The problem

Brandon Landgraff had been working as a Shopify theme developer for five years before trying his hand at app development. He would find himself repeatedly rebuilding the same theme sections for different clients, and he knew there had to be a solution that would offer a more efficient use of his time.

After hacking together some Shopify boilerplate and Heroku, he launched Flexi, a Shopify app that allowed merchants to inject custom sections into their themes.

What started as a fun side project to solve his own repetitive work quickly gained traction, growing to over 800 users. But Brandon's success created a new problem: his technical infrastructure couldn't keep up with his ambitions.

"I'm not a backend developer," Brandon explained. "When I started Flexi, I quite literally typed into Google 'what is node' and started doing an intro course on Udemy. That's how I figured out how to build the basics of the app."

Brandon’s hacked together setup worked fine for a small user base, but became increasingly unstable as the app grew. His day-to-day reality became a constant cycle of putting out fires and fighting technical issues.

"The app would just go down," Brandon recalled. "Customers would email me and all I could do was wait for Heroku to refresh. I realized I couldn’t scale the app with the infrastructure I had. I needed something more solid."

The frequent crashes and 30-second hard resets weren't just embarrassing, they were unsustainable. Brandon had to make the difficult choice to either invest the time and resources to properly rebuild his infrastructure, or stop marketing his app and accept that he'd hit a growth ceiling.

With his rapid growth, Brandon could see so much potential for his app, and had ideas for even more products. But his technical limitations meant that all of his time was dedicated to troubleshooting infrastructure issues, leaving no opportunity to build new features. No matter how many requests he got from users, without a reliable backend foundation, his career trajectory was stalled.

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The solution

Brandon discovered Gadget at a Shopify developer conference, where he connected with the team and learned that the founders had experience scaling massive platforms, including Shopify itself. As someone who lacked backend expertise, to him, that meant he could trust Gadget to handle the complex infrastructure challenges he didn't fully understand.

Although he was originally hesitant about migrating users while his app was actively growing, Brandon decided to risk the transition. Gadget's full-stack development platform immediately addressed Brandon's core infrastructure problems. 

The platform provided everything he needed in a single, integrated solution: a fully managed backend, auto-scaling infrastructure, built-in database, and seamless Shopify integration — all without requiring him to manage servers or configure complex deployments.

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Eliminating infrastructure headaches

Instead of wrestling with Heroku's reliability issues and manual server management, Gadget's serverless infrastructure automatically handled scaling, uptime, and maintenance. Brandon no longer had to worry about crashes or become an expert in DevOps.

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Complete visibility and debugging

Where his previous setup was essentially a black box, Gadget provided comprehensive logging, error tracing, and real-time monitoring. Every user action, from installation to feature usage, became visible and traceable.

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Shopify-native integration

Gadget handled all the complex Shopify requirements automatically. In minutes, he was set up with OAuth, webhook processing, compliance requirements, and App Bridge integration. Gadget eliminated weeks of setup work that Brandon didn't have time for, as every day that his infrastructure remained unstable was another day he risked losing customers to crashes and downtime.

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AI-powered development assistance

Gadget's AI assistant became Brandon's backend mentor, helping him debug errors, optimize performance, and identify unused code. Unlike other AI tools that work in isolation, Gadget's AI had complete context about his entire application.

“The AI assistant was unreal. It can help me with any touch point in the app, because Gadget handles everything, so it knows everything.” Brandon explained. “I know everything I’m doing is correct, because I have the AI to verify.”

The AI assistant also helped him optimize his apps by identifying unused code and suggesting performance improvements. For example, If Brandon asked the AI how he could cut down on request time, the assistant would come up with a number of suggestions. From there, Brandon could choose the best course of action.

The platform's full-stack, integrated approach allowed Brandon to focus on building features rather than fighting infrastructure, while still maintaining full control over his app's functionality and user experience.

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The results

The migration to Gadget solved Brandon's immediate crisis and opened up possibilities he'd never imagined as a solo developer.

