https://dennishegstad.com Dennis Hegstad builds internet software. Founder of Internet Research Unit. Previously LiveRecover, OrderBump, Vigilance. Notes on ecommerce, SaaS, and building small companies. en-us https://dennishegstad.com/writing/the-platform-can-change-its-mind https://dennishegstad.com/writing/the-platform-can-change-its-mind Vigilance was working. Then Shopify deprecated the one file the whole product ran on. Here's what I'd price differently next time. Thu, 18 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/i-sold-orderbump-in-four-months https://dennishegstad.com/writing/i-sold-orderbump-in-four-months Bought it in October, sold it by February, then spent months handing it over. I've had people ask me how to repeat this. You mostly can't. Thu, 07 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/what-bootstrapping-bought-us https://dennishegstad.com/writing/what-bootstrapping-bought-us We were one of the only SMS apps at that scale without investors. The advantage wasn't the equity. It was who was allowed to call us. Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/why-this-site-exists https://dennishegstad.com/writing/why-this-site-exists I've been posting on X since 2009. Nothing I wrote there survives, and none of it is mine. Wed, 14 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/i-took-a-job-at-shopify https://dennishegstad.com/writing/i-took-a-job-at-shopify Seven years building on a platform, and now I work for it. The obvious question is what happens to the way I write about platform risk. Tue, 14 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/a-portfolio-of-small-apps https://dennishegstad.com/writing/a-portfolio-of-small-apps Three Shopify apps at once instead of one company. It's a worse story and, so far, a better structure. Tue, 15 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/the-compounding-return-on-staying-put https://dennishegstad.com/writing/the-compounding-return-on-staying-put Six years in one ecosystem. The advantage isn't expertise — it's that deals get shown to you before they're deals. Tue, 12 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/selling-data-to-people-who-think-they-have-data https://dennishegstad.com/writing/selling-data-to-people-who-think-they-have-data Every buyer for IRU already has dashboards. The sale isn't about more data. It's about the difference between your numbers and the market's. Tue, 16 Jul 2024 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/building-something-that-isnt-a-tenant https://dennishegstad.com/writing/building-something-that-isnt-a-tenant Four companies on someone else's platform. This one takes data from across the whole industry instead of through one company's permission slip. Tue, 12 Mar 2024 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/offering-the-money-back https://dennishegstad.com/writing/offering-the-money-back We shut Vigilance down and offered our investors their money back. Several people told me that was a mistake. Here's the reasoning. Tue, 14 Nov 2023 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/how-to-read-a-deprecation-notice https://dennishegstad.com/writing/how-to-read-a-deprecation-notice Shopify is deprecating checkout.liquid. I'd been reading that roadmap for a year as industry news. It was a countdown. Tue, 11 Jul 2023 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/the-first-good-month https://dennishegstad.com/writing/the-first-good-month Vigilance is working. Plus merchants are signing up and the math isn't a stretch. I've been here before and I know what it does to your judgment. Tue, 14 Mar 2023 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/shipping-into-the-app-store-in-december https://dennishegstad.com/writing/shipping-into-the-app-store-in-december We launched Vigilance publicly in November and hit the Shopify App Store in December. Launching into peak season is either the best or worst timing available. Tue, 13 Dec 2022 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/raising-money-for-the-first-time https://dennishegstad.com/writing/raising-money-for-the-first-time Two companies, no outside investors, and then this year I raised about $250,000. I wanted the names more than I wanted the cash. Tue, 16 Aug 2022 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/what-a-handover-actually-costs https://dennishegstad.com/writing/what-a-handover-actually-costs I've now been on both sides of a transition. The sale date is a milestone in the deal and it's the beginning of the actual work. Tue, 19 Apr 2022 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/i-just-bought-a-shopify-app https://dennishegstad.com/writing/i-just-bought-a-shopify-app Buying a small software business is a different skill than building one. Here's what I actually looked at before closing on OrderBump. Tue, 09 Nov 2021 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/a-year-of-answering-questions https://dennishegstad.com/writing/a-year-of-answering-questions We sold LiveRecover this summer. The process started in Q3 of 2020 and I was not prepared for how much of it was just documentation. Tue, 24 Aug 2021 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/three-years-of-humans-in-the-loop https://dennishegstad.com/writing/three-years-of-humans-in-the-loop We bet that a person having a conversation beats an automated sequence. Here's what actually held up and what I'd concede. Tue, 09 Mar 2021 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/when-acquirers-start-emailing https://dennishegstad.com/writing/when-acquirers-start-emailing Every founder with any traction gets these. Most of them are not offers, and learning to tell the difference is worth doing before you need to. Tue, 10 Nov 2020 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/getting-outfunded-in-your-own-category https://dennishegstad.com/writing/getting-outfunded-in-your-own-category SMS marketing got funded. We didn't. Watching companies with tens of millions enter your market teaches you what money can and can't buy. Tue, 18 Aug 2020 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/the-month-ecommerce-changed-shape https://dennishegstad.com/writing/the-month-ecommerce-changed-shape Everyone in this industry just got handed a demand shock they didn't earn. The interesting question is which part of it stays. Tue, 14 Apr 2020 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/hiring-when-its-your-own-money https://dennishegstad.com/writing/hiring-when-its-your-own-money I've under-hired at every company I've run. It isn't caution and it isn't discipline. It's that a salary feels like a personal expense. Tue, 08 Oct 2019 