduces the need for third-party search solutions, lowering costs and improving site performance. 3. Hydrogen Builder A powerful tool for building customized storefronts while maintaining ease of use for business users. Hydrogen allows us to create highly tailored and powerful storefronts without compromising on user-friendliness. This is a game-changer for merchants looking to enhance their online presence. 4. Automatically Ship to Store & Pickup instore Automatic ship-to-store and store transfers. We are already integrated to import these transfers into WorkMate, our app, and with our API into your ERP or accounting software. This unlocks in-store fulfillment for our merchants some with up to 1,000 stores, significantly unifying their inventory availability. 5. Post-Purchase POS Extensions New extensions for post-purchase processes. Increased extensibility throughout the POS system will enhance the post-purchase experience, driving customer satisfaction and loyalty. One thing we were hoping for a GA release was account extensions GA. Eagerly waiting to use that for some of our massive B2B brands we’re migrating to Shopify this year. Shopify consistently delivers features that unify their platform, ensuring consistent extensibility across all aspects. They are trailblazing the path for the trillion-dollar retail and B2B opportunity, expanding their reach as the leading commerce stack. These advancements just show the value Shopify continues to deliver as a product-led company that improves at a pace no one can compete with. Check out the latest features from Shopify Editions Summer 2024: https://lnkd.in/g4Xqd_pR #Shopify #Ecommerce #TechInnovation #ShopifyPlus #RetailTech #WorkMate #HydrogenBuilder #SearchAndDiscovery #POS #TeifiDigital

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Founders, you're losing deals by not having a clear discovery call plan. I've seen this a lot where founders looking to scale up their early sales efforts are going into it thinking the product will get them through the sale In most cases, this isn't the truth You need to have some sort of framework to make the selling motion more repeatable Instead of demo'ing the product, try learning more about them and their challenges first. Your goal should be to know enough to build a customized demo for them. This will help in building solid relationships, build value throughout the process and likely speed up deals on the back end of it. If you don't know where to start, hit me up and I'm happy to lay out some early sales structure for founders! Go crush it out there 🤙

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Great hiring advice on a recent 20VC episode with CEO of Brex, Pedro Franceschi: "Look for individual contributor skills in every leader." We often talk about the necessity of being hands-on in start-ups and scale-ups. Looking for specific IC skills a leader has (vs looking for indications of being hands-on appearing implicitly in other answers in an interview) is a nice way of making this assessment one level more precise.

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What Does Shopify's Peel Analytics Acquisition Mean? If you missed it, Shopify made another acquisition in the last few months that is just starting to get some light shed on it. The company is called Peel Analytics, and it fits the mold of many of Shopify's smaller acquisition - it is a capability that it wishes to see in its platform. In short, the capabilities reflect a larger shift in DTC. From customer file growth to customer file optimization and activation. Here are some of the capabilities I expect to come to Shopify as a result of this acquisition (based on analysis of Peel's case studies): * Filtering out any messy or junk data in-platform rather than off-platform * Creating segmented audiences group (repeat purchasers, SKU and region filters), which then interface with Klaviyo and Attentive. * Cohort reporting out of the box, in particular with regards to behavior of customers acquired via influencer discounts. * Customizable reports including LTV calculations, CAC, LTV to CAC, returning orders and customers * "Frequently purchased together" and other types of product reporting based on market basket analysis. * Some subscriber reporting that previously you may have only been able to get in subscription platforms themselves. While Klaviyo is building a CDP, I expect that Shopify feels these Audience features will be a standard part of DTC going forward, and so should not erode much from where Klaviyo is headed. First, Shopify's Shop Cash offers have recently become "Shop Campaigns" and no doubt this acquisition is part of the reason for that. Also the elevation of Customers as a key concept within Shopify seems like one of their plans. Similar to the way Shopify has wanted to be the home of all checkouts and orders, I expect Shopify has started to feel that customer segmentation and analysis should happen on-platform rather off. Who is to worry? I don't think many companies have too much to worry about generally. On the other hand, some reporting-centric companies like Daasity and Triplewhale will likely have to move further up-market to continue to compete. The "Shopify reporting" space has gotten over-crowded in the last few years which is likely one of Shopify's signals that the base platform needed upgrades. I do think some of the lower-end subscription platforms could end up in the crosshairs also. How might this shape Shopify's Platform? I don't expect this solution to do so much for mid and upper-level Shopify Plus customers, but it could give Shopify a few more reporting capabilities to add to base tiers, and it's possible that more customizable reporting could become a Plus or even an full Enterprise feature. It's also not hard to imagine a Shopify where future Enterprise users may separately for a Data or Reporting module.

