Someone asked me how the week at DotDev went and I said “good but hectic”. Which is true, and also the least interesting version of the answer.
The fuller one is that it was reassuring. And a lot of it was just joy.
It was a five-day blur. Two of them the actual conference, three of them everything around it. It is way more events than anyone should attend, followed by sleepless nights. But what I carried home wasn’t tiredness. It was a settled feeling about where we stand, and the plain pleasure of talking to people who care about the same problems as I do and without ever having to explain the context first.
Last year I wrote about feeling like an outsider, stitching myself into a tapestry that was already woven. Three years in, I don’t feel like an outsider anymore. I mean the community has always been the same and welcoming, but what changed was nothing outside, but on the inside, I was stepping outside my comfort zone and trying to talk more and express more.
Worth it every single time.
The highlight was not the talks, nor the announcements but the conversations with partners all week. Different categories, different sizes, different countries. And every one of them arrived in the same place and asking the same question.
How do we rebuild this for the AI era?
There’s a particular relief in that. Having spent months agonising about being stuck or feeling behind, what helps is knowing most others are struggling with the same problems, and continuing to build and learn as they go along.
That’s what I can’t get from a changelog, and it’s most of why I go each year, for the connections, the people and to assess where things are moving and how do we move with it.
How this community actually works
The best example I have is getting to know Trudy.
We first met during Shopify Editions in 2024 at a Ladies brunch. It was just a conversation, one of many that week. We connected on LinkedIn, stayed in touch, and the following year started exploring an integration together.
Somewhere along the way, work conversations became regular conversations. This year, we hosted Ladies Who Lunch together.
The relationships that have mattered most to me didn’t come from formal networking or partnership programmes. They came from following up after a conversation, staying curious, and continuing to show up.
One of my favourite community moments this year was seeing resources like sdatoronto.dev and pimsical.app/events. Nobody was asked to build them. Trudy, Taylor and Jordan simply saw a problem, solved it for everyone attending dotDev, and shared it with the community. That generosity says a lot about the kind of ecosystem Shopify has built.
The week around DotDev
The conference itself was only two days but the week around it was filled with so many more events.
I am going to go over those that I had the opportunity to attend but there were so many that one could not do it all.
Ladies Who Lunch - firstly hosting it was so much fun, the conversations felt so real and all of us found buddies to hang out with for the rest of the week. We had a panel that gave a candid view on what it takes to build and lead as a woman in e-commerce.
Klaviyo’s Appy Hour - Great insights on what klaviyo has been building, behind the scenes, and how we can integrate better.
Zapiet’s EPIC party - truly lived up to its name, no one thought they would see a snake, a lion and Britney spears performing on a single day but they did. If you did not attend the event, you surely would not get this, but it was a night where everyone showed up in Green and what a fabulous job the team behind this did. Cowboy Coral Partner Meetup - Seeing people in Canadian tuxedo and bring out their Cowboy hats was quite something.
Kicks & Coffee - We woke people up at 7am, after a block party thrown by Shopify to come run with us and they did, what was more fun was the coffee we had after the run, it was one of the best in Toronto.
Brightwork - One where you truly got to talk with the people in the community and it all was so meaningful, the conversations, talks and shared experiences. Matt & Trudy’s Frat Party - This was the unofficial DotDev Wrap party, and the first Frat party a lot of us had attended, truly one for the books, if you have not heard Matt Sing, You must.
The events were such a good mix of fun, engaging and still a perfect way to connect with like minded people, the conversations kept going on over hallways, sessions and of course over food, I met partners I’d only known online, reconnected with people I hadn’t seen in a year, and came away with pages of notes, not from sessions, but from conversations.
DotDev itself was packed with platform announcements, opportunities to speak with Shopify’s product teams, and some genuinely thoughtful sessions and of course a crazy Block Party. But what I’ll remember most isn’t a particular keynote.
It’s the people that make this community so special..
We talked, debated, shared ideas, made new friends, attended some incredible parties, and most importantly laughed a lot. Most weeks you only get one of those. The conference lasts two days. The relationships you build around it last much longer..
Where we are, and why I’m excited
I came home more energised than I expected, and the reason is specific.
The AI work at Swym isn’t theory anymore. Our own AI layer is genuinely shaping up, and sitting in those rooms I could map most of what I heard onto something we’re already building or already thinking about.
You can read about this in some of the other blogs we have, like the one on
Alfred - Our Internal Agent, or listen to my talk from Brightwork here
The other reason I’m optimistic is that none of this changes how we decide what to build. Swym’s answer has been the same, show up for merchants, and let value decide. Not surface area. Not feature count. Whether the thing we shipped made a real difference to somebody running a store.
What I’m taking back to the team
I didn’t come back with a long list of features to build. I came back with a clearer sense of where I think we should spend our time.
The first is making Swym feel more native to the Shopify experience. Sidekick, custom analytics events and the new platform primitives all point in the same direction. Merchants shouldn’t have to leave their existing workflows to discover the value our app creates. The closer we can meet them where they’re already working, the better the experience becomes.
Shopify is going all in on Retail and we must make sure we don’t stop at just being a POS extension, but use partnerships to actually get adoption and solve for the real problems.
Another thing we must keep reminding ourselves is authenticity, doubling down on what makes Swym uniquely Swym. AI is making it easier than ever to build software. That’s exciting, but it also means features become easier to copy. What isn’t easy to copy is a decade of understanding shopper intent and the judgement we’ve built around it. That feels even more valuable now than it did a year ago.
Finally, I left thinking more about simplification than expansion. One of my favourite sessions wasn’t about adding more infrastructure, it was about removing it. Using more of Shopify’s primitives, leaning into the platform instead of rebuilding what already exists, and spending our energy on the problems only we can solve. That feels like the right trade-off for the next few years.
Those aren’t brand new ideas. But hearing them echoed across so many conversations gave me more confidence that we’re heading in the right direction.
What hasn’t changed
Shopify is still moving faster than anyone, and it’s still the place to build for commerce. The community still gives more than it has any reason to. And Like I spoke about it in my talk, It will always be about the Merchants!
Still learning but some lessons I have learnt over the years
Show your work in public
Nearly every relationship that mattered to me this year traces back to something somebody published, or to a follow-up after a short conversation. That isn’t a networking tactic. It’s just how trust accumulates here.
Bring a specific problem
“What’s new with Events?” gets you a changelog you could have read. “Here’s the payload we filter client-side, here’s the volume, here’s why it’s expensive” gets you fifteen minutes with the person who owns it. Specificity is the whole trick.
Last year I wrote that belonging isn’t about arriving, it’s about contributing.
I still think that’s right. What I’d add now is that it isn’t something you achieve once. It’s something you keep choosing, usually at the exact moment you’d rather go back to your hotel room.
The community is here, and it’s one of the best parts of building for commerce. But it meets you at the door, not at your desk.
Here’s to everyone building their own path in the Shopify ecosystem. If you’re wrestling with any of this, I’d like to compare notes.
This is year three. If you want where it started, last year’s post is here: Threads of Trust: Stitching Myself Into the Shopify Tapestry.