The problem

Anthony Vita and Gabrielle Rea, have been working with Shopify brands for years to create custom themes and shopping experiences. The two of them started their agency, Sundae Lane, as a way to have more flexibility with where they chose to work. As such a small team, their time was limited, and so they were always looking for new revenue streams. While working with their clients, they kept coming across the same problem: clients needed a seamless, native bundling solution.

Despite their experience building in the Shopify ecosystem, app development felt like another world entirely. The path from idea to a fully-functional app would require more time and skill than a two-person team had available. Anthony had limited experience in backend development, while Gab found the idea of maintenance for a public app to be daunting.

"I’d probably attempted to build one from scratch three or four times," Gab recalls. "I probably spent four weeks, a couple hours a day, just tinkering to get something working."

The biggest hurdle was setting up the authentication and infrastructure required for a Shopify app. Anthony explains, "Before that Gab had tried to  spin up some apps to try and learn how to develop apps. This was before Shopify CLI and she had to do so many steps with auth, webhooks, hosting, and other setup."

The time consuming technical barrier was preventing Sundae Lane from bringing their app idea to life. They had the frontend skills and the vision for the product, but the backend complexities were a significant roadblock.

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The solution

Everything changed when Anthony discovered Gadget. In all the business of running the agency, he had put off trying the platform for ages. But when he and Gab were facing a particularly tight deadline, he finally decided to give it a try.

The difference between Gadget and building from scratch was immediately apparent. What had previously taken weeks of frustrating work was now accomplished in a matter of hours. Anthony recounts, "It was literally later that afternoon that I was building an actual app. The Shopify app was spun up, all the auth and initial set up was done for us. And I was actually working on proper business logic." 

Gab says, “We realized Gadget could help us make our bundle app  and then we could solve this for everyone instead of building a custom product form for each client.”

Gadget's platform provided Sundae Lane with several key advantages. The automatic Shopify connection meant that the authentication and connection to Shopify's API, which had been a major hurdle, was handled automatically by Gadget. So instead of wasting all of their time trying to get it working, the team was able to start building their app.

Since Gadget provided a fully-provisioned backend, database, and all the necessary models and tables to work with Shopify data, the lack of backend experience wasn’t a concern. The Sundae Lane team had all of the best practices baked into the platform, paired with Gadget’s intuitive development framework. This meant they had all the flexibility and context they needed to build apps confidently. Anthony notes, "As soon as I watched like one video, it was like, oh, this makes perfect sense."

An added bonus, Gadget’s excellent documentation made the whole process easy to navigate. After struggling to decipher the sometimes vague Shopify developer documentation, Sundae Lane found Gadget’s to be clear and helpful.

But after the initial hurdle of setting up an app, Anthony and Gab were most excited about the automatic scaling and maintenance. Anthony says, "We don't worry about uptime, we don't worry about spikes in usage. We know Gadget has everything handled for us and we can trust that everything will work."

With Gadget handling the complex backend tasks, Sundae Lane could focus on building the unique features of their app. They were able to create a native bundling solution that integrated seamlessly with Shopify's cart transformation API, providing a superior user experience for brands and their customers.

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The results

Thanks to Gadget, Sundae Lane was able to bring Biscuits Bundles to market quickly and efficiently. The app has been so successful that they even earned a featured spot on the Shopify app store, resulting in a 30% spike in growth without any problems. Leading up to the week, Anthony says, “We didn't even have to think about it. We were confident Gadget would handle it absolutely fine.”

With Gadget handling so much of the complex parts of the backend, Sundae Lane has been able to build at a rapid pace, so what might have taken months or even years to build from scratch was completed in a fraction of the time.

Because they’re able to build quickly, they have more time to dedicate to improving their product and marketing efforts, with Anthony splitting his time 50/50 between marketing and development. As a result, the app has seen impressive growth and success, with more than 300 merchants using the app just a few months after being released to the app store.

"It's really fun being able to fulfill people's requests for features very quickly. And Gadget is what makes that fast turnaround time possible," Anthony shares. Their ability to implement feedback and features quickly is a key part of the app’s success, and brands are finding Biscuits Bundles to be exactly what they need. Anthony says, "We get so much feedback from new users saying things like, I installed like 20 apps before I found yours. And like, thank God you guys exist because it's exactly what I wanted."

Gadget's one-click updates for Shopify API changes have removed the stress of keeping up with Shopify's frequent updates. With so many users adopting their app in such a short time, Anthony and Gab are confident that they can be sure that no matter how many updates Shopify throws at them, maintenance won’t slow them down. 

But one of the best rewards of building with Gadget was having their LCP handled for them. Anthony and Gab were able to use Gadget’s support channels to make sure their app was truly optimized for Shopify, and since then, Biscuits Bundles has earned the Built for Shopify badge. 

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For Sundae Lane, Gadget has been transformative. It's allowed them to transition from a service-based business to a product-based one, opening up new opportunities for growth and recurring revenue. As Anthony puts it, "We fell in love with app making. We just wanna build this thing because we know we can make good products that work well, and that support a lot of merchants. "

With Gadget, Sundae Lane has not only brought their app idea to life but has also positioned themselves for continued growth and success in the competitive world of Shopify apps.

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About the agency

Sundae Lane is an Australia-based Shopify agency that offers support, custom development, ecommerce guidance, and on-demand help to Shopify merchants. With more than 8 years of experience in the Shopify ecosystem, the agency is proud to support brands of all sizes in creating their ideal online shopping experience.