Note: The post below was written back in September 2014, when I was starting to feel a bit down about how poorly the Shopify sales of my app were going — especially after being featured on the front page of the app store without much attention. I did not publish it back then, because I once promised myself that I would try to mostly stay away from online rants. However, I think it provides some context to my March 2015 post about what happened next during my period of complete independence. So here you go.
I often get emotionally involved in my software. For example, I feel physically uncomfortable when I find a bug in some code I have written. I should probably write better tests to insure my well-being. Anyway, I want to talk about a bit about competition.
Antecons, the recommendation engine that I am working on, has now been around for about a year on the Shopify app store. When Antecons was first released, there were three other competing recommendation engines on the app store and one of them had been added just a few weeks before Antecons. Since then, three or four more have popped up on the app store. Recommendation engines and data analysis must be hot business because all of these competing apps seem to be doing very well and are getting nice reviews from the customers. This is a bit of a let down for me because it does not seem like Antecons is enjoying the same success.
What I am starting to realize is that it probably does not matter that Antecons always use SSL for increased privacy and security (unlike most of the other apps), that the Antecons JavaScript code is minified to reduce bandwidth for the webshop visitors (unlike at least two of the other apps) or that I do not write fake reviews (like at least one other app). No one will pat me on the shoulder for doing what I feel is a tiny bit extra “niceness” of the overall package. Oh well.