building for fun 🧑🏾💻 @boomvideoapp x @tmrwai 🏗️ consumer app OG, started tiny hearts studio acquired by @Shopify, co-creator of @Shop (+200M users)
Toronto
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Today I'm excited to announce Tomorrow: an AI-native product studio.
We're completely rethinking what a product studio can be in the AI era…small teams, creative vision, minimal funding and intense focus.
tomorrowstudio.ai
@tmrwai
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Slack is for boomers.
Why would any startup pay for Slack in 2024 when Discord is free, keeps your chat history, supports voice/video, AND powers community channels all in one place?
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Vercel’s new marketing strategy: free advertising for Replit
🇺🇸 🇮🇱 🇦🇷
Enjoyed my discussion with PM Netanyahu on how AI education and literacy will keep our free societies ahead.
We spoke about AI empowering everyone to build software and the importance of ensuring it serves quality and progress.
Optimistic for peace, safety, and greatness for Israel and its neighbors.
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I was up until 5am last night just vibe coding (hands-free) with Cursor & Superwhisper. I’m officially in my self taught vibe coder era.
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This is one of the coolest career pivots I’ve seen. From Shopify and Spotify to elementary school teacher.
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VC is pretty much UBI for white male founders who graduated from Harvard and Stanford
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Some personal news. I'm joining the blockchain team at Shopify! Super excited to build in the crypto space and join the small but mighty team that's been crushing it all year. Here's how I got here
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4 years ago today I sold my company @tinyheartsapps to @Shopify 🎉
This journey was never planned – immigrating to Canada 30 years ago as a Somali Muslim kid, starting a studio 10 years ago with no funding or experience making apps. Just start. The rest will take care of itself!
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We're in the era of modern software companies as lifestyle brands.
We've passed the basic utility phase; now, it's about delivering an experience and forging an identity that resonates with the aspirations and values of your audience.
UX has become a fashion statement, and standout products have style. We'll see:
- Haute Couture software
- Luxury software
- DIY software
- Economy software
- Indie software
Notable examples:
- Arc
- Linear
- Amie
- Pitch
- Craft
- Arena
- Superhuman
- Loop
- June
- Campfire/Once
- Notion/Notion Calendar
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A few friends just launched @okaybears and it’s already one of the hottest NFTs on solana, they raised a seed round in less than a minute for their new brand. Moonbirds of sol! 👌🏾 👌🏾
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2023 in tech, through a Muslim lens: a year of revelations.
It's been shocking to see the lack of empathy, deafening silence, and emerging agendas.
muslim and arab (especially palestinian) colleagues in the tech community i've spoken with feel uncomfortable speaking about their recent experiences, often out of fear of retaliation and damaged career prospects.
our industry should be united in our support of these colleagues; it is an atrocious time. i continue to hope for a real and lasting peace, and that in the meantime we can treat each other with empathy.
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yeah exactly it was probably the first app to charge that much and it pretty much did nothing. The developer called it art lol the original NFT
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Chick-fil-A has the number one app on the App Store. It’s getting more downloads than TikTok. The secret to growth like this is free nuggets. CAC is 8 nuggets. 🍗
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I’ve been quietly giving micro-grants to young builders.
If you’re working on something cool and just need a little belief capital and some guidance my DMs are open.
there’s a growing wave of alt-funding options out there too. @mergedotclub has a great directory!
I can’t believe I have to say this, but VCs should not be trying to fund a 13-year-old.
Let the kid be a kid. If you want to help, offer credits or grants.
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Testing out Texts.com feels like the future of messaging. It's a desktop chat client that aggregates all your messages in one app. Keeping track of all of the messaging apps (Messages, Whatsapp, Twitter, and Instagram DMs, etc) is such a headache.
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Tyler Cowen on why Mississauga, Brampton, Markham, Scarborough are producing world class talent
Toronto suburbs are our YC and Tyler Cowen is our PG
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Armin Heinrich was ahead of his time. Art with no functionality. Apple's been hating on NFTs since!
