Straight-up strategies to boost your business's bottom line. No jargon, just results.

If your app has traction but installs aren't growing, the problem is almost never the product.

It's positioning that doesn't land. A listing that doesn't convert. Campaigns sending traffic to a broken funnel.

I help Shopify app founders fix the foundation before they scale it. Positioning, listing optimization, and ad strategy that work together.

What most people miss: your App Store listing needs to serve three audiences at once. Merchants (conversion). Search (discoverability). AI crawlers. Most listings are built for none of them.

100+ app audits. A system that does in 30 days what most agencies take 3 months to deliver.

Start with an audit: audit.ohadmichaeli.com

Ohad Michaeli

I tell Shopify app founders to spend $1,500 a month on ads.

Not to get installs. To get smarter.

Most think I'm crazy. They're bootstrapped. Every dollar matters. Why waste money on clicks that won't convert?

Because you're learning what merchants actually search for. Not what you think they search for. What they type when they need a solution.

You see which keywords cost $50 per click. Where competitors are bleeding money. What's worth fighting for.

Here's the play:

Underbid on expensive keywords. Shopify suggests $30? Bid $28.

You won't win every auction, but you'll see the search volume. The intent. What gets clicked.

Then optimize your listing around that.

The trick: maximizing CTR per search term reduces your CPC. Higher predicted CTR means you win bids at lower costs.

That $1,500 tells you which play you're running.

This isn't just marketing spend. It's reconnaissance.

Ohad Michaeli 🫧

100+ Shopify app audits 🫧 I help founders fix their positioning, listing, and ads before they scale the wrong thing.

No alternative text description for this image

Shopify just killed the Canva screenshot.

New requirements (link in 1st comment): every listing image must show real UI. No logo-only slides. No stock graphics. Every image must be unique. Enforcement starts March 26.

You know those listings where all five screenshots are just big text over a gradient? "BOOST YOUR SALES!" with maybe a tiny corner of actual product UI?

Gone.

And I love it.

Because I've audited dozens of listings where I couldn't figure out what the app actually does from the screenshots.

Five images, zero clarity.

Merchants install based on the description, then uninstall when the UI doesn't match what they imagined.

Now every app has to show what it actually looks like inside a store.
Which means the apps with clean, intuitive UIs just got a massive advantage.

No more hiding behind marketing fluff.

Most founders will still get it wrong. 
They'll screenshot their dashboard, slap it into the listing, and call it done. 
Raw, unframed, no context.

That's almost worse than the Canva slides.

Each screenshot should answer a specific question a merchant has while scrolling.

"What does setup look like?"
"How does this show up in my store?"
"What data will I actually see?"

If your screenshots don't answer those questions in order, you're wasting the six slots Shopify gives you.

Go look at your listing right now. 
Would you install your own app based on those images?

I can help.

Why do we act like saying “I want to sell you something” is a crime?

I called someone out mid-call.

"Are you prospecting me right now?"

A long pause.

Then: "No, no. Just learning. Discovering."

He was lying. And we both knew it.

He'd reached out asking to "understand the Shopify ecosystem better." Wanted my perspective as someone who spent years building in it.

Ten minutes in, he started walking me through his AI product. How it solved the exact problems I had. How founders like me loved it.

Classic disguise.

The thing is, I don't blame him for wanting to sell. I blame him for not owning it.

Because the disguise doesn't protect you. It destroys you.

Once I called him out, that was basically it. Not because he was selling, but because he’d spent the first 10 minutes making things up. You can’t really come back from that.

I mean... COME ON...

People hide behind "learning conversations" and "discovery calls" when they're clearly selling. They think the disguise makes it easier to get a yes. It doesn't. It just guarantees a no.

The prospect isn't dumb. They see it. They say nothing. They just never respond again.

"I built something I think could help you. I might be wrong. Can I take 5 minutes to find out?"

That's it. Honesty beats any pitch deck.

I keep seeing the same $2,000/month mistake.

App founders spending $2,000 a month on Shopify Ads while their listing still confuses merchants.

That's running billboard ads for a store with no sign on the door.

Your ad spend becomes expensive user research showing you that nobody understands what you sell.

The order of operations. Every time:

Fix positioning first. Then run ads.
Fix positioning first. Then build new features.
Fix positioning first. Then write blog posts.

Every dollar you spend on marketing, every feature you ship, every piece of content you publish gets amplified or wasted depending on whether merchants can immediately tell what you do.

