It's not at all that hard to find a market to yourself, if you think small enough-- and 'small enough' can still be plenty big. The first company I started was

It's not at all that hard to find a market to yourself, if you think small enough-- and 'small enough' can still be plenty big. The first company I started was aimed at large networks of salmon farmers; worldwide, there were only about 20 customers worth considering, and there were already two software vendors serving the market (but not offering products similar to what we created.) From that base, we got enough traction to compete head-to-head with the existing products, and expand into other markets (chicken, pigs, dairy farmers, etc.) and the company had about 30 employees when I cashed out. My point is that there is doubtless some niche of Shopify customers (or prospects) that are under-served by Shopify's offering, and that if you identify this niche, truly understand their needs, and make them deliriously happy, you can be set for life. Often the way to get a market all to yourself is to re-invent an existing market. There were plenty of search engines before Google, but they changed the game, and AltaVista is now mostly forgotten.