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making hit apps is hard don’t let these kids fool you.
the only thing guaranteed to print is get rich quick courses…dropshipping 2.0
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We're hiring product designers for the Shopify Blockchain team. There's so much opportunity to level up the UX of crypto products! DMs are open.
Drop your ens if you're a designer who's crypto-curious. Might have a little nftreat for some of you🍬
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The ultimate unfair advantage: startup people who are left alone to do startup things in a big company with lots of cash and distribution.
It's rare, but when it happens, it's like witnessing magic.
Take, for example, Cash App. It was originally created at a Square/Block hackathon and has been the top finance app for five years, even becoming its own division.
Or the journey of the Shop app, previously the Arrive app, born from a pitch I made while at Shopify. We were able to dominate the App Store partly because of our access to millions of order confirmations, leading to hundreds of millions of downloads and tens of millions of active users.
This is what can happen when startup energy is nurtured and survives long enough in a big company to make a dent in the industry.
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Your goal should be to never look for a job again.
Don’t get hired, get recruited, get poached.
Be so good at what you do that opportunities come to you.
Welcome to post-employment.
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Some people forget that Vitalik studied in Waterloo and incubated Ethereum in Toronto.
And Satoshi studied at U of T and invented Bitcoin in Scarborough.
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Excited to finally announce the launch of the Nouns app! This might be the first blue chip NFT community app. 100% passion project, funded by @NounsDAO and CC0.
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Excited to share the new product I’ve been working on the last few months!
This is something I’ve been thinking about ever since we went remote in 2020.
Here’s how we’re bringing the energy back to meetings with Boom⚡️getboom.app
(No, it’s not a new Zoom or Loom😉)
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I'm stoked to finally share a fun side project I've been working on with some friends. A few months back I started a product studio DAO called Collective and our first product is the @nounsdao iOS app. Here's a sneak peek
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You can just do things. Last year I:
- Launched Boom, a new software company
- Opened Studio 535 with friends, a co-working space and community in Toronto
- Launched Glean, a natural skincare brand
- Launched Level UP, a public speaking course to help you present better at work
- Started Today on Mac blog to review apps I like
- Launched Top Talent to help startups recruit like sports teams
- Spent a month in (habibi come to…) Dubai
- Started deadlifting and hit a PR of 315 lbs (knees are still alive)
Plan for 2025 is simple more doing things and more telling.
Building more software, diving deep into AI, mastering growth/distribution and following my curiosity.
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Shopify killed the Toronto tech scene.
Here's my working theory: between 2013 and 2020, Shopify's hyper growth created a talent vortex.
It wasn't just engineers – they strategically acquired and aggressively hired Toronto's entrepreneurial energy into one massive ecosystem out of 80 Spadina Ave.
The builders, designers, and founders who normally would've started their own companies were all drawn into Shopify's orbit.
But it wasn't a death sentence more of an incubation period. Inside Shopify, these builders weren't just pushing pixels. They were operating like "startups within a startup," helping scale one of Canada's biggest tech successes from IPO to $100B+.
This pressure cooked a new generation of Canadian operators who mastered both startup agility and big-tech scale.
Post-COVID, we're seeing a renaissance in Toronto tech. Shopify alumni are now launching community experiments and new companies – from New Systems @internetvin, to Studio 535 by @fahdananta and I, to @skanwar acquiring Betakit, to policy initiatives like Build Canada with folks like @ddebow - to name a few.
We aren't just building companies...we're building our ecosystem.
Sometimes a tech scene needs to concentrate before it can multiply and accelerate. And if you ask me, this is the best time to be building here!
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Paul Graham said, 'The best startups almost have to start as side projects.' This reminds me of my own journey with Shop app, born from Arrive, a humble package tracking app, still topping the charts 6 years later. It's a story shared by Twitter, Facebook, Slack Gmail, Basecamp and Shopify. Your next side project could be your next big thing.
Super excited to (publicly) launch @tryarrive, our new package tracking app. Big shout out to the team who made this happen. A lot of love when into this. ❤️
techcrunch.com/2017/11/29/sh… via @TechCrunch
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Here’s a story about how Apple rejected the Nouns app 4 times and almost killed it with their overly harsh NFT policies.
