Projects
I've launched a lot of projects. Some were made money, some built experience, some were successful, some were failures... well most of the failures didn't make it here but they still added experience so they were a net positive.
Here are some of my notable projects.
Active Projects
Lucid Characters
π‘ Idea: Create characters and dream worlds for fun + generate ideas for cartoons.
π Launch date: November 2024
π‘ Status: Live
π Link: instagram.com/lucidcharacters
I like drawing and creating characters, and think it would be really fun to make cartoons. I'm in the early learning and experimenting stage but digging the journey.
I was inspired by my fianceΓ© launching her art page arte.mandaleira, and thought hey why not start publishing my art now, will be cool to look back on the history.
Product Automator
π‘ Idea: Automate tasks related to products and collections in Shopify stores.
π Launch date: July 2024
π‘ Status: Live
π¨βπ« Key lesson: Getting traction is usually harder than you think π
π Link: apps.shopify.com/product-automator
I ran a Shopify store for 7 years and have worked with 100's of Shopify store owners, staff, and collaborators. Product Automator is a collection of tools that automate tasks I and others do manually. It's a part of my business Automator Apps.
I built this with a co-cocreator. We continue to add features + have plans for adding widgets to help increase store metrics like conversion rate and average order value.
Automator Apps
π‘ Idea: Create a company that makes automated solutions for Shopify stores.
π Launch date: December 2021
π‘ Status: Live
π¨βπ« Key lesson: Focus on what you like to do in your business (for me coding) and build a team to help fill in the gaps
π Link: automatorapps.dev
When I formed this company, I currently had 2 other companies: Speed Boostr and Tree Tribe (both mentioned below).
I was feeling overwhelmed and wanted to change gears. I decided to focus on the things I like doing, and narrow my focus. I formed Automator Apps, LLC with the idea of focusing on coding and apps for business, and sell my other businesses to have more time to work on creative projects (and more coding time π€).
Automator Apps currently has 2 Shopify apps: Order Automator + Product Automator. We also do custom solutions and are open to projects outside of Shopify, if it fits the model of automating or using AI.
Order Automator
π‘ Idea: Automate tasks related to orders, fulfillment, and backend organization in Shopify stores.
π Launch date: September 2019
π‘ Status: Live
π¨βπ« Key lesson: Create a clear ROI and undeniable benefit to your customers (saving time and money for business owners, in this case)
π Link: apps.shopify.com/order-automator
I built Order Automator while I owned an eCommerce brand + Shopify store and was also doing some client work on other Shopify stores.
I was looking for ways to save time by automating tasks for me and my team. The first feature I built to automate fulfillment requests to Amazon, our primary fulfillment partner at the time.
This feature alone saved hours of time every month, and along with other ideas I continued adding more features to save time and money for store owners and their staff.
The app still evolves and improves every month: we take feature requests + I'm still active in the Shopify community and regularly get new ideas to help people.
Past Projects
InglΓͺs com Cervejas
π‘ Idea: Start a local meetup for Brazilians to practice English.
π Launch date: October 2022
π‘ Status: Idle
π¨βπ« Key lesson: Start a meetup group and help your community. It's rewarding + you'll meet cool people
π Link: instagram.com/inglescomcervejas
In 2022 I moved out of my apartment in Bogota, Colombia, looking for a new adventure, in a new country, near the beach. Pulling up Google Maps led me to Brazil.
I arrived in FlorianΓ³polis, Brazil after a recommendation from friends, with the first goal to see how fast I could learn a language.
I went all-in the first month to learn Portugues. Here was my routine:
- 20 minutes on DuoLingo in the morning with coffee, to get in the Portugues and language learning mindset
- 2 hours of Portugues class
- Lunch at a local restaurant where nobody that worked there spoke English
- At night I'd often go out for dinner, alone, and walk around, go to convenient stores or bars and talk to people
After a month I was having pretty good basic conversations, and after a few months I was speaking Portugues (not great yet, still learning every day, but I was living life and integrating as a local).