Positioning compounds. A clear position means every blog post reinforces it. Every review echoes it. Every merchant who recommends you uses the language you gave them.

Over 12 months, that's the difference between an app still scrambling for installs and one that merchants recommend to each other unprompted.

The boring, unsexy work of getting your positioning right will outperform almost anything else you do for your Shopify app.

147+ Shopify app audits. Same pattern almost every time.

Good product. Bad listing. Zero traction.

Not all install problems are the same. A visibility problem and a conversion problem require completely different fixes.

I've narrowed it down to 5 specific problems:

1. Nobody sees your app. Your search impressions are under 200/month. Merchants aren't finding you.

2. They see it but don't click. Impressions are fine, click-through rate is garbage. Your name and tagline aren't giving merchants a reason to care.

3. They click but don't install. Your listing page isn't closing the deal. Screenshots, copy, or reviews are scaring people off.

4. They install but immediately uninstall. Most users are gone within 72 hours. Your listing is making promises your onboarding can't keep.

5. Your category is wrong. You're solving a problem merchants don't know they have. Or you're in the wrong category entirely.

Most founders I talk to have a mix of two or three. But there's always one doing the most damage.

Open your analytics dashboard. Check impressions, listing views, install rate, retention. The numbers tell you which problem you have.

Which one are you dealing with?

One space. 
That's what separated page 1 from page 2.

Had an audit call with my friend Gideon.

He runs partnerships for a solid Shopify app. Great product, strong reviews, around 500 installs.

He wanted quick wins for their App Store listing.

We're going through it and I notice something.

They were optimizing for "chatbot", one word.
But their competitors ranked for "chat bot", two words.

We checked:
Page 2 for "chatbot"
Page 1 for "chat bot"

One space. That's it.

——

𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐚𝐩𝐩 𝐜𝐨𝐩𝐲 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐰𝐨 𝐣𝐨𝐛𝐬:

Turn visitors into users, and help new people find you.

Most founders only think about the first one.

The apps that get found don't stuff keywords. They match the exact words merchants type. Every character counts.

Most of the wins I find on audit calls are this quiet. Nothing flashy. Just the gap between what you wrote and what merchants actually type.

What's the one keyword your app most needs to rank for? Go check how the page 1 apps spell it.

——

Follow me for more.
Repost this ♻️ if you think it's valuable 😎

Helping Shopify apps get more clients with the power of AI

Most academic leaders get the title—but not the tools. I know, because I’ve been there.

For over two decades, I was a professional musician (a tubist)—performing on five continents, collaborating with Olympic-caliber artists, and serving on faculty at several institutions.

Then I made the leap—from the stage to senior leadership.

I loved performing and teaching.
But I discovered that my greatest strengths were in building teams, designing better systems, and helping others succeed.

That led me to accept a leadership role directing a comprehensive School of Music at the University of Memphis:

➔ 80+ faculty and staff
➔ 400+ students
➔ 75 community partners
➔ 300 annual events
➔ A satellite campus

Very quickly, I saw a challenge many new academic leaders face:
You’re handed major responsibilities—with little preparation for the leadership side of the role.

Budgets and policies can be handed to you.
But building trust, managing conflict, and leading with clarity?

That's harder.

Through mentorship, coaching, and trial by fire, I learned to build people-centered systems that reduced the chaos and moved our school forward.

Together we:
➔ Planned and opened a $40M Performing Arts Center
➔ Modernized curriculum for professional opportunities
➔ Achieved record applications and enrollment
➔ Hired 50+ faculty/staff, increasing diversity and talent
➔ Established new international partnerships
➔ Expanded community engagement

Most important of all, we built a phenomenal team of people—faculty and staff who led the school forward.

Today, I help academic leaders do the same. 

I serve as Dean of the School of Music at Baylor University and as a coach and consult, work with leaders who want to: 
➔ Fix broken systems
➔ Build stronger teams
➔ Lead with clarity, strategy, and balance

Ready to feel confident in your leadership?

➔ DM me if you’d like more details
➔ https://meet.kevinsanders.me/intro/meeting

Kevin Sanders

The higher you go in academic leadership, the less honest feedback you receive.

Direct reports filter what they share. 
Peers protect the relationship. 
The institutional hierarchy makes honesty feel risky. 

And somewhere in there, silence can be misread as confirmation.

Building the conditions where people will actually tell you the truth takes longer than most leaders expect. 
And it requires demonstrating — repeatedly — that honesty won't cost them anything.

The feedback won't come to you on its own.
You have to build something safe enough for it to arrive.

