The Shopify Fund is designed to boost the Shopify platform ecosystem, used by 25,000+ online shops.
We’ll be giving away cash to developers, designers and entrepreneurs that want to build apps and other useful applications that enrich the Shopify platform.
How much money is in the Shopify Fund? One million dollars. We want you to have (a part of) it.
How does it work? It's easy.
If you have an idea for an app or utility, tell us about it. We’ll evaluate it, and if we decide to support your project, we’ll provide an advance in the neighborhood of $5,000 - $10,000 on future sales in the App Store. It’s like the advances that authors get on sales of their books. And just like those advances, it lets you focus on your Shopify project for a few weeks without having to worry about how you’re going to pay the rent, mortgage and the usual cost of living.
If you don’t have an idea for an app or utility but have the programming skill to write one, tell us about yourself. We have a wish list of apps that we’d like to see written, and if we think you have the skills, we’ll assign you the task of writing it, as well as give you the same kind of advance that we’re giving to developers with app ideas.
Still on the fence? If you:
- Have a great idea for a Shopify app or utility and would like to be able to spend a few weeks developing it full-time
- Don’t have an idea for a Shopify app or utility but would like to be able to work full-time on one from our App Wish List
- Want to work on a feature or tool that will help our merchants grow their online businesses
Then the Shopify Fund might be for you! It’s our program to give you enough money to work on a Shopify project full-time.
The First Four and More!
Earlier this year, we reviewed 142 app proposals and picked four to the be first cohort to be funded. Their developers are busy working on them right now, and we made a short video that covers what these apps are and who's writing them:
As the development of these apps comes to a close, we're looking for more of apps to fund. If you're a developer with a great idea for an app, contact us using the form below!
What Makes a Great App?
A great app extends Shopify's existing functionality and adds some feature or features that do at least one of the following:
- Makes shopowners' work easier, by automating or simplifying some task that they perform often or is very complex
- Helps shopowners make more sales, either by helping them get more customers or get more sales from each customer
- Makes customers' lives easier, by simplifying the shopping experience, helping them find what they want or catering to their needs (which in turn is an extension of "helps shopowners make more sales").
Ideally, an app should be as simple to use as Shopify, and it should present a great-looking user interface. We're sticklers for design, and we'd like Shopify apps to look as good as Shopify.
The Shopify App Wishlist
While many developers have come to us with their own ideas for Shopify apps, a number of them have told us "Hey, I've got the skills to build an app, but I don't have any ideas. Can you give me some?"
We're only too happy to help out, so here's the App Wishlist, our compilation of much-needed and much-requested apps. What follows are simple descriptions of the apps both we and our shopowners would like to see; if you'd like more details, please contact us at fund@shopify.com or use the form below.
Super-Customizable Products
Merchants are asking for a way to add more than the default 3 options to their products. Imagine a jewelery shop selling necklaces with the following attributes:
- Chain Length
- Chain Material
- Chain Style
- Clasp Type
- Pendant Colour
- Pendant Stone Type
All of these values are pre-defined but Shopify can only natively support 3 of them. We're looking for a low-cost app that allows the extra options to be recorded as order-note-attributes that can be read by the merchant on the admin dashboard. This app also needs to provide a dashboard for merchants to edit the options on their products.
Resource-Booking App
In a case similar to the one with the Rentals App (see above), there are people in the business of selling things that aren't shipped but booked, such as:
- Memberships: for gyms, clubs and all sorts of organizations. Memberships may be time limited, and there may be different levels of membership, each of which with different privileges.
- Training and courses: Many people lead classes and seminars of all sorts, from business and programming courses to cooking and knitting classes to swimming lessons and personal training, and they'd like to be able to promote and sell bookings to these sessions online.
- Services: Think of all the services that can be sold online, if there was only a way: catering, dog walking, housekeeping and so on.
Resources such as these can be mapped onto products, but we'd like to see an app that helps take care of the extra stuff involved in booking resources, whether it's availability (such as the maximum size for a class, or the availability of a dog walker at a certain day and time).
Customer Image and Text Uploads
Many shops sell items that can be customized either with custom text (such as the customer's name on a sports uniform or a monogrammed towel) or photo (such as the customer's photo on a mug or t-shirt). Some shopowners have come up with manual workarounds such as following up via email with their customers to get the custom text or image. We'd love to see an app that automates the process.
Photo Galleries
Shopify lacks built-in photo gallery support for blog posts or product descriptions. We're looking for a straight-forward, one-time fee app that will allow customers to embed their photos easily and beautifully.
Easy shipping calculator
Shopify supports adding a shipping calculator to your shop's cart page, but the steps to do so are too complicated for many of our users. We want a one-time fee app that allows merchants to embed the shipping calculator as easily as inserting a single line of liquid into their template.
Rentals App
Shopify is great "out of the box" for selling products that you can ship to customers who will then own them, whether they're physical or digital. However, there are people in the business of loaning out rather than selling things. We'd like to see an app that lets people book things for rental, whether they're cars, computers or cooking equipment. Rental products can be mapped to products, but an app would have to take care of who's renting which item and when, and prevent things such as two customers renting the same thing at the same time.
Contact Us
If you have an app proposal or any questions about the Shopify Fund, please feel free to ask us at fund@shopify.com or use the form below.
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