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Custom stacks can lead to two very real problems: depending on custom development and increased tech debt. Combined, your pace slows and ultimately, your trade-off is innovation and growth. That’s why Mejuri went from a fully custom stack to Shopify. Before Shopify, Mejuri was on an entirely custom stack: custom ecommerce, payments service, and middleware that was built to connect their custom ecommerce site to their point of sale system [POS]. This led to a ton of challenges. They were spending too much time building and maintaining 3rd party integrations to coordinate channels, data, and functionality between systems. With limited resources and team members, the trade-off of building custom features was they were not able to address their mounting technical debt. Addressing those issues in-house, slowed down their pace of innovation making them unable to deploy features as fast as they needed to. That’s the ‘invisible’ cost component with a custom stack. You spend an inordinate amount of time building custom features at the cost of innovation. Brands can avoid that with Shopify. Shopify is a natively unified ecommerce and POS system so everything just works together really really well. It doesn’t require middleware or integrations. Your customer, order, and product data flows to both channels from a single source of truth. It’s simpler and allows you to move faster. Hear about from Mejuri yourself. Rohit Nathany, the Chief Digital Officer sat down with us to talk about the pain points they faced on a custom stack. As Rohit says, what better way to simplify than to have a unified ecommerce and POS solution? See the full interview here: https://lnkd.in/eyCSdVgf

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“Do things that don’t scale” is advice that sticks with many Y Combinator founders, but it means more than simply rolling up your sleeves. Early on at Simplifine (YC S24), we chose to work directly with researchers—getting on calls, testing workflows, and uncovering their specific challenges. Those hours spent in detailed conversations and hands-on support weren’t efficient, but they gave us insights data alone couldn’t provide. This approach may seem counterintuitive, yet it’s helped us understand the deeper, often overlooked needs that drive our product direction. Taking this non-scalable route has led to surprising breakthroughs. By focusing on direct feedback and support, we’ve identified critical patterns and quickly adapted our platform based on real-world use, rather than assumptions. This clarity in direction means we aren’t investing in features or workflows that don’t have real impact. Instead, we’re building exactly what researchers need, helping us keep Simplifine focused and practical. Ultimately, our commitment to “doing things that don’t scale” is more than just a startup tactic; it’s our way of staying aligned with our users. The temptation to grow fast is real, but by choosing to engage personally with researchers, we’ve grounded Simplifine in what truly matters. These early, authentic connections have shaped our product and guide us as we scale—ensuring that Simplifine continues to serve the research community in ways that are both meaningful and impactful. #dothingsthatdontscale

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Fun fact: 2% of customers on Shopify make a mistake at checkout and contact customer service asking for help. For this Canadian jewellery brand that has shipped over 300,000 orders since launching with us, that's a LOT of support tickets. To be exact, Order Editing has self-serviced 6,443 customer support tickets since launch. If it takes 4 minutes to solve a support ticket, that's 429 hours of customer service work we'ves saved them. 429 HOURS in 60-days. To do some quick math for you: ✅ 10k orders / month = 13 hours spent editing orders. ✅ 20k orders / month = 26 hours spent editing orders. ✅ 40k orders / month = 52 hours spent editing orders. ✅ 80k orders / month = 104 hours spent editing orders. How do I know that 2% of customers make a mistake at checkout? I used to be head of customer experience for a Shopify brand doing $40M GMV, I have felt this pain. And, acrosss every store we work with, at least 2.06% of all customers edit their orders. Michael Ludwig, am I right about the 2% fact? #Shopify #Ecommerce #Customerexperience