Recognize this image? The show is fiction. The dynamic isn't.

p.s. I write about the systems behind strong academic leadership every week in The Academic Leader's Playbook. Link in comments. 👇 

#highereducation #academicleadership #highered #universityleadership #facultydevelopment

Academic Dean & Leadership Coach | Helping Leaders Navigate Change, Build Teams & Stay Human | Artist by Training

Higher ed runs on borrowed ideas. 
But we often forget what made them work.

When I see a program thriving somewhere, 
my first instinct used to be: 
How do I replicate that? 
(I call that 'new leader energy' - I wanted wins fast).

It took me a while to realize that what worked at Institution X had everything to do with their budget, their culture, their timing, their luck (none of which I had).

The replication trap is real in higher ed. 
We see a dean who transformed enrollment, a chair who finally got faculty to buy into assessment, a program that went from struggling to nationally recognized — and we want the playbook.

But we're asking the wrong question. 
Instead of "What did you do?" try "What made that possible?"

That second question opens up the conditions — the political timing, the champion in the provost's office, the faculty member who everyone trusted, the budget surplus that created breathing room.

Conditions you may not have. 
Or...conditions you might be able to create.

The best mentors don't hand you answers. 
They help you understand why something worked so you can find your own version.

Context isn't a footnote. 
It's the whole story.

If you think this way about leadership, you'd probably get a lot out of my weekly newsletter, The Academic Leader's Playbook — practical frameworks for leading with more clarity and less chaos. Link in the comments. 👇

I'm biased.
But if we want students in #highered to graduate with the skills 80% of employers say the workforce is missing, we need to rethink how we're preparing them:

👉 Problem-solving 
👉 Critical and analytical thinking 
👉 Leadership and team building 
👉 Collaboration 
👉 Communication 
👉 Interpersonal skills 
👉 Work ethic and initiative 
👉 Flexibility and adaptability 
👉 Attention to detail

🔴 Here's the problem:
Too often we give students narrow, content-heavy curricular paths that leave them technically prepared but professionally underdeveloped.

It’s like a musician that knows how to play the notes.
But not how to interpret. To listen. 
To respond or collaborate with the person next to them.
The things that matter. 

✅ Here's the opportunity:
Integrate the arts into how we educate. 
Not as an elective. Or a strategy.

🔹 Many CEOs have liberal arts backgrounds 
🔹 Major corporations use the arts to train their leadership teams

Hard skills get you hired. Soft skills get you promoted.

The arts aren't just about developing creative talent. 
They're about using creativity to unlock how we think, how we listen, and how we connect.

That’s something every student needs as they enter the workforce.

If you think about leadership and education this way, you'll love my weekly newsletter The Academic Leader's Playbook — where I share practical insights to help academic leaders build stronger students, stronger programs, and stronger teams. Link in the comments. 👇 

#LeadershipGoals #HigherEdSuccess #HigherEducation #departmentchairs #deans #programmanagers #academicleadership #LeadershipSkills

There's a specific thing that happens when someone steps into their first academic leadership role.
They walk in thinking the job is about ideas. 
Programs. Students. The mission.

Turns out it's more like a dig site.
And they discover the job is mostly about the people who were there before them.
The history they didn't create. 
The agreements that were never written down. 
The faculty member who tried to change this exact thing eight years ago and failed and hasn't trusted administration since.

Nobody tells you this in the interview.
Nobody tells you that the first 6 months aren't about what you'll build — they're about proving you're safe enough to be trusted with what already exists.

I spent a lot of energy trying to lead forward before I understood I needed to lead backward first. Into the history. Into the grievances. Into the relationships that predated me by decades.

That's not in any leadership handbook I've read.

What caught you most off guard when you stepped into your first leadership role?

p.s. Every week in The Academic Leader's Playbook, I write about the parts that don't show up in a job description. It goes out to 1000+ campuses every Saturday. Link in comments. 👇 


📷 Jurassic Park 
#highereducation #academicleadership #highered

I used to think good decisions spoke for themselves.
Spoiler...they don't.

Most conflict isn't about the decision. 
It's about how people found out.

Even the best decisions fail if people don't understand them.

Good communication is rarely accidental. 
It's built on purpose. 
Through repeatable habits and intentional systems.

Now, my style isn't to casually walk the halls or "drop by your office for a quick chat."
I have to be more intentional.

