[Employee Interview] COO Sasaya Shares the Secret to Accelerating Shopify Sales Growth — How Close Collaboration Between Growth Partners and the Development Team Drives Results

This is the third installment of our "Monthly Growth Team Series." Following last time's interview with Growth Partner Oishi, we sat down with Director and COO Sasaya, who also oversees the development team.

"Behind the Scenes of StoreHero's EC Revenue Growth" — The Development Team on the Front Lines of Supporting E-Commerce Businesses

Could you tell us about your career background?
While studying at the University of Tokyo, I worked as an engineer at BEENOS Inc., a company that handles e-commerce businesses targeting overseas markets. BEENOS was proactive about new ventures, and despite being a publicly listed company, it had a flat culture where even junior employees could easily bring proposals directly to the CEO — that really left an impression on me.

Around that time, I met our current CEO Kurose, and we talked about how Shopify, which was gaining strong momentum in the US, would likely grow significantly in Japan as well. Kurose's previous company, TeamSpirit, had expanded its business alongside the spread of Salesforce in Japan, so we both saw an opportunity to establish a position in the Shopify space early on — and that's when the two of us started experimenting together.

Our initial initiative was to help EC-focused merchants who wanted to open physical stores offline. Back in 2019, there were very few Shopify stores in Japan, so we were reaching out to Shopify stores around the world. When we surveyed them about where they'd want to set up shop, New York came out on top. So Kurose and I actually flew out to New York together and went around negotiating for properties. But then COVID hit right in the middle of all that, making it extremely difficult to utilize physical stores. At the time, many manufacturers and retailers were rushing to launch their own e-commerce sites due to COVID, but since selling through your own EC site is completely different from offline retail or marketplace-based models like Amazon, we predicted there would be a growing number of merchants who would say "I built an EC site but I'm not seeing any results." So while the world was caught up in the e-commerce setup boom, we looked ahead and made StoreHero's focus specifically on "growth support to boost sales."

What is the current role and mission of the development team?
In broad terms, we handle development that enables our Growth Partners (GPs) to leverage our systems to grow merchant (EC business) revenue more reliably and efficiently.

More specifically, we systematize the various challenges that arise in day-to-day EC operations — making possible initiatives that would be impossible for humans alone, and streamlining existing operations. For example, we build systems for sending personalized emails at high volume and high frequency, as well as analytics features for continuously monitoring sales and executing strategies. We support from the development side to ensure that the right initiatives are carried out at the "right timing" and in the "right sequence."

Accelerating Sales Through Real-Time Collaboration — The Strength of a Development Team That Works Side by Side with GPs

How does the development team collaborate with Growth Partner (GP) members as you build?
What makes StoreHero's development team stand out compared to other companies is how close we are to the operations side. GPs communicate closely with merchants on a daily basis, so new challenges and requests come up in real time. We're constantly listening to those needs, thinking together about how to grow sales and improve efficiency, and moving development forward with that in mind.

In the office, GPs and the development team literally sit next to each other, so if something comes up, we can call out to each other immediately. I believe this proximity is one of the key reasons we can iterate on improvement initiatives with such speed toward our shared goal of "growing sales."

What are the defining characteristics of StoreHero's development team?

One major characteristic is that our development team also builds with "growing merchant revenue" as the goal. In typical product development, the primary objective is to improve the product's features and quality, with usability and revenue improvement coming after that. But we place a high priority on the question: "How much did this system actually contribute to merchant sales?"

That mindset is what gave birth to our proprietary growth platform, StoreHero. It consolidates a wide range of features needed for growth — email marketing, data analytics, sales management, and more — into a single platform.
Rather than a single-function app, our goal is to create a system where everything needed to "manage and execute initiatives that drive revenue growth" — with multiple interconnected mechanisms — can be done all in one place.

Unmatched Closeness to Operations — The Appeal of Engineers Who Directly Impact Sales

From an engineer/development team perspective, what do you find appealing about being involved in growth operations?

First and foremost, it's the unmatched closeness to the operations side. For example, when we build and release something, we immediately get feedback from GPs and merchants. Receiving real-time input like "if we fix this part, sales will go up" or "this additional feature would be really useful" — and being able to directly contribute to sales impact — is incredibly exciting.

On the other hand, the fact that it's different from "typical product development" can also be a challenge. Thorough user interviews, requirements definition, and so on — those processes are certainly important, but our true purpose is to increase merchant sales, and making things easy to use for GPs and merchants is simply the means to achieve that. Staying focused on the real goal without losing sight of it amid a range of different opinions is both a challenge and a great source of motivation.

Looking ahead, what technologies or initiatives do you see potential in for further developing the growth platform StoreHero?
Growing sales on Shopify spans a truly wide range of areas — inventory management, recommendation features, content creation, and more. Going forward, we believe we can further strengthen our service of growing sales through both "systems + people" by enriching these features within the StoreHero growth platform.

On the data utilization front, we'll also be incorporating more advanced personalization and machine learning to predict customer behavior and propose and execute the optimal strategies automatically. New needs are always emerging from the field, so quickly catching up to those needs and turning the best solutions into reality is our biggest challenge — and the path to our future growth.

A Message for Those Interested in Becoming a Growth Partner

Finally, could you share a message about what makes it rewarding to work in growth operations alongside the development team, and what you'd say to those considering joining?

As the EC market continues to expand, the systems we build are updated every day — so you'll feel firsthand how your capabilities grow along with them. In other words, we have a truly well-equipped environment for "seriously growing EC business revenue."

To be honest, it can be tough. Because we're committed to results, when an initiative doesn't work out, we're immediately expected to improve — it's a constant cycle of trial and error. But for those who have the mindset of "I want to deliver results" and "I want to put everything into improving sales," I think it's an incredibly exciting environment. Our development team runs together with GPs toward shared goals, so let's build the Shopify growth space together!

Summary

In Shopify's growing market, the posture of uniting operations and development to drive merchant revenue growth will only become more important going forward. Sasaya's words gave us a clear picture of how the "Growth Partner (GP) x Development Team" collaboration makes it possible to execute sophisticated strategies that would be difficult to achieve manually. Furthermore, with development progressing in close proximity to the operations floor, the daily cycle of strategy improvement accelerates — ultimately speeding up merchant business growth.

Pursuing the goal of "growing sales" while fully leveraging a growth platform that reflects real voices from the field — being involved in growth operations in such an "offensive" environment will bring tremendous fulfillment and opportunities for personal growth. If you have a strong interest in Shopify and growth marketing, why not take on this challenge?

Click here for the Growth Partner job listing