A little while back, we announced the Shopify Fund, a one million dollar pool of money set aside to stimulate the development of Shopify apps, applications that made use of the Shopify API to extend, enhance and automate Shopify shops. We asked developers to submit their app proposals and if their app was chosen, we’d give them somewhere in the neighborhood of five to ten thousand dollars to take a few weeks to work on their app idea full-time, complete it and put it into the Shopify App Store.
In the end, we received 143 app proposals – many of which were submitted on the deadline date, November 30th — a considerable deal more than we’d expected. We’ve been spending the past couple of weeks deliberating over which apps should get funding in the Fund’s first round, in closed-room sessions not unlike the scene from 12 Angry Men shown above. We still have to have a few more discussions before we make our final choices, and we’ll announce which apps are getting funding in the new year.
If you didn’t get a chance to submit an app idea or if your app idea submission doesn’t get selected, don’t worry. This is just the first round, and we want to continue funding the development of apps through the coming months – both apps that you propose and apps that we have on our wishlist. The Fund will continue because:
- We think it builds interest and excitement about the Shopify ecosystem. The number of responses we’ve received from the developers proposing apps seems to indicate this.
- We want to make it possible for developers to have the time they need to build Shopify apps. By funding developers, we give them enough money so that they don’t have to take on any other clients and just work on an app full-time.
- We want Shopify to be the ecommerce platform with the most capabilities. Shopify does a lot “out of the box”, and it does so much more when you extend it with apps. More apps means more capabilities and customizations, and we think that’s a good thing.
So keep an eye on this blog for announcements in the new year – not just about whose apps are being funded in the first round, but also for new chances for you to get funding to develop Shopify apps!
This article also appears in the Shopify Technology Blog.