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Check out that checkout 🔥
Here’s the merch conveyor in action. Every order is “hand-delivered” 🤖
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Ok, so we're launching a new experiment: Top Talent, a curated network of the best builders and companies, by 535.
We believe hiring should work more like sports scouting!
→ Talent scouts finding the promising players
→ Building relationships before the draft, not reviewing resumes
→ Making thoughtful matches vs mass applications
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Super excited to announce that @tinyheartsapps has been acquired @Shopify!! 🚀 💚 🎉
tinyhearts.com
blog.tinyhearts.com/were-joi…
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Today’s a big day for us! We're officially launching Boom, a new way to bring more energy and engagement to your video calls and presentations.
Check us out on @ProductHunt - show some love, share feedback and help us get to the #1 spot! 💥🚀
producthunt.com/posts/boom-6
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We made it to #1 on @ProductHunt. Huge thanks for all the support and kind words! 🙏🏾❤️
Boom holding it down for Canada, the GTA and @535Toronto! Help us keep the momentum. 💥
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Twitter could absolutely crush LinkedIn if they wanted. So much opportunity here to build a professional network that people actually want to use!
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Feeling spicy today!
Saying the quiet part out loud.
1. Having a job and a single source of income is the riskiest thing you could do right now with layoff season and AI taking over. Bet on yourself.
2. Having a 'lifestyle business' isn't an insult—it's a badge of honor now.
3. Whoop should shake things up and add a clock to compete head on with Apple Watch.
4. Notion, Automattic and Aave are acquiring some of the best sleeper products like Cron, Texts, Skiff, and Family wallet.
5. Bryan Johnson is a PR genius.
6. Stop lurking and start creating. Lurking on social media is a great way to learn, creating is a great way to earn.
7. Let’s talk about Hey email and calendar. I respect 37 Signals but I’m REALLY not feeling the design of their new products especially when you compare it against more modern productivity apps like Cron, Superhuman, Amie.
8. Twitter is too big to fail. (still not calling it 'X')
9. Fix your Zoom setup, and ditch the virtual backgrounds. It's 2024, looking and sounding good on your video calls isn't just nice, it's necessary.
10. The best software companies will look more like lifestyle brands.
11. “If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” - Malcom X
s/o to spicy @gregisenberg for the inspo.
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A lot of people suffer from this very serious disease…it’s the disease of thinking that a really great idea is 90% of the work.
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Its been a long road, but I’m excited to finally launch Glean Qasil, a clean beauty brand I've been working on quietly with my cousin @hibo_ahe. We're bringing Qasil, a traditional all-natural powerhouse ingredient from East Africa, to the rest of the world. Think of it as the next Argan oil or Shea butter.
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5 years ago @Shopify acquired @tinyheartsapps making today our Acquiversary! I’ve almost been at shopify longer than I ran my own startup. And the adventure continues ✨🛍 💖
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gm! Here’s a sneak peek at gm shop (short for gated merch): the first tokengated commerce experience, built for mobile! We’re building it on @Shop because web3 commerce needs to be magic on mobile too! ✨
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Buying that domain name is easy, building the thing is hard.
Reward yourself with the perfect domain after you build it.
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We moved into a beautiful new office @Shopify in Toronto! Here’s a little tour 😻
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Canva is bigger than Figma + Notion + Airtable combined
and tech Twitter barely talks about it...maybe because it's not from the Valley
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I’m convinced going fully remote and moving to a 4-day work week is the ultimate recruiting hack! I was talking a very senior designer friend who applied for UX manager role at Shopify. This is what he said after he learned about our new 4-day work week experiment.
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SF is the best place to build an over hyped startup
Toronto is the best place to build an under hyped startup
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Boom!
Boom’s macOS camera app lets you customize your video call appearance tcrn.ch/3AOL82L
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The Shopify alumni are building incredible companies but there's no place tracking them all. Let's fix that!
Drop names of Shopify Mafia (Mounties? 🇨🇦) founded startups, brands and agencies below and I'll vibe code it into an open database.
Who else should be on the list?
