James Dohm retweeted
In the last 12 months, product velocity at Rivo has skyrocketed since moving engineering to a 100% agentic AI workflow.
To celebrate, here's 100+ meaningful product updates from the past 90 days.
Rivo Editions Spring 2026 Highlights:
Stuart has set the benchmark in the Shopify app space of AI driving code velocity. Feeling ashamed Recharge being only at 55% of code is AI generated lots to learn and improve.
James Dohm retweeted
97.5% of all work + relationship problems can be solved by …
1️⃣ Who
2️⃣ Does what
3️⃣ By when
And then create a checklist to detail what “does what” actually means.
Clear expectations are magical 😍
James Dohm retweeted
Rivo ended the year just under $6M ARR (over 100% YoY growth). Here are my top 4 learnings as we scale our bootstrapped startup.
I'm afraid to report that most of the generic/boring business advice is usually the answer, if you can do it well and more importantly, consistently.
TL;DR
- Hire really good people
- Build a product people care about
- Ship product as fast as possible.
- Attempt to support these customers at a maniacal level.
1. Hiring
We were able to hire some of the best talent in the industry last year. We'll always look for people to grow into roles but hiring people who have completed our goals before, and are replicating their success here is invaluable.
2. Speed
For me, speed is by far the most important factor in business. Across everything.
Your business will eventually be disrupted by someone moving consistently faster than you, compounded over the course of many years. Don't let this happen.
Shopify are a great example of a company who don't slow down and open the door for anyone else.
3. Never be too lean in support/success
We grew really fast in Q2 and didn't have enough headcount to meet demand on the success side. We got spread thin and had a bumpy couple of months.
We completely restructured the org, hired an amazing, true head of success and doubled our team.
Your brand/reputation is determined by how well people are treated pre and post onboarding. Major focus for us this year.
4. Keep going
This shit is hard. Our market had a rocky year. At least once a month I want to quit (for the last 10 years).
Every CEO/Founder I know is in the same boat, just keep hammering on if you really believe in what you are building.
2026:
Next stop $10M ARR and beyond.
James Dohm retweeted
Rivo Fall Editions is now live.
28 meaningful updates across the platform
But best of all... WALLET PASSES ARE NOW 100% FREE
Let's dig in..
James Dohm retweeted
lol - major progress at Rivo today. We have earned a compare page powered by ad spend from a large legacy competitor.
All love of course, pretty neat that our tiny bootstrapped startup is causing this much disruption to a company that’s raised over $500M : -)
What a time to be relentlessly shipping software as a bootstrapped startup..
James Dohm retweeted
Too many entrepreneurs are too focused on scaling profits and not enough on scaling value.
The irony is that scaling value is how you get truly wealthy in a sustainable and predictable way.
James Dohm retweeted
This is the plan to scale past $25M ARR at Rivo, fully bootstrapped.
1. Ship quality product 10x faster than our competition by using agentic workflows. (Emphasis on quality)
2. Charge fair prices and attempt to provide exceptional support.
3. Hire the best people from the industry.
4. Go as big and as fast as we possibly can.
Currently re-investing every penny to make this happen.
Joining the lads to chat soon..
Replying to @stuartchaney @TaylorHoliday
. @stuartchaney you wanna come on the not quite operators knock off called @saasoperators and explain how you plan to get to over 50, and beyond?
Your approach is sound and potentially useful to share?
James Dohm retweeted
we had the good fortune of finding a one-pager being used against us by a legacy competitor.
some were actually decent feature suggestions tbh, while one was:
4. Maturity:
Experience is valuable, because it means we
have a diverse network within the eCommerce
space, investments from Shopify, exposure to
thousands and thousands of brands (so we
know what works, and what doesnʼt).
😂😂
all of this to say:
Not only have we built all of the useful suggestions on the deck - we've added another 30+ new updates we are dropping in upcoming our Rivo SUMMER EDITIONS 2025.
never had this much fun in my life building a business before :-)
Notes:
I love competition in business, i have zero ill will towards anyone, I play business like a game I am obsessed with, and the open market ultimately decides who wins. No shade here.
James Dohm retweeted
Store Credit at Rivo - now powered by @Shopify Store Credit.
No workarounds or hacks needed.
insane opportunity to join a cracked engineering team
Hiring our last ever engineer right now at Rivo.
We are ALL-IN on scaling past $10M ARR via automated agentic coding.
- Currently at $4.4M ARR (+143% YoY Growth)
- Have got here with 3 engineers (including me)
- Ruthlessly shipping product based on new workflows
If you've been around the Shopify app ecosystem for a while using Ruby on Rails at scale - shoot me an email if this sounds interesting :)
James Dohm retweeted
Marketing Operators E066: DTC Marketers - Where Are You Wasting Your Time?
@couuor @codyplof @connorrolain
Watch the full episode here 👇
James Dohm retweeted
Q2 results at Rivo:
- ARR: $4.18M
- Growth: +24.65%
- Active Subscriptions: 1,777
Good stuff:
- Record pipeline already in place for next Q
- We hired some of the best people in the industry
- AI has completely changed our engineering workflows
Not so good stuff:
Had our first ever consolidation casualty. Brand was happy but churned to consolidate the same product with another vendor they use for multiple products already.
Whether you agree with consolidation or not - we will see this more across ecom SaaS in the very near future, and especially in this economic climate.
------
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER
making retention moves @RivoCommerce 👀
WALLET PASSES ARE NOW LIVE on Rivo
Starting today:
- Unlock another messaging channel
- One tap for customers to receive push notifications
- Another customer account touchpoint
Send a push notification when:
- Customer's points expire in 24 hours
- Sweepstakes bonus period about to begin
- Customer slipping into a possible churn cohort
Takes 5 mins to add to your account.
Available as an add-on for all brands using our accounts product.
HMU if you have any q's





















