Founder stories
How Ben acquired customers
Tools used to build Privy
Ben Jabbawy built Privy into the #1 Shopify sales app with 500K+ merchants, driving $6B+ in eCommerce sales before a successful exit.
Ben Jabbawy built Privy into the leader in eCommerce marketing for small and growing brands. The platform is used by 500,000+ online stores in 180 countries.
Ben had an Industrial Engineering background but moved into technical roles before finding his calling in eCommerce. He saw that small eCommerce stores needed simple tools to capture emails and reduce cart abandonment.
Privy became known for popups, shipping bars, and cross-sells - simple tools that non-technical store owners could set up themselves. The key was making conversion tools accessible to merchants without developers.
Privy went all-in on the Shopify ecosystem, becoming the #1 reviewed app for sales in the Shopify App Store. This focus on a single platform allowed them to deeply understand merchant needs.
Ben focused relentlessly on customer feedback, constantly iterating based on what merchants actually needed rather than building features speculatively.
Focus on a single platform ecosystem to deeply understand customers
Build simple tools that non-technical users can implement themselves
Customer feedback should drive product decisions
Becoming #1 in reviews builds trust and compounds growth
Inspired by Ben's journey? Generate a business idea in the E-commerce space using AI and real founder data.
Ben achieved 4 milestones on the path to $100K ARR
$1,000
$10,000
$100,000
The journey, decisions, and context behind this milestone
See the complete breakdown: launch strategy, validation methods, startup costs, expert analysis, replication playbook, and more actionable insights.
Upgrade to PremiumInstant access to all founder journeys
Founders with similar journeys or strategies
In 2013, I sold all my possessions, packed a backpack and a laptop, and flew to Thailand to begin my digital nomad life. I was once a lost musician ea...
On March 1st 2023, OpenAI announced the ChatGPT API. Right on that day, I came up with the idea to create a new UI to solve my own pain points with th...
My journey took me from being a Paris waiter to an $80,000/month solopreneur over seven years of persistence. After 17 failed projects, I found succes...
Get more founder journeys like this delivered to your inbox every week.