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Everything that can be token gated will be token gated. Chat groups, online stores, software, videos, livestreams, irl events, shops, restaurants, hotels. NFTs are internet keys that unlock access ✨
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After seeing a few demos and chatting with founders I'm realizing that most people try to do too much, too early. Think big but don't forget to start small, only focus on what makes you different. Edit it down, and make sure you have a hook. It's like writing a book!
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I need to find this kid. S/o to @levelsio for inspiring him and sharing this video. He’s going places, inshAllah. I’d love to help and advise him on his journey. If you know him tell him to hmu. 🤙🏾
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We're taking a blockchain agnostic approach and have had drops on multiple chains like Ethereum, Flow, Polygon with more to come. We work closely with several third-party minting app partners to make this happen.
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A talented person can quickly become mediocre when you force them to be someone they aren’t.
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My 10 year old daughter is asking for Roblox stock instead of allowance. I think her portfolio is off to a good start! 🚀 🚀 $RBLX
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Working in big tech, I used to spend hours a week in "alignment" meetings. Now we mostly just ship software and talk to the people using what we build. Startups ain't easy but this is definitely one of the big benefits of being small and starting fresh.
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Doodle holders can scan their badges to unlock all kinds of interactive experiences and exclusive goodies, like this golden ticket designed by @burnttoast
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1. Escaping a civil war and genocide as a child with my mom and cousins. The journey took us to a new home in Toronto and completely changed my life. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaaq_…
2. Getting married young and becoming a father. I grew up without a dad, so being there for my kids means everything to me. It also inspired my first app - Pocket Zoo.
3. Selling my company to Shopify. Definitely wasn't the plan, but turned out to be the best plot twist. All those late nights suddenly paid off in ways I never imagined.
What's a moment that changed your life?
I'll start - I was on vacation in Palm Springs at a vegan cafe, sitting with my wife enjoying breakfast when I heard a familiar voice.
I glanced at the door and spotted a bald guy walking out, and instantly recognized it was Andy Puddicombe from the Headspace app.
I'd been getting into the app, and made sure to 'bump' into him in the parking lot to make a connection. Cringe? maybe. But it worked.
I knew my current gig was ending soon, and a couple weeks later I emailed him to see if I could stop by the office.
I worked on the app for 7 years, helped get it to a 3B valuation, matured as a designer, focused on my mindfulness practice, and became a dad.
Never be afraid to shoot your shot! 🏀
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Trading in a steady paycheck for Stripe and Shopify notifications is a wild ride full of ups and downs, but honestly, I wouldn't have it any other way.
It's the ultimate bet on yourself.
And remember, it doesn't have to be all or nothing—you can always start a side hustle while keeping your day job.
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We're live on Product Hunt!
Feels good to finally unveil Boom. Expect some more tweets throughout the day.
If you're awake, you know what to do. Show some love and let us know what you think: producthunt.com/posts/boom-6 💥🚀
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I had two goals for launching @boomvisionco:
1. Create something beautiful that we're truly proud of
2. Get to #1 @ProductHunt
And ...we did it!
Thanks to your amazing support and feedback! Feeling super proud of the team and taking it all in today.
This is just the beginning for Boom💥
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3-years ago today @Shopify acquired @tinyheartsapps which makes this our acquiversary! What a ride it's been! 🛍🎉❤️ Thanks, @skanwar for convincing me to join 🚀
techcrunch.com/2016/12/05/sh…
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Felt really weird to be in an office after 6 months of remote work. Today was the last day to get personal stuff. Gonna miss the beautiful spaces we had @Shopify ✌🏾 back to WFH life!
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The young founders swinging by 535 lately are blowing my mind.
A few weeks ago, @anurie_ (16) and his cofounder came thru. They were in town for a tech event and are building a cool app for pickup soccer games.
Today, @nijmehvm (also 16!) stopped by to co-work. He's building a supply chain startup - I didn't even know what those words meant at his age. He's already raised a small round and is going all in!
Andrew even runs a micro-fund similar to 535.fund, giving out grants to other young ambitious builders. This next generation is seriously giving me hope 👑
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MLB