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I’ve noticed many founders don’t realize how much non-dilutive capital is flying under the radar in Canada. So I’ve shared a list of alternatives you should know about before choosing to raise capital: 1. Business Scale-up and Productivity (BSP): BSP provides funding to help you scale your operations and increase your market reach. It’s a great way to drive growth without sacrificing equity. 2. Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP): IRAP offers financial support for research and development. It’s perfect for taking your technical ideas to the next level. 3. Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED): SR&ED provides tax incentives for technical development. It’s one of the most generous programs in Canada, helping you reclaim a portion of your R&D costs. 4. FedDev Ontario: If you’re based in Southern Ontario, FedDev offers funding to help businesses scale, innovate, and compete globally. It’s a solid option for companies looking to make a big impact. 5. Canada Small Business Financing Program (CSBFP): This program helps small businesses access loans for purchasing or improving assets like equipment or property. It’s designed to help companies grow and invest in their infrastructure. 6. CanExport SMEs Program: If you’re looking to expand into international markets, CanExport provides funding to cover costs related to market research, business travel, and participation in international trade events. 7. Canada Media Fund (CMF): For those in the digital media industry, CMF offers funding for the development, production, and marketing of innovative media projects. 8. Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE) Programs: OCE offers various funding programs aimed at driving innovation and commercialization in Ontario. Their programs often focus on collaboration between businesses and academic institutions. 9. Mitacs Accelerate: This program provides funding to support research internships, allowing companies to collaborate with universities to solve specific challenges while benefiting from academic expertise. 10. Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF): Targeted at larger-scale projects, SIF offers funding to support R&D, commercialization, and the growth of innovative businesses in Canada. 11. Women Entrepreneurship Strategy (WES) Ecosystem Fund: This fund supports organizations that help women entrepreneurs grow their businesses. It’s part of a broader effort to increase women’s participation in the economy. 12. Innovative Solutions Canada (ISC): This program helps Canadian startups by funding R&D projects that address government challenges. It’s a great way to secure funding while working on real-world problems. 13. Alberta Innovates: For businesses in Alberta, Alberta Innovates offers several funding programs to support R&D, commercialization, and business growth. They focus on fostering innovation in sectors like energy, health, and technology. Have I missed any?

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💡 Why Every New Founder Needs to Hear This: Real Talk About the Highs and Lows of Entrepreneurship I had an amazing time on the latest episode of Collisions YYC with Jade Alberts and Tyler Chisholm! There’s something truly special about having real conversations with these two—discussing both the highs and the lows of being an entrepreneur. 🎢 In this episode, we dive deep into what it really takes to navigate the rollercoaster of startup life—how to manage those big wins, like landing a new client, and how to push through the tough moments, like missing payroll. We shared some hard-earned lessons on avoiding the common mistakes founders make, staying grounded through the chaos, and most importantly, knowing when to keep going and when it’s time to pivot. 🌱 For all the new founders out there: This journey isn’t easy, but it’s totally worth it. Prepare yourself for the challenges, and keep in mind that the highs and lows are all part of the adventure. 🚀 🎧 Tune in to hear these raw, real, and invaluable insights from Team Awesome: https://lnkd.in/e6CKrASG 💬 I’d love to hear your thoughts—what challenges have you faced as a founder? And how did you know when it was time to pivot or keep pushing through? #TeamAwesome #KeepBeingAwesome #Koridor #Entrepreneurship #FoundersJourney #CollisionsYYC #StartupLife #YYCFounders

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This part of my conversation with Joao Barbosa, co-founder at the world’s leading wellness platform Gympass (now Wellhub) valued at $2.4 is a testament to the fact that nothing big actually started big 👇 It took Gympass 5 pivots and 2 near death experiences to find the business model that works and is scalable across the globe What I found really interesting is the framework that the team had around pivots - the tripod approach towards creating value. This approach could benefit many founders especially in marketplace kinda businesses Head over to our channels on Spotify, Apple and YouTube to watch / listen to the full conversation link in comment 🔗 The J Curve #thejcurvepodcast #podcastrecommendation #gympass #pivot #entrepreneurship #founder #venturecapital

