Shopify Diaries is my progress stair-stepping my way toward a successful software company. Follow along as I grow my Shopify apps into a business.

What apps am I working on? I have four apps covering different stages of the e-commerce customer journey. ReRank SEO brings traffic to the store, Rapid Hover helps products stand out, Detective FAQ removes purchase hesitation, and Fuze Upsell maximizes revenue per customer.

In the previous post, I covered why I wanted to buy apps and how I started the business. Today, we get into the actual acquisition.

The Search

MicroAcquire was the main marketplace I used, but I also looked at Empire Flippers and Flippa. Both had solid apps for sale.

All of these marketplaces have a huge number of listings. To make it manageable, I applied a few filters immediately. First was price. My ceiling was around $50k, though I wasn’t looking to spend that much unless something truly great came along. Second, the app needed recurring revenue. I’m not looking to start from zero; that’s the whole point of buying. The last filter wasn’t required, but I felt it would make life easier: I wanted a Shopify app.

The Shopify requirement meant a huge pool of potential customers and limited competition. It makes Software as a Service (SaaS) a little easier. I’ll talk more about this in a later post.

After filtering and signing countless Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs), I had a list of around ten apps I was actually interested in. I requested more details or clarifications on each. Most of them I lost interest in due to poor reviews, tech stacks I wasn’t familiar with, questionable revenue, or too many lifetime deals dragging down the MRR.

I searched for about three months. For a larger deal I might have looked longer, but at this price range that felt right.

The most important quality I was looking for was potential to grow. Some apps are just very niche. They work, but there’s a ceiling. I wanted something that could be used in almost any shop. And small enough to be a nights-and-weekends project.

In the end, there was only one I was really interested in.

The App(s)

In April 2022, I finally decided on the app I wanted: Detective FAQ.

It had a good number of users, solid profit, and the reviews were strong. Everything I was looking for. The only wrinkle was that it was bundled with another app, Second Image Animations. A pretty basic app that does exactly what it sounds like: when a customer hovers over a product image, a second image is displayed with an animation.

Both apps were making roughly the same profit. I figured, why not? Twice the apps, twice the experience.

Due Diligence

Since these are Shopify apps, it’s easy to view revenue, users, and installs directly. Everything lined up with the valuation.

Support load was low, just one or two emails per month. I didn’t do a deep dive on the code, but from a quick overview it looked clean. I was confident enough in my skills to pick up anything I needed as I went. The apps are written in Node.js with a Vue.js frontend and MongoDB database. I knew Node, but Mongo and Vue were new to me.

In all my conversations with the seller, I felt reassured. Every question I asked was answered well. The seller was great and went above and beyond during the sale and after. He even offered three months of free consulting to help with the transition.

The Deal

Negotiations were straightforward. The seller wanted $17.5k. I offered the full amount, on the condition that he’d give me three months of support after the sale to help with the transition. He agreed.

We used MicroAcquire (now just Acquire) to handle the deal. They manage the Letter of Intent (LOI) and have a partnership with Escrow.com for payment, so everything went smoothly.

The basic flow: once you decide to make an offer, you create the LOI and send it to the seller. They review and either approve or request adjustments. After the LOI was accepted, I wired funds to Escrow.com. Once they acknowledged receipt (this part is stressful and can take a few days) we began transferring assets.

Transferring assets is pretty easy in most cases. Servers were VPS-hosted, domains transferred without issue, same with email. Shopify was great to work with. The seller initiated a transfer of the apps, they looped me into a chat, and it was done.

Once I confirmed the assets were transferred, Escrow.com released the funds to the seller.

The entire deal was much faster than I expected. I sent the LOI on April 14. By April 27, I had all the assets and the seller had his money.

Day 1

After the whirlwind of closing the deal, I sat down to look at what I actually had.

There were a lot of projects. Getting them running locally was an endeavor. I wasn’t expecting all the complications for what I thought were simple Node.js apps. Detective FAQ had two main servers and three separate projects that compiled into them. Second Image Animations had one main server, shared another server with Detective FAQ, plus two more projects that compiled in. It was a lot to wrap my head around.

But the great thing? Checking the Shopify dashboard and seeing money come in. That’s a great feeling.

Lessons Learned

When someone is selling an app, they’ll give you a reason. And it’s probably true. But like most things in life, there are usually more factors than just the one they mention.

With apps, it’s usually outdated code.

Looking back, I definitely overestimated how good the code was and how well the projects were organized. I wouldn’t make that mistake again.

…Or would I?

That’s where I’ll stop for now.