DOCUMENT TSC-2026/SVC · SHOPIFY APP GROWTH ADVISORY · REV. 01
Shopify App Growth Advisor · App Partners & SaaS Founders

A Shopify app growth advisor who helped build the program you sell through.

I'm Taylor Sicard, a fractional growth advisor to Shopify app and ecosystem SaaS founders from six-figure ARR up. The work is commercial judgment on distribution, pricing, retention and go-to-market, not development or agency hours. I was an early Shopify employee who helped build and scale the Partner Program, then co-founded a Shopify-ecosystem SaaS company and sold it to Tiny, and have advised multiple SaaS companies from seven to nine figures in ARR.

Early
Shopify Partner Program
Idea → $100M+
ARR advised in SaaS
Exit
Software sold to Tiny
10
Free app founder tools
01/ Who this is for

Founders selling to Shopify merchants, past the first proof.

This page is for Shopify app partners and ecosystem SaaS founders rather than agencies or merchants. The apps I work with have installs and paying merchants, and the thing that got them here has stopped compounding. Listing traffic flattens, free-to-paid slips, churn eats the new cohort, or the founder is still the whole go-to-market. The help looks different before and after $1M ARR.

Six figures to $1M ARR

Founder-led and looking for the repeatable channel: App Store ranking and listing conversion, the first partner motions, and pricing that survives contact with the merchant. Usually a Consulting engagement.

$1M ARR and up

Moving from founder-led to team-led go-to-market: packaging, expansion revenue, retention by cohort, off-platform growth, and getting the numbers into the shape a buyer or investor reads. Usually Advisory.

02/ What I actually do

Four places the work usually lands.

Most apps have one binding constraint at a time. The Read finds it; the engagement works on it until it moves.

Distribution

App Store search and listing conversion, Built for Shopify, and the channels beyond the store. The map is in the app distribution playbook.

Pricing & packaging

Plan structure, usage versus flat tiers, trial length, and what Shopify's move into app billing changes. Benchmarks in Shopify app pricing 2026.

Retention & free-to-paid

Onboarding, the install-to-paid funnel, and churn read by cohort rather than by month. Where good sits is in a good churn rate for a Shopify app.

Partnerships, GTM & exit

Agency, integration and co-marketing partnerships with other apps, the founder-led to team-led shift, and exit readiness. How partnerships work as a channel is in app distribution beyond the App Store. What buyers pay for is in what Shopify apps sell for.

Before the call

Free-to-paid, CAC payback, churn and net revenue retention are the four numbers the first call runs on. Bring whatever you have, rough is fine, and the thirty minutes are already useful.

Start with the numbers
03/ How it works

Thirty minutes before either of us commits.

01 · WEEK 0

30-minute call

A free call on where the app is, what stopped moving, and whether I'm the right person for it.

02 · WEEKS 1–2

The Read

Two weeks, fixed fee. I go through the listing, the install-to-paid funnel, pricing, churn and the distribution mix, and hand you a written read. You tell me where it's wrong. Credited back if you sign a tier within 30 days.

03 · ONGOING

Pick a tier

Consulting, Advisory, or Partner, from $6,000 a month. Seed-stage apps usually start in Consulting; past $1M ARR it is usually Advisory. The tier is set in the readout, not on a rate card.

04 · GRADUATE

Hand off

It ends when your team makes the call without me, not when the contract runs out.

04/ Why me

I've sat on every side of the app ecosystem.

I joined Shopify early to help build and scale the Partner Program, which meant seeing the ecosystem from the platform's side: how apps get discovered, what the platform rewards, and where its interests and a developer's stop lining up. Then I moved to the developer side and co-founded Uptime, a Shopify-ecosystem SaaS product, which I sold to Tiny, a publicly traded acquirer.

Today I advise and hold equity in Shopify-ecosystem SaaS companies, including Recharge Payments and Postscript, and I co-founded WIN Brands Group, so I know what the merchant on the other side of your listing is weighing. The same few problems show up at six figures of ARR and at nine. More in advising Shopify app founders and the full background.

05/ Common questions

Five questions app founders ask before the call.

QWhat does a Shopify app growth advisor do?
A Shopify app growth advisor helps an app or ecosystem SaaS company find the constraint holding growth back, whether that is App Store distribution, the install-to-paid funnel, pricing and packaging, churn, or the move from founder-led to team-led go-to-market. I bring senior operator judgment to the few decisions that move ARR, then stay on to hold you to the plan.
QHow much does it cost?
Taylor Sicard Consulting's tiers are published: Consulting from $6,000 a month, Advisory from $10,000, Partner from $20,000. Every engagement starts with The Read, a fixed-fee diagnostic at $5,000 to $15,000 that is credited back if you sign a tier within 30 days. Seed-stage apps usually start in Consulting; past $1M ARR it is usually Advisory. Full details at taylorsicard.com/engagements.
QWhat size of app do you work with?
Shopify app and ecosystem SaaS founders from six-figure ARR up. Below that the question is usually product fit, and an advisor is rarely the right spend. The work gets most useful when installs are coming in but the path to the next revenue step is unclear.
QWhy not hire a VP of Growth instead?
Sometimes you should. A full-time growth leader makes sense once there is a repeatable motion to run and a team to run it with. Before that, the gap is usually ten hours a week of judgment on distribution, pricing and partnerships, and filling it with a forty-hour hire is expensive and slow to undo. I will say so when a hire is the better call.
QIs this different from your Shopify growth consulting for brands?
Same seat, different agenda. A brand's weeks run on CAC, contribution margin and retail; an app founder's run on installs, free-to-paid, churn and the partner ecosystem. If you sell on Shopify rather than into it, the page for you is Shopify growth consulting.

Tell me where the app stalled.

Take the free 30 minutes and tell me what stopped moving: installs, conversion, churn or the go-to-market. I'll say so if I'm the wrong person for it. If you'd rather start with the numbers, the free app founder tools take a couple of minutes each.