• Eliminated infrastructure failures: Zero downtime launch with complete visibility into user actions, ending the cycle of crashes and customer complaints
• 6x faster development speed: Rebuilt his entire app in weeks instead of months, with confidence to build new apps in a single weekend
• AI-powered code optimization: Cleaned up unused models, optimized performance, and debugged errors with full-stack aware assistance
• Seamless migration: Integrated smoothly with existing tools like Mantle, maintaining customer continuity while upgrading infrastructure
• Technical excellence: Transitioned from overwhelmed theme developer to confident multi-app builder with plans to scale into a marketplace business

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Zero downtime, maximum confidence

The launch went flawlessly. No crashes, no frantic customer emails, and no sleepless nights waiting for Heroku to reset. For the first time since Flexi started growing, Brandon could confidently scale his app without worrying about infrastructure failures.

"With Gadget, I can see everything," Brandon explained. "I can see when a customer installs, accepts the app charge, I can see if the record was created, I can see when they install a section and on which theme. It's lovely to see success through each of these steps."

The comprehensive visibility eliminated the black box problem that had plagued his previous setup. Instead of only learning about issues when customers complained, Brandon could proactively monitor his app's health and user behavior.

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6x faster development

The speed difference was dramatic. What took Brandon six months to originally build was reconstructed with Gadget in just a few weeks. With his infrastructure sorted, he immediately started work on a second app, Expansion Blocks, targeting developers and agencies with customizable product functionality widgets.

With two public app builds under his belt, Brandon estimates he could build a complete app in a weekend — something that would have been impossible with his previous setup. He said, “If I had to do it again, building with Gadget is so fast that all it would take is a weekend.” 

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AI-powered optimization and debugging

Gadget's AI assistant became instrumental in helping Brandon clean up and optimize his code. The AI helped him identify unused models, optimize request performance, and debug errors that would have previously sent him down rabbit holes on Stack Overflow.

"It’s so easy to optimize my app. Like it tells me if I'm actually using certain models, and if I even need them. That's been really, really fantastic." Brandon said.

The AI's full-stack awareness made it uniquely valuable compared to other coding assistants. "With other AI models, they might give you a new file but don't give you succinct steps," Brandon explained. "Gadget’s AI gives me an actionable plan with solutions and I can test everything with one button."

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Seamless integrations

The migration was further simplified by Gadget's integration with Brandon's existing tools, particularly Mantle for analytics and billing. He was able to set up toggles to manage the transition between his legacy and new billing systems without disrupting existing customers.

He was able to set up toggles to manage the transition between his legacy and new billing systems without disrupting existing customers. The tight integration between Gadget and Mantle made the entire migration process smooth and allowed Brandon to maintain continuity for his users while upgrading his infrastructure.

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Technical excellence

Perhaps most significantly, Gadget has enabled Brandon to completely reimagine his career trajectory. Previously limited by backend knowledge gaps and infrastructure challenges, he now confidently plans to transition fully from client work to app development.

"If Gadget wasn't around, I think I would have just gone back to theme development," Brandon reflected. "But moving forward, I feel like I can just keep building and ultimately help more users than I would have with themes."

Brandon is now more selective about client work, focusing primarily on scaling Flexi and Expansion Blocks. His long-term vision includes building Flexi into a marketplace for freelancers and agencies, an ambitious plan that's only possible because he no longer spends his time firefighting infrastructure issues.

Gadget didn't just solve technical problems — it unlocked entirely new opportunities. Brandon went from being a theme developer overwhelmed by backend challenges to a confident app developer with the infrastructure to support his biggest ambitions.

Since using Gadget, he said, "I feel like my sleep has improved 10x just from knowing my app isn't going to crash, and my confidence has gone up 10x as well."

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About the developer

Brandon Landgraff is a solo developer who spent over five years in the Shopify ecosystem, initially focusing on theme development and customization. He founded Flexi to solve his own repetitive work challenges and has since expanded into building multiple Shopify apps. Brandon continues to take on selective client work while focusing primarily on growing his app business.