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Last week I posted a video, here's the detail: So embarrassing story time - last year I lost over $500,000 because I priced a single customer too low in our Toronto facility. But am I the only one that is bad at pricing outsourced fulfillment? A really smart CEO I know raised $40mn and expanded his business by building out almost a million square ft of warehouse space, and 3 years later gave the entire fulfillment business away because it was losing money and he couldn’t see a path to making it profitable. And Easypost, a YC back firm that raised over $80mn, used a lot of that venture capital to build out a warehouse network and in 2020 gave the business to a competing 3PL, Ruby Has, and from my understanding Ruby got it basically for free. The obvious question is, why couldn’t those 3PLs that had spent millions of dollars acquiring customers jettison the money losing customers and hold on to the profitable ones? The 3PLs didn’t know which customers were profitable and which weren’t. Sounds crazy, right? I wish. I was in the same boat this time last year. My Toronto facility was losing more than the rent each month. That’s right, we were working our ass off to ship thousands of packages a day, and if we stopped shipping and simply left the building empty we would been losing less money than we were burning by operating it. Losing money every month and not understanding how to fix it is one of the most stressful places I have ever been in as a business owner. In retrospect that pain was an inflection point for ShipHero. My team probably wanted to kill me, but I shifted half our road map to answer what seemed like a simple question - for each of the 3PLs using ShipHero software, what customers were generating their profits and which were losing money clients. Such a simple question but impossible to answer. Until today. This is my proudest launch so far, because it is going to help the 3PLs using ShipHero make a ton more money. Introducing, The ShipHero Labor Cost Dashboard. You can now see what your labor cost is for every customer every day. So simple, and it will transform your business. What did we find? It was a standing desk company that was killing us in Toronto. We had priced them way wrong. Once we understood that, we recommended they go with a competitor and today everyone is happier. We also had a company that sold a small product with a high number of picks per order. We were very efficient in packing them, but bleeding money on the labor for picking the items. We focused our team on their picking process and we cut the pick times for that client by a third. The change for that one client will save us over $200K in 2024. If you use ShipHero, let me know what the Labor Cost Dashboard teaches you. And if you don’t use ShipHero, post a comment, lets talk.

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Who better to talk about Shopify's trajectory and future than Benjamin Lang • OLY.? In our 50th podcast episode, I had an extremely interesting conversation with Benjamin about a lot of awesome topics that are close to my heart, and I can't be more excited about what's happening in the Shopify ecosystem. For example: • B2B features • From only online commerce to commerce in the more broad sense of the word • The focus on TCO • Customer centricity I'm very grateful I had the chance to talk to Benjamin, and I hope we can do it again some time in the near future as things are moving so fast. Thanks a lot for your time and effort Benjamin! #deardigital #shopify #podcast

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Meet Sumer Chawla, a partnership leader at Shopify. Sumer covers how he spent his time at the conference to learn from other modern partnership professionals and executives. Catalyst is a modern conference, we're bringing new experiences to the event and this year will be no different. Why? Because for us the conference is a product, we review it's features to make sure they meet the needs of our attendees. When one feature stops meeting the needs we deprecate it and introduce a new feature. Here's an example: In 2022, our very first Catalyst, we received feedback that panels did not provide much value to the attendees. So in 2023, we opted for lightning talks, think TED style talks but focused on partnerships. We had two goals for them, provide a learning experience and provide some folks who have never spoken at a larger stage the opportunity to speak in front of their peers. In 2024, we have a couple of new features that will up level how attendees connect with each and increase their on the job performance. Whether you are an aspiring executive or a current executive you'll walk away for tools to help you increase your career and life impact. This coming week, Chris, Tai, Brittney (our conference leader) and I will be in Chicago to finalize the program and we'll share updates from the windy city. We have more interest from teams attending Catalyst (they are choosing to do their team offsite at the event) than the past two years. We also have interest from Founders, CEOs, CBOs and other non-partnerships execs. Partnerships is on the radar or every exec and if you know someone looking for a modern conference please share info about Catalyst with them. You're all in for a treat and I'm looking forward to hosting you in Chicago!

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As public software companies got hammered over the last week, David Peterson explores what that means in our latest edition of The Angle. Are we witnessing the end of software? Where did all the growth go? Software isn’t dead, but it’s evolving. And building great companies is no longer about riding the wave of the cloud and building products that are a bit better than the incumbent. Founders who want to build great public companies need ideas that break the mold. And we’re excited to partner with such founders. To read David’s column and explore other exciting tech news, please access and subscribe to our newsletter using the links in the comments. 

