Curious about who will be talking, teaching, and inspiring at this year’s A Day with Shopify?
Today, we’re pleased to announce the speakers for A Day with Shopify 2017, our series of one-day conferences aimed at helping you become a more successful Shopify Partner.
Today, we’re pleased to announce the speakers for A Day with Shopify 2017.
Starting in September, we’ll stop in five cities across the globe to bring together our Shopify Partner community for a full day of Shopify-specific programming and networking. Web designers, developers, marketers, and ecommerce professionals of all stripes are welcome, and will learn through peer collaboration and connection.
Each city is jam-packed with unique content curated by Shopify, and brought to you by fellow Shopify Partners.
Table of Contents
What your ticket includes
Tickets to each A Day with Shopify tour stop are currently on sale. Your city-specific conference ticket includes:
- Access to pre-conference networking event
- Light breakfast
- Seven value-packed sessions
- Lunch
- Office hours
- Post-event cocktail hour
We’re offering a 15 percent discount to groups of two or more. Please enter the discount code GROUP when booking.
Below, we’ve listed all the content happening at each city’s event — peruse through the talks for the full details.
You might also like: Announcing A Day with Shopify 2017 — A Conference for Partners by Partners.
Birmingham, UK — Sept. 4, 2017
Shopify Keynote
Brandon Chu, Shopify
The partner platform is a critical part of the Shopify ecosystem. Learn about how we manage it internally, how our merchants perceive it, and our vision for its future.
Custom Application Development for Partners
Gavin Ballard, Disco Labs
How Disco plans, builds, deploys, and maintains apps for clients, as well as practical advice on design, sales, and development.
Getting Your Agency Noticed by Potential Clients
Michael Kashioulis, Smart Cookie Design
Whether you’re happy with the size of your agency or you’re looking to grow, marketing is a key factor to any agency’s success. This session will introduce you to industry-specific marketing tactics to set your business apart.
Seamless Shopify Migrations
Jason Stokes, Eastside Co.
Walk through the good, the bad, and the ugly of moving your clients on to Shopify. You’ll get a complete walkthrough and guide to migrations, along with insights into how to correctly price and scope migration projects, and what hidden tasks you need to factor in.
How to Be Married to Your Business Partner and Not Kill Each Other
Nicola Carruthers, Underwaterpistol
Working with your significant other presents a unique set of challenges. How do you grow from freelance to agency, while keeping the marriage afloat and raising three kids? Nicola Carruthers shares the mistakes she’s made, so you don’t have to. In addition, she’ll cover some of the things her and her partner learned about striking a work/life balance.
Think Big and Ask for More
Rósa Stefánsdóttir, Freelancer
Hear the inside scoop on how Rósa Stefánsdóttir doubled her consulting business, and how she’s currently setting up her new Shopify agency for success.
New York City, USA — Sept. 28, 2017
Shopify Keynote
Matty Bastin-Millar, Shopify
Why building a customer support team and onboarding program is vital to the success of your business. Shopify’s Matty Bastin-Millar shares lessons on building healthy support systems and insight into how to get there.
The Contrarian Consultant: Counter-Intuitive Strategies to Grow Your Business
Kurt Elster, Ethercycle
Over the last seven years, Kurt Elster has made mistakes, tried dozens of tactics and strategies, and finally built a successful business for the life he wants, all with Shopify. Hear about the three core, yet counter-intuitive, strategies (all of which scared Kurt until he tried them) that have been chiefly responsible for his business's success.
Strategies for Successfully Defining and Winning Client Projects
Ross Beyeler, Growth Spark
This session will deep-dive into best practices for properly scoping your client projects. Learn how to understand the client's role in the project, divide requirements into different functions, and create processes to help address inevitable 'scope creep.
How to Create Profitable App Partnerships
Steve Deckert, Smile.io
Gain insights into how an app and agency can best work together to create a partnership that is profitable for both. We’ll dive into what to look for when picking an app partner, how to start a partnership, and what to do once you’ve enticed your first client.
Our Transition to Automated Sales
Natasha Murphy, Nicely Built
As your business evolves and scale, your sales process needs to adapt to keep up. Natasha Murphy discusses how her agency uses automation to streamline the delivery of sales leads, tackling a major business challenge head on.
Putting the Client First: The Key to a Successful Agency
Colleen Oates and Shelly Socol, One Rockwell
Learn about client management best practices and how to cultivate client success. Colleen Oates and Shelly Socol cover approaches to transparent communication, project management, and creating a business model that favors both you and your client.
You might also like: A Day With Shopify: A Community Making Connections.
Vancouver, Canada — Oct. 2. 2017
Shopify Keynote
Marcie Murray, Shopify
To become a world-class business, you have to hire world-class people — and that means attracting talent from around the world. Marcie Murray will share strategies to help you build and scale remote teams, and how to develop a remote culture that will set you up for success.
The Growth and Impact of an International Community
Stephan Peralata, SOVI Creative
Community growth is an effective way for brands to organically scale their organization. Stephan Peralta interviewed Shopify Partners from around the globe to uncover challenges, solutions, and strategies for an effective, community-based ROI. Hear what he discovered.
5 Colossal Mistakes That Led to a Better Customer Experience
Jody Edgar, Sunbowl
Jody Edgar will discuss the five biggest mistakes he’s made in the last 10 years of working with Shopify merchants. He’ll delve into how these catastrophic blunders led to a completely unique way of doing business.