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/charging-for-performance https://dennishegstad.com/writing/charging-for-performance Taking a cut of recovered revenue is the easiest thing in the world to sell and the hardest thing to run a company on. Tue, 11 Jun 2019 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/the-app-store-is-a-search-engine https://dennishegstad.com/writing/the-app-store-is-a-search-engine Most app developers treat their listing as a brochure. It's a ranked result page, and the ranking is most of your business. Tue, 19 Feb 2019 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/picking-shopify-as-a-landlord https://dennishegstad.com/writing/picking-shopify-as-a-landlord I've watched every platform I ever relied on change the rules. I just built a company inside one on purpose, and I want to write down why. Tue, 13 Nov 2018 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/selling-to-merchants-instead-of-marketing-directors https://dennishegstad.com/writing/selling-to-merchants-instead-of-marketing-directors At Exposely I sold to people spending someone else's money. Now I sell to people spending their own. It changes every part of the pitch. Tue, 17 Jul 2018 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/abandoned-carts-are-a-people-problem https://dennishegstad.com/writing/abandoned-carts-are-a-people-problem Everyone treats cart abandonment as an automation problem. We started LiveRecover on the theory that it's a conversation someone didn't have. Tue, 06 Mar 2018 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/media-buying-is-a-window-not-a-career https://dennishegstad.com/writing/media-buying-is-a-window-not-a-career The best media buyers I know are worried about the same thing, and they're right to be. The platform is coming for the job. Tue, 24 Oct 2017 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/what-a-million-a-month-looks-like https://dennishegstad.com/writing/what-a-million-a-month-looks-like I consult on about $1M a month in ad spend. The surprising part isn't the scale. It's how few of the decisions are about advertising. Tue, 13 Jun 2017 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/going-back-to-a-job-after-being-the-ceo https://dennishegstad.com/writing/going-back-to-a-job-after-being-the-ceo I ran a company for three years and then took a media buying seat at an agency. The ego part was real and it was over faster than I expected. Tue, 21 Feb 2017 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/every-platform-i-built-on-is-gone https://dennishegstad.com/writing/every-platform-i-built-on-is-gone I started on MySpace. I've since watched the ground move under every channel I've relied on, and I keep acting surprised. Tue, 06 Dec 2016 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/what-marketing-school-got-right https://dennishegstad.com/writing/what-marketing-school-got-right I was a marketing major for two years at two community colleges and I've spent a decade being smug about it. Some of it was load-bearing. Tue, 16 Aug 2016 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/the-quiet-part-of-winding-something-down https://dennishegstad.com/writing/the-quiet-part-of-winding-something-down Nobody writes the post about the company that didn't die dramatically. It just stopped being the best use of everyone in it. Thu, 07 Apr 2016 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/when-your-supply-side-outgrows-you https://dennishegstad.com/writing/when-your-supply-side-outgrows-you The best people on the marketplace stop needing the marketplace. That's not churn. It's the business model reaching its ceiling. Tue, 17 Nov 2015 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/building-this-in-los-angeles https://dennishegstad.com/writing/building-this-in-los-angeles Everyone told me to move to San Francisco. For this specific company, LA was the correct city and it wasn't close. Tue, 11 Aug 2015 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/we-never-raised-money-for-exposely https://dennishegstad.com/writing/we-never-raised-money-for-exposely Not out of principle. Nobody was funding this category, and by the time I could have raised I'd built a company shaped like it never would. Tue, 19 May 2015 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/the-cold-start-nobody-warned-me-about https://dennishegstad.com/writing/the-cold-start-nobody-warned-me-about Everyone tells you a marketplace is hard to start. Nobody tells you the hard part is that it looks like it's working. Tue, 24 Feb 2015 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/pricing-a-market-with-no-price https://dennishegstad.com/writing/pricing-a-market-with-no-price Sellers guess. Buyers guess. I built a marketplace on top of two guesses and spent a year finding out what that does. Tue, 09 Dec 2014 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/press-is-not-distribution https://dennishegstad.com/writing/press-is-not-distribution Fast Company put me in a story this year. It was great for my mother and it did approximately nothing for signups. Tue, 30 Sep 2014 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/i-was-the-product-before-i-sold-it https://dennishegstad.com/writing/i-was-the-product-before-i-sold-it I came up on MySpace with an audience. Now I sell access to people in that position, which gives me one advantage and one blind spot. Tue, 20 May 2014 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/this-category-doesnt-have-a-name-yet https://dennishegstad.com/writing/this-category-doesnt-have-a-name-yet Half my sales calls are spent explaining what the thing is. That's a cost, and it's also the only reason there's room for us. Tue, 18 Feb 2014 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/four-years-of-running-my-own-stores https://dennishegstad.com/writing/four-years-of-running-my-own-stores I didn't go to school for this in any way that counted. I bought traffic with my own money until I understood what it was doing. Tue, 05 Nov 2013 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/why-exposely-is-a-marketplace https://dennishegstad.com/writing/why-exposely-is-a-marketplace The agency version of this business would make money faster. It would also make me the bottleneck for every deal, forever. Tue, 09 Jul 2013 00:00:00 GMT https://dennishegstad.com/writing/the-follower-count-is-the-wrong-number https://dennishegstad.com/writing/the-follower-count-is-the-wrong-number Every brand that emails us asks how many followers they can buy. It's the one number that tells you the least about whether anything will happen. Tue, 16 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT