SHOPIFY APP GROWTH CONSULTANT
The best app rarely wins. The clearest one does.
I'm Ohad Michaeli, a Shopify app growth consultant. I work with app founders who have built something good and cannot get merchants to see it.
Before this I spent close to three years as Head of Growth and Partnerships at ReConvert, scaling it from a small startup to 40,000+ users. Since 2023 I have run my own practice and audited 100+ Shopify App Store listings. That is a lot of install decisions watched up close, and the pattern barely changes: merchants reward the app they understand fastest, not the app with the most features.
What a Shopify App Growth Consultant Actually Does
Most people working on Shopify apps own one slice of the problem. Listing copy. Keywords. Ads. Reviews. Each of those matters, and none of them is where growth actually breaks.
Growth on the Shopify App Store is one connected funnel:
Discovery
Whether a merchant searching for your category ever sees you. Keywords, category choice, App Store search, ads.
Conversion
Whether the merchant who lands on your listing installs. Title, subtitle, screenshots, reviews, pricing, the first eight seconds.
Activation
Whether the merchant who installed reaches the moment your app is obviously worth paying for.
Retention
Whether they stay, and what their reviews then do to your discovery.
These feed each other. Ads that buy the wrong merchants damage your review quality. Weak reviews damage your ranking. Better ranking on a listing that does not convert just buys you more uninstalls. Fixing one slice while the others leak is the most expensive way to work.
I work across the whole loop, starting from wherever it is actually broken. Which is usually not where the founder thinks it is.
Who This Is For
- ✓
Shopify app founders with a working product and traffic that is not converting into installs
- ✓
Apps around $50K+ MRR that have plateaued and cannot tell whether the ceiling is the listing, the positioning, or the market
- ✓
Early apps about to spend real money on ads, who would rather fix the listing first
- ✓
Founders who want a senior read grounded in their own data, not a junior team running a checklist
Who This Is Not For
- ✗
Merchants looking to grow a Shopify store. I work on the app side only.
- ✗
Anyone who wants installs bought rather than earned. Ads amplify a listing that already converts. They do not repair one that does not.
- ✗
Founders who want the work done without their data. The audit runs on your search terms, your reviews, your ad data. Without it I would be guessing, same as everyone else.
How the Work Runs
It starts with a written App Audit. Your listing, keywords, reviews, ad data, and growth stage read against what I have seen across 100+ audits, ending in what is broken and the order to fix it in. Not a call. Not opinion. A punch list.
From there, most apps continue into a 30-day positioning sprint or an ongoing retainer, scoped by what the audit found rather than by a package chosen in advance. Full detail on all three on the services page.
There is no version of this where I quote you a scope before reading your data.
Why an Operator Instead of an Agency
I have been the person responsible for the number. Three years of it, at an app that grew to 40,000+ users while I was the one accountable for growth and partnerships. I know what it feels like to ship the feature you were sure would move installs and watch nothing happen.
That is the difference you get. Not a strategy deck. Someone who has made these decisions with their own name on the outcome, and who has since seen 100+ other founders make them.
Common Questions
What does a Shopify app growth consultant do?
Works on why merchants are not installing and paying for your app, across discovery, conversion, activation, and retention. In practice that means positioning, App Store listing and keyword work, review strategy, pricing presentation, and the interaction between paid and organic. The job is to find the constraint and fix it in the right order.
How is this different from App Store optimization?
ASO is one part of it. Optimizing a listing that says the wrong thing to the wrong merchant makes the wrong thing rank better. Positioning comes first, then the listing work has something true to express. Most apps I audit have an ASO problem sitting on top of a positioning problem, and only one of those is worth solving first. More on that in how to position your Shopify app.
My listing gets views but almost no installs. Is that a growth problem?
That is a conversion problem, and it is the most common one I see. Views mean discovery is working well enough. Something between the merchant reading your title and clicking install is failing. There are usually five suspects, and they are diagnosable. See listing views but no installs.
Do you work with apps that have almost no installs yet?
Yes, and early is often the cheapest time to fix it. Before you have spent months of ad budget teaching the App Store to rank you for the wrong terms. See why your Shopify app isn't getting installs.
How long until it shows up in installs?
Listing and conversion changes show up fastest, sometimes inside a couple of weeks, because the same traffic starts converting better. Discovery changes take longer, because App Store ranking responds to install and retention behaviour over time, not to an edit. Anyone promising you a date is guessing.
How do I know if you are the right fit?
Start with the audit. It is the cheapest way for both of us to find out, and it is useful even if we never work together again.