Brand Yo’ Self
Jeremy Watt and Julie Brown, Up Later than You
Husband-and-wife team Jeremy Watt and Julie Brown will explain how their agency’s name attracts the type of clients they enjoy working with. Learn why you shouldn’t underrate your agency, studio, or freelance company’s branding.
How to Give Merchants and Their Customers the Best Product Experience
Lexy Wright, Pixlee
A great product experience includes not just the technology, but the team that supports it. In this session, Lexy Wright will share how to give merchants the best possible experience by leveraging your team and the Shopify community.
How Getting Rejected From the Theme Store Inspired Our Best Work
Emma Palm, Pixel Union
Getting rejected isn’t fun, but Pixel Union's Emma Palm discusses how they turned it into a fail-forward moment. She’ll discuss her team's market-driven theme design process, and why empathy is their greatest asset.
Bangalore, India — Nov. 3, 2017
Shopify Keynote
Brennan Loh, Shopify
Why is Shopify in India? What are our plans for the future from a platform perspective? In this keynote, Brennan Loh delves into how Shopify enables partners to build long-term and scalable product companies.
How India can Build Apps for the World
Aliasger Motiwalla and Megha Bhatt, Plobal Apps/Shopify
Get tips and advice on how to get started building apps on Shopify with Aliasger Motiwalla from Plobal Apps and Megha Bhatt from the Shopify Apps Team. Hear about the future of mobile apps, and how to take your app from local to international.
Understanding APIs for High-Volume Businesses
Ankit Singhania, Mobikasa
Learn how to use exclusive APIs for high-volume businesses, and provide more value as a Shopify Plus Partner. Also, get the inside scoop on Shopify’s new and exclusive India plan, Shopify Gold.
Building a Successful Web Agency
Piers Thorogood, We Make Websites
Tips and advice on starting and growing a web agency, from the UK's leading Shopify Experts, We Make Websites.
Digital Disruption: Opportunity and Peril for SMBs
Meenakshi Singh and Anant Swami, Google
How Google is adding value to small and medium sized businesses through its channel partnerships, and advice on how to get involved.
Panel: How to Create Merchant-Partner Ecosystems in India
Jayesh Khagram from Binary and Abhisarika Das from Kloc Technologies
Best practices in developing and managing client relationships with Indian merchants. Tips and advice on what Indian merchants are looking for and how you can best support them.
Melbourne, Australia — Nov. 30, 2017
Shopify Keynote
Harry Brundage, Shopify
Shopify's approach to super-powering commerce for everyone, our upcoming plans for the platform, and how we envision Shopify Partners in our future roadmap.
Custom Application Development for Partners
Gavin Ballard, Disco Labs
How Disco plans, builds, deploys, and maintains apps for clients, as well as practical advice on design, sales, and development.
Avoiding Scope Creep with Standardization
Bodog Olah, Createur
Bodog Olah delves into how his agency establishes standards on every project to increase efficiency and help avoid scope creep.
6 Keys to Building an Ecommerce Agency with Profitability and Growth in Mind
Dylan Whitman, BVAccel
Learn actionable strategies and tactics for profitably scaling your Shopify agency. Dylan Whitman covers how his agency grew to 70 staff and eight-figure annual revenue in just four short years.
How to Improve Customer Satisfaction
Kim Carruthers, eChic
Learn how to deliver great service that makes your customers happy. Kim Carruthers will discuss strategies ranging from choosing the right clients, to defining and managing scope, controlling delivery dates, and creating a great lasting impression.
Pitching (Im)perfection
Rebecca Twemlow, Firebrand
How you pitch clients depends on many different factors: experience, what stage your business is at, skill-sets, team culture, and service delivery style, to name a few. Conquer the world of pitching with this talk by Rebecca Twemlow, who walks through how to craft a foolproof pitch.
A Day with Shopify Fund
We’re thrilled to welcome our partners and developers from around the world, but we realize that not everyone has the same means or opportunity to attend.
In an effort to add perspectives and voices to our partner community that we’d otherwise miss, we’re launching a program called the A Day with Shopify Fund.
Are you a designer or developer looking to help build the future of commerce? We'll be awarding a ticket to two individuals for each of the A Day with Shopify tour stops, running from September to November 2017.
We'll be awarding a ticket to two individuals for each of the A Day with Shopify tour stops, running from September to November 2017.
If you live in the United States, Canada, UK, Australia, or India, and are a member of an underrepresented group in tech and/or are unable to attend A Day with Shopify for financial reasons, we want to hear your voice.
We're gathering applications until August 4th, 2017, and the selected attendees will be contacted by email by August 10th, 2017.
In addition to financial status and those who identify with underrepresented communities in tech, applicant selection will be based on creativity, passion for commerce, and entrepreneurial spirit.
You might also like: How Accessing the Partner Ecosystem Can Help You Grow Your Business.
But wait, there’s more!
All talks for each A Day with Shopify tour stop have been confirmed, but we still have space for partners interested in presenting a five-minute lightning talk on the topic of their choice. Those interested can pitch their ideas via email to adws[at]shopify[dot]com.
We still have space for partners interested in presenting a five-minute lightning talk on the topic of their choice.
In addition, remember to schedule office hours with speakers, Shopify employees, and other Shopify Partners. You can sign-up for office hours on the A Day with Shopify website.
Finally, don’t miss your opportunity to network at each tour stop’s pre-event! These events will serve as a great opportunity to meet other attendees and speakers, and to pick up your conference badges. Keep your eyes on the website for updates on each pre-event’s location and details.