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Sidewalk Labs (Part of Google), another showcase of Canadian politicians bending over for a big US corp, with ZERO tangible results 💩 Roxana and I attended a "private investor demo" session in 2019. A block of wood was passed among the audience, supposedly the NEXT BIG BREAKTHROUGH in urban development! Demo concluded, by observing a piece of wood! Building blocks of future skyscrapers! The promise? With this, Google will build a "Smart City" for us, the peasants of Toronto, in Queens Quay 🏖️🏢 Sidewalk Labs' website now points to a newer Google scam, it reads: "Build Sustainably with Google Earth"! Bait and switch, but let enough time pass so no one remembers 🤢 https://lnkd.in/gd3B-a6m Guess now the investors and Ontario Government | Gouvernement de l’Ontario have shit loads of these wooden blocks, ready to shove up somewhere, to find a use for! All because the name "Bloomberg" sounds authoritative enough to our ears? Surely that's capital well spent, instead of investing in local talent! 🤔 Will Canada's tech ecosystem ever crawl out of Silicon Valley's shadow, and stand on its own? ⌚👀⛔

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Thoughts on the Shopify acquisition of Checkout Blocks app? To me, it's a great signal to the app dev community of another potential exit option for high quality products and/or bright teams. It's another signal that Shopify may not simply be inclined to build apps, from the data they have on what's being used, etc. It's another signal that store owning entrepreneur's aren't the only entrepreneur's Shopify cares about. Shopify has leaned heavily into 'we support entrepreneurs with our platform' messaging and now may be setting their sights on a large community of entrepreneurs on the backend of Shopify's platform. Curious what others think. What other message does this acquisition send? Link in the comments to appease the LI algo.

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Here's a brief demo of KOTS, the first of fifteen new products from our team at Mindlace

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Hamish McKay has run an absolute masterclass of building in public. Building in public can be controversial, especially if you’re in a market with a low barrier to entry (the Shopify App Store) and you’re fully aware that a few ankle biters are incentivized to grab some of your nascent market. However, in a platform-based ecosystem, it’s understandable and even necessary. If your whole company depends on a third-party platform to be a viable business, you have to be really careful of your primary vendor becoming your primary competitor. My hypothesis? To be taken seriously by enterprise customers, Shopify is continuing to clean up the App Store and quietly removing unmaintained or low-quality apps. I’d also bet that there are going to be a new tier of apps along the lines of, “Shopify Basics," so that new enterprise merchants don't feel like the only way to take advantage of Shopify is layering on a pile of apps. Everyone knows Amazon Basics, right? Amazon uses their treasure trove of consumer data to identify popular products and create a generic line of equal or better quality offerings. Batteries, binders, and bookshelves are all sourced, manufactured, and sold by Amazon directly. Amazon chooses the products to source and sell themselves based on data from the vendors who took the risk of selling on Amazon. We’ve all heard of the handful of large brands who refuse to sell on Amazon - or if you’re Walmart, go so far as to refuse to consider vendors who use AWS for their infrastructure. (Spoiler alert... Amazon never needed you to sell on their platform to identify market trends, they just learned about your margins.) I imagine Shopify has a few highly-paid MBAs in their strategy department combing through app store data, segmenting the data by merchant size, billing volume, or even API usage to determine which apps gain the most traction among merchants. Then, they make the decision whether to build, buy, or ignore. Hamish has set himself up to be bought by Shopify, and I bet it happens sooner rather than later. If Shopify simply rips him off, they send a very public message to the app development ecosystem that will stifle ongoing innovation. If they buy him, similar to their other acquisitions, they remind the ecosystem that you too can get rich by taking on the risk to build in this ecosystem. For us, our primary risk is the Shopify Search & Discovery app. It’s a phenomenal app and eliminating the need for apps like Boost Commerce, Fast Simon, and SearchSpring. Why pay a third-party app for functionality that Shopify offers for free? Our business risk is further amplified by sitting between not just one, but two platforms: Shopify and Google - who are actually partners! We get to watch the innovation (aka competition) happen in real time, and our success will depend upon who can build and maintain better AI-powered search algorithms for large merchants. Based on the AB tests we’ve run, our bet is on Google.

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