Newsletter #31: Respire, Shark Tank and street art

Hi there,

I hope you're doing well.

While we say goodbye to January and hello to February, I feel particularly happy because I did something special in January: I took one picture per day, every day of the month. Pictures of family, friends, food, morning views, and more. It feels good to be able to put together a mini photo montage of them all and reflect on these beautiful memories.

I have already started doing the same for February.

The first picture of the February photo montage is this one.

Shopify just sent me a surprise package with lots of goodies. I love this ”Ship It” cap, the “Entrepreneur” shirt, and the Shopify keycap! I really enjoy the Liquid water bottle and the stickers as well.

What a nice way to start the month!

In today's edition, we're discussing Respire, Shark Tank and street art.

Let's dive in.

Work

Shopify Winter Editions is such an impressive event that watching it with friends is a wonderful way to celebrate.Dulé Stojnić, Head of Sales and Marketing at PushOwl, and I organized a meet-up on January 31st in Paris to enjoy the event with other people in the Shopify ecosystem.We booked a conference room at WeWork to see Glen Coates's presentation on a huge screen. After that, we played pool and went to a brasserie for burgers and fries. It was a great time with amazing people.

Besides this event, my week was dedicated to working with one of my clients, Respire, an iconic French brand specializing in natural hygiene and beauty care products.

Respire is on Shopify Plus and faces plenty of challenges, making it super interesting to work with them.

Their current online store was developed by a French Shopify agency about a year ago. Respire’s growth team now needs help adding features to it. For this purpose, they brought in two freelancers: my friend Youness Idbakkasse and me. I’m happy to be collaborating with him for the first time.

I began working with Respire in November for their Black Friday campaign. It’s been a lot of fun since then.

With Shopify constantly improving and evolving, we have lots of tasks to tackle.

For instance, Youness migrated Respire’s old checkout to checkout extensibility. He transformed 1,000 lines of liquid and 1,000 lines of ruby scripts into 7 Shopify functions, 1 web pixel and 4 UI extensions. All custom made. It was a huge task!

We’ve also developed numerous new sections, leveraged metaobjects, upgraded the Thank you and Order Status pages to extensibility, migrated automated flows from the app Arigato Automation to the native app Shopify Flow, etc.

As a general rule, as Shopify is becoming more powerful, we’re using more native tools.

I’m really enjoying this mission for Respire as it allows me to delve into many topics inside Shopify.

Inspire

This week, I found inspiration in the American TV show “Shark Tank” and its French version “Qui veut être mon associé ?” (“Who wants to be my business partner?”).

"Shark Tank" premiered in 2009 and has been running ever since. This TV show features entrepreneurs who pitch their businesses to a panel of famous investors, called “sharks”, in order to convince them to invest money in them.

It’s inspiring for me because I get to discover the investors and their track records, as well as new projects in all kinds of industries. I also pay attention to the investors’ comments to understand what they believe the entrepreneurs did right or wrong.

The montage in “Shark Tank” is brutal, leaving no room to breathe. Every moment of silence is cut, and a stressful background music is added to make sure you’re on edge. It feels less like a talk show and more like an action movie. But it works well: you lose track of time and don’t see the episodes go by. However, I have to say: when it finishes, my heart is relieved and I can finally relax.

The French version of “Shark Tank” is more chill. The producers take their time to introduce each investor and each entrepreneur, making me feel much closer to them. The entrepreneurial project itself is important, but so is the story behind it. We often have emotional moments. It’s both inspiring and insightful.

After a few episodes, you start to know the investors better and notice trends in the questions they ask. Sometimes, the entrepreneur is not even done pitching and you already know that the investors are going to be super excited about the company: it boasts great margins, a significant portion of repeat purchases, highly motivated and complementary founders, and perhaps even a technological patent that will increase the barrier to entry.

The icing on the cake is that many projects in both “Shark Tank” and “Qui veut être mon associé ?” are on Shopify. For the freelancers or the agencies behind them, it must be a source of great pride. My client Respire appeared on “Qui veut être mon associé ?” 4 years ago, and it was a transformative step for their business.

Explore

One thing I have been super passionate about for years is street art.

Every time I visit a new city, the first thing I do is googling it to see if there are any street art spots around.

3 cities that really amazed me in terms of street art are Berlin, Dublin and Lisbon. I spent hours admiring them, exploring small hidden streets for new discoveries, and trying to capture the best pictures possible.

Over the years, I’ve begun to recognize some artists and learn their names.

I really enjoy the work of C215, Hopare, JR and Bordalo II.

Bordalo II, known for transforming garbage into giant colorful 3D animals, is one of my favorites. I’ve seen his squirrel in Dublin, as well as his bee, his fox, and his raccoon in Lisbon. They’re all magnificent.

Many years ago, I bought a book about street art: “Street Art Portraits d’Artistes 2” by Xavier Tàpies and Eleanor Mathieson. It presents 50+ street artists from all around the world.

I find joy in coming back to this book every once in a while.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for reading this edition until the end.

I'll talk to you soon.

Take good care of yourself.

Coralie