It's pretty easy to learn a new language when you can immerse fully. You just have to put in the time to learn the concepts and then walk around and talk to people for practice. This usually isn't easy if you're in your home country or don't have physical access to people that speak the language you want to learn.
I met plenty of Brazilians that first year that wanted to learn English but didn't have many opportunities to practice (English is not commonly spoken in Brazil).
I found 1 meetup group to practice English (shoutout to Drink n Talk) but it was far for people that lived in my neighborhood (Rififi + Campeche represent).
I started asking people if they'd be interested in a casual meetup to practice English and hang out. After about 10 people said yes, I decided to start a meetup called Ingles com Cervejas.
Cervejas = Beers, and it's scientific fact that people are more comfortable + speak better when they're speaking their non-native language combined with a brew. πΊ
Speed Boostr
π‘ Idea: Create a productized service business in a specific niche to help business owners
π Launch date: 2017
π‘ Status: Active, under new ownership
π¨βπ« Key lesson: Create a blog for your business, be a thought leader in your industry, figure out how to get organic leads / customers
π Link: speedboostr.com
I started Speed Boostr when I was nearly an expert at optimizing Shopify websites for performance.
At this time I owned Tree Tribe, an eCommerce brand, and was also doing client work on the side as a freelance web developer (I'd been a web developer since 2010).
I was getting more requests for making websites load faster, to provide a better user experience, increase SEO, and increase conversion rates.
Seeing this becoming a trending request, I dove deep into the topic, learning, experimenting, and doing case studies.
I saw the benefits and noticed there was no go-to solution for Shopify stores to optimize their websites, so I launched speedboostr.com as a solo project.
I had a lot of knowledge to share, so I attached a blog to the website (this blog would later be a key factor in selling the biz).
After a few months I started to get traction, with the blog bringing in organic traffic and leading to service purchases.
At the start I did all the services, while building SOP's and fine tuning the system.
Then I started bringing in other developers, forming a collective business model with independent contractors.
During this time I built the first performance analysis tool specifically for Shopify stores (the Shopify Analyzer).
After a few years of growing the service side, getting leads on a near daily basis from the blog, building a couple apps, and growing the team, I had a pretty nice asset, but was burned out (not because of this business specifically, but because of having 2 businesses + a wide range of tasks).
In retrospect, I really needed an operations manager. But I was also ready to move on to new projects. I've always been full of ideas and love to start new projects. I also wanted to start doing more creative work, and for business preferred to just code my apps.
I sold this business around March 2022, the same time I was moving countries and ready for a new start.
The buyers were great to work with, smart, and with a larger team behind them. It felt good to pass the business along to a solid team, knowing that the original idea I launched would live on and continue helping Shopify business owners level up their stores and be more successful.
Surface Fusion
π‘ Idea: Create eco friendly kitchen products, with a focus on bamboo
π Launch date: 2015
π‘ Status: Retired
π¨βπ« Key lesson: Have a mission in your business, a reason for existing other than just making money
The failure of this business is clear, in retrospect. There were 2 founders and no employees. Me and a co-founder created this business as a side project, to make money and take a crack at product creation.
With no clear mission, and it being a side project that neither of us were passionate about, it didn't get the attention needed to grow and thrive.
We also had a problem with one of the shipments of bamboo can openers. It was a cool product, but the manufacturer failed us and shipped defective units.
The business model was to ship directly from the manufacturer to Amazon warehouses, and sell on Amazon FBA. This presented a major problem when a shipment contained a high number of defective units.
We were having to send replacements regularly, bad reviews came in, and what we analyzed as a great product opportunity (that was, until the defective units crashed it) soon became a dead listing and failed product.
There were a couple other products, but they didn't yield strong sales volume, and the margins were not good.
If this were a primary business focus, or there was a clear mission and passion behind the project, we could have pivoted or kept charging down the path. But that was not the case so we sold off what we could and shut er down.
Nomad Summit Speaker
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Zonez
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Custom Mat Builder
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ClockdIn
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