In this episode of the Liquid Weekly Podcast, hosts Karl Meisterheim and Taylor Page welcome Matt Sodomsky, VP of Product and Strategy at Lightward.

- Matt Sodomsky shares his journey from tech support to VP of Product and Strategy

- Mechanic is a backend automation platform that allows for complex customizations

- The community around Mechanic is supportive and encourages collaboration

- The pricing model of Mechanic is based on a 'pay what feels good' philosophy

- Locksmith is another product from LightWord that focuses on access control for Shopify stores

- The architecture of Mechanic is designed to handle large volumes of data and tasks efficiently

00:00 Matt's Journey to Shopify and Mechanic

08:57 Career Decisions and Growth Mindset

15:59 The Unique Value of Mechanic

24:55 Innovative Use Cases for Mechanic

33:47 Pricing Model and Developer Insights

42:34 The Value of Community and Authenticity

49:37 API Challenges and Future Directions

55:45 Lightward: The AI Product

01:01:30 Final Thoughts and Recommendations

- Matt: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewsodomsky/

- Mechanic website: https://mechanic.dev/

- Lightward App Store: https://apps.shopify.com/partners/lightward

- Mechanic app listing: https://apps.shopify.com/mechanic

- Locksmith app listing: https://apps.shopify.com/locksmith

- Fly.io: https://fly.io/

- Crunchy Data: https://www.crunchydata.com/

- AWS CloudSearch: https://aws.amazon.com/cloudsearch/

- Merchants on paid trial plans no longer able to leave reviews on Shopify's App Store - https://shopify.dev/changelog/merchant-eligibility-to-leave-reviews-on-shopifys-app-store

- Improved productTags, productVendors, productTypes - https://shopify.dev/changelog/improved-producttags-productvendors-producttypes

- Meta events for theme and app listings: https://shopify.dev/changelog/meta-pixel-events-for-app-listing-page and https://shopify.dev/changelog/meta-pixel-events-for-theme-listing-page

- [SCHEDULED] Minimum requirement is now optional on automatic discounts - https://shopify.dev/changelog/minimum-requirement-is-now-optional-on-automatic-discounts

- [SCHEDULED] Public apps must use new GraphQL Product APIs to be accepted in the Shopify App Store - https://shopify.dev/changelog/public-apps-must-use-new-graphql-product-apis-to-be-accepted-in-the-shopify-app-store

- Matt: Three body problem (Netflix documentary): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3_Body_Problem_(TV_series)

- Karl: Silo (series): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silo_(TV_series)

- Taylor: Company of One (book): https://amzn.to/4gzSIxT