Developer Roundtable: Building Our New Product
StoreHero is currently hard at work developing Growth Hero, a product designed to help merchants achieve growth efficiently. We sat down with members of our development team for a roundtable discussion to hear the full story.
- You're in the thick of developing Growth Hero. To start, can you walk us through what led you to build it?
Sasaya: From day one, our mission has been to become the world's best company at driving growth (sales). But you can't just build a system and expect it to sell — so we started by working closely with clients as consultants, diving deep into their stores and experimenting with what it takes to build a selling machine. Over time, we developed a clearer picture of what actually drives sales, and established a flow that, with enough human effort, reliably produces results. The next step was to productize all of that accumulated know-how. We're now building systems to automate the parts that currently require a lot of manual effort — in some ways inefficiently — so we can deliver StoreHero's proven sales methodology to a much wider audience.
- What will merchants be able to do once Growth Hero is complete?
Sasaya: The consulting work that used to take enormous manual effort — pulling granular data from Google Analytics, Facebook Ads, and a dozen other sources, monitoring it closely, then deciding what to do next — can all be automated. The system will automatically capture the current state of a store, surface recommended actions to take next, and organize everything systematically: who does what, and when.
What really matters is stepping back and seeing the store as a whole — understanding where it stands right now and what needs to be fixed within the overall flow. Rather than getting fixated on isolated issues like a low conversion rate on one particular page, you need to see the big picture: maybe improving A requires fixing C first. Understanding that full flow is what allows you to grow a store efficiently and at scale.
Torii: In simple terms, it tells you exactly what actions will drive revenue for that store, and which ones will have the greatest impact.
A system that's just convenient and easy to use doesn't mean much on its own. The real measure of success is whether the store actually grows — or becomes significantly easier to grow — as a result. That's when we know the product is working.
Sasaya: I personally joined consulting meetings to identify what was truly needed. Rather than jumping straight into building, we first created rough prototypes and had people use them, validating whether they were actually useful in the real world — then built only what was genuinely necessary into the product.
Having a consulting team and a development team under the same roof makes it incredibly easy to validate our service — and that's one of StoreHero's defining strengths. I think it's absolutely critical for product development.
- What principles guide your approach to team management?
Torii: I make a point of getting to know each team member deeply. The first thing I did was set up one-on-ones with everyone. What motivates people varies enormously from person to person, so I listen carefully and use those insights to shape how I assign work and communicate with each individual.
We also have a weekly session we call "Waiwai-kai" — just a casual hangout where the dev team chats about whatever: technical topics, everyday life, anything. It lowers the cost of communication, but more than that, it's become a genuinely valuable time for team members to understand each other better.
- As a team member, how do you feel about the environment at StoreHero?
Funayama: It's a great fit for people who love building something from zero. You can already see how it scales from one to ten, which makes it exciting. There's a lot of freedom and autonomy, and it's easy to speak up with ideas and proposals.
- Can you tell us about the tech stack you're currently using? And are there any technologies or services you're looking to explore going forward?
Torii: On the frontend we're using TypeScript, React, and Next.js; the backend is built in Go. It's a pretty standard stack for modern web services.
We're also using OpenAPI and Swagger as the basis for our frontend-backend interface. We've always had a documentation-driven approach to team development, so OpenAPI and Swagger fit naturally into that workflow.
Looking ahead, there are so many things a store needs to do to grow revenue. We want to bring in technology that can intelligently recommend what to tackle first. With that in place, you'd be able to see at a glance what a given store needs to do to grow — and we'd also be able to project revenue trends over time.
- What are the hardest or most challenging aspects of the development work?
Sasaya: Striking the right balance with what features to include. We're currently in the alpha phase, which is all about validating whether we're heading in the right direction — so the key is deciding what features are essential to test the core hypothesis, and what we can safely leave out. There are always features that would be nice to add, but if we keep throwing things in, we lose sight of what we're actually trying to validate.
Torii: It's easy to lose track of what problem we're fundamentally trying to solve. You have to stay anchored to that. There are moments when you genuinely can't tell if something is really necessary — figuring out what truly matters is hard, but that's also what makes it rewarding.
Funayama: On the business side, identifying what's needed versus what isn't — and the communication required to do that well — is the real challenge.
- What do you find most rewarding about this work?
Sasaya: Because our growth team is in-house, I can see exactly how the product we're building is being used and what people need from it. That visibility is what drives me.
Torii: There are actually very few services out there focused specifically on growth support for e-commerce, so building in that space is genuinely exciting. And since Shopify itself is a global platform, the fact that we're building with a global vision gives our work a sense of real future potential in terms of business scale.
Funayama: With a small team, every piece of implementation is my responsibility — and that's what makes it rewarding. The codebase is fundamentally ours, so I get to build with the future in mind, which is a lot of fun.
- What takeaways from this conversation stand out to you, and what do you want to challenge yourselves with going forward?
Sasaya: As a product team, I want us to build the technological foundation that makes StoreHero the best company in the world at driving growth. The business side has put in the work to build up that knowledge and lay the groundwork — now it's our job to translate it faithfully into the product. I want us to keep pushing forward, building a product that delivers undeniable value.
- What kind of team do you want to become?
Torii: First and foremost — and partly because I come from an engineering background — I want to maintain an environment where engineers can genuinely focus on good engineering. I work hard to understand what each team member wants and to create conditions where they can do their best work with a sense of fulfillment.
Beyond that, I want to build a team where everyone has a high sense of wellbeing — both professionally and personally. My belief is that when people are happy in their work, they bring more value to everything they do. So I want to keep raising the motivation of the people I work with, and let that energy flow into the company and the product. By creating an environment where I genuinely enjoy my work, I believe the team naturally becomes a place where everyone else can enjoy theirs too.
Join Us in Making Commerce Businesses Heroes
At StoreHero, we're working to make commerce businesses around the world into heroes — through growth support services, product development, and store builds. If you're interested in joining us, don't hesitate to reach out.
Open positions are listed on our careers page.
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