I'm a private driver with zero coding background. I just shipped a working Shopify app. Now I need real merchants to break it.
I drive people around for a living. I've never written a line of code in my life. A few months ago I decided I wanted to build something on the internet that actually makes money — not a course, not an idea, an actual small business. I spent a long time just looking for the right problem to solve, mostly failing, until I landed on something boring but real: abandoned cart recovery for small Shopify stores.
Big platforms already do this (Klaviyo, Omnisend, etc.), but they're built for stores that already have marketing budgets and staff. I wanted something dead simple for the tiny stores that don't.
What I built, working with AI tools the whole way (I genuinely could not have done this alone): a Shopify app that watches for abandoned checkouts via webhooks, waits a configurable delay, and automatically emails the customer a link back to their cart. If they order, it marks the cart recovered and stops. If they never gave an email, it just leaves it alone.
It sounds simple, and technically it mostly is — but getting it actually production-ready took real work: proper webhook handling (including duplicate deliveries, which Shopify sends more than you'd expect), a real Postgres database instead of a local file, domain-verified email sending so it doesn't land in spam, and 24/7 hosting instead of my laptop. I tested it end-to-end on my own store multiple times: cart abandoned → wait → email arrives → click → checkout → marked recovered. It works.
What I don't have yet: a single real merchant using it. I've been testing on my own dev store, which only proves it works for me.
So here's my honest ask: if you run a real Shopify store (any size), I'd love to install this for you for free — no credit card, no catch — and just watch closely for a couple of weeks. In exchange I want your honest reaction: does it feel useful, did anything break, would you actually pay for it.
If you've been in a similar spot (non-technical, building with AI, looking for that first real user) I'd also love to hear how you got your first few testers — that's the part I'm least experienced at.
Skip trying to find "testers" and go find the ten people you already have some reason to talk to.
When I started my company, my first users weren't strangers off a landing page, they were people in my own network who happened to have the actual problem, even loosely. For your case that might be a friend who runs an Etsy shop, a cousin with a small Shopify store, or someone in a local small business Facebook group who's complained about cart abandonment before. You're not selling them anything yet, you're asking them to let you fix a real problem they already have, for free, in exchange for their honest reaction.
Local small business Facebook groups tend to have people who are broke enough to want a free alternative to Klaviyo and vocal enough to tell you exactly what's wrong with your tool. That combination is worth more right now than a hundred cold signups who never open the app.
I'd ask people directly instead of posting and waiting. A message that says "can I fix your cart abandonment for free for a month, I just need your honest feedback" gets answered a lot more than a generic post looking for beta testers.
Getting real merchants to break it is exactly the right instinct, and there's a fast way to do it that most people skip: offer the first 3-5 merchants a "founding user" deal where you personally onboard them on a call.
Not a demo where you show the app — a working session where you install it together and watch them use it on their actual store. You'll find more real bugs in 3 of those calls than in 3 months of waiting for organic signups, and each merchant becomes a testimonial with a name and a face.
This is the same pattern that works in the creator/course space (where I operate, running iLoquio): the first customers never come from the listing page, they come from direct outreach with a specific promise. "I noticed your store does X, my app fixes Y, can I set it up for you free this week?" converts. "Check out my app" doesn't.
Also — private driver to shipped Shopify app is a great story. Lead with it in your outreach. Merchants trust builders who clearly understand the problem from the ground up more than they trust polished SaaS marketing.
Same boat here. No dev background, built an iOS calorie tracking app (Pure Macros) with Claude over six weeks. Sitting in App Store review right now, waiting for it to go live. Before the app was live, TikTok build-in-public posts and a simple waitlist page did the most work. Showed the build process and the features working, waitlist link in bio. Got real signups off a tiny following. Once it's live, the plan is direct outreach to small nutrition and fitness creators: free access for honest feedback. Same idea as putting your app on a real store instead of your own dev store. Hope you land a real merchant soon. One real-world test beats a hundred runs on your own setup.
What an inspiring journey, moving from driving to building a real product with AI. That jump from 'it works perfectly on my dev store' to getting the first real merchants using it is a mental wall many founders hit. It's tough to transition from pure building to actively asking for critique, especially when you've poured so much into making it functional.
That vulnerability in your ask for testers is actually a huge strength. Often, the best way to get those initial users isn't a complex marketing strategy, but exactly what you're doing: a direct, personal appeal for honest feedback. People on IH respect that level of transparency. You're already taking the most critical step.
Really impressive to ship a working Shopify app with no coding background, especially while working as a private driver. I think the next stage of getting real merchants to actually break it will probably teach you more than the build itself.
If it were me, I’d probably onboard the first 5–10 stores quite manually and watch exactly where they get confused, what they expect the app to do differently, and where things fail before trying to chase lots of installs. Are you mainly looking for bug reports at this point, or are you also trying to validate whether merchants see enough value to eventually pay for it?
Your positioning is sharper than you think: "dead simple for tiny stores Klaviyo isn't built for" is a real wedge. Klaviyo is overkill for a store doing 20 orders a month, and those owners know it. Lead with that gap.
Fastest path to testers: your story IS your distribution. "Private driver, zero code, shipped a real Shopify app, want to install it free and watch it work for you" beats any pitch. Go where tiny owners gather (r/shopify, small-store FB groups) and reply to people posting about abandoned carts.
One fix: "install free, watch two weeks" is generous but vague. Give it a finish line: "I'll set it up and show you exactly how many carts it recovered." A result, not an open-ended favor.
Who's your ideal first tester, and where do those owners hang out?
I'm at the same stage — shipped, works end to end, still waiting on the first real user — so read this as data from the same trench, not advice from the summit. What ten days of looking for strangers has actually measured for me: announcements from a brand-new account with no followers got single-digit views each. One genuine comment in an active community thread, where I had something concrete to add, produced my single biggest traffic day — several times what any announcement day managed. And going directly to one specific person who had publicly described the exact problem, and answering them concretely, got small but real attention. None of it has produced my first real user yet, so weight it accordingly — but the pattern was clear enough that I reorganized around it: be where the person with the problem is already talking, rather than announcing. Translated to your product: where do small store owners already complain about abandoned checkouts? Shopify's own community forum and r/shopify carry exactly those threads, and your "free install, I'll watch it closely for two weeks" offer made personally to one merchant who just described the pain will beat any launch post. And your instinct that a dev store only proves it works for you — that applies to distribution too. The only channel data that counts is what strangers actually did.
Going from zero coding background to a working Shopify app is a real jump, respect for actually shipping it. When you say you need merchants to "break it," are you more worried about edge cases in the checkout flow, or more about whether merchants will even understand how to set it up without guidance?
Going from a dev store to wanting a real merchant to use it is a pretty meaningful milestone. Curious what the first real store exposes that your own testing didn't.