So, here's how my office keeps the lines of communication open:
✅ Bi-weekly Email Updates – Events, wins, and key decisions 
✅ Monthly Faculty-Staff ('Staculty') Meetings – Faculty/Staff in one room. 
✅ Committee Chair updates – shared in public. 
✅ All-Staff Meetings – Monthly. 
✅ Advisory Board – Once per semester. 
✅ Biweekly Leadership Council Meetings 
✅ Email Summary of Leadership Council Discussions 
✅ Lunch Meeting with Student Council – Twice per semester. 
✅ Lunch with Leadership Council – Monthly. 
✅ "Coffee Talks" with Each Department/Area – Once per semester (x 15 Areas). 
✅ 1:1 Meetings with Direct Reports – Finance, HR, MAR/COM, Operations, 
Advancement, Enrollment, Chairs, and Assistant/Associate Deans.

Overkill? Maybe. 😄
But does it help prevent confusion, assumptions, and broken relationships? Absolutely.

Making good decisions is only half the job.
The other half is making sure people understand them.

What's one communication habit that's made the biggest difference in your program?


I write about the systems behind strong academic leadership every week in The Academic Leader's Playbook. Link in comments.

#highereducation #academicleadership #highered #universityleadership #presidentleadership

Nobody wants to hear their boss complain.
I know that's a hard thing to say. 
Because leadership in higher ed is genuinely hard. 

Budget headaches. Faculty frustrations. Decisions made above you that you have to implement below you. The gap between the resources you need and the ones you have.

The frustration is real. 
And venting is human.

But how you handle your frustration matters.
Because when leaders vent down the org chart, it doesn’t just “blow off steam.”
It sets a tone you might not intend.

“The dean never listens to us.” —> they hear: this is hopeless
“We’ll never get the funding we need.” —> they hear: stop trying
“The same people always drop the ball.” —> they hear: we're a broken team
“Students don’t care anymore.” —> they hear: our work doesn't matter
“This whole system is broken.” —> they hear: our leader has given up

So what can you do instead?

Vent laterally — to a peer, a colleague, someone outside your direct chain who gets it. Pair the hard truth with a path forward. Use your words to show people how to stay steady, not to confirm their worst fears.

Anyone can vent. That part is easy.

What's harder is deciding what tone you leave in the room when you walk out.

Most of what actually determines whether you succeed in this role never makes it into a handbook. That's what I write about every week in the Academic Leader's Playbook. Link in comments. 👇 

#highereducation #academicleadership #highered #universityleadership

"I love working here. But I think I've hit my ceiling."
One of my best staff members said that after three years with us.

She wasn't wrong.  
It was a small staff. Flat org chart. No upward mobility on the horizon.

Most staff don't leave because of the org chart.
They leave because nobody bothered to figure out what they actually needed.

Tomorrow's issue of The Academic Leader's Playbook is about what you can actually offer when a promotion isn't on the table.

Subscribe in the comments. 👇 
It goes out to 900+ campuses tomorrow morning.

#highereducation #academicleadership #highered

"Listen for a year before making changes." 
That's the advice most new leaders get. 
And it sometimes works...

✅ When the program is high-functioning and stable 
✅ You're following a long-standing leader 
✅ Trust is low — and fear is high

But what if you walk into dysfunction? 
🛑 Toxic behaviors are unchecked 
🛑 Accountability is missing 
🛑 Morale is low 
🛑 Your best people are quietly burning out

Instead of defaulting to 12 months of observation, try this:
👉 Fix the obvious things fast 
(Yes, you can make a few early wins without knowing everything.) 

👉 Name what you're learning 
(Let people know what you're observing and what questions you're sitting with.)

👉 Build shared urgency 
(Invite others to surface the pain points they've been living with for years.) 

👉 Decide which timeline fits the culture you're walking into 
(Not the one your leadership book told you to use.)

Listening matters — but only when it leads somewhere.

Because going slow doesn't always build trust. 
Sometimes, it just prolongs the decisions you already know need to be made.

So, if you've inherited a mess, don't wait for a permission slip. 
The system won't fix itself.

Know the playbook. 
Respect the culture. 
But trust your instincts — and lead.

What's the one thing most new leaders wait too long to address?

I write about navigating the hard parts of academic leadership every week in The Academic Leader's Playbook. Link in comments.

#highereducation #academicleadership #highered #departmentchairs #universityleadership

Every year, universities spend millions on the same things.

New marketing campaigns. 
Facility upgrades. 
Reorganizations.
New initiatives.

They're all strategic.
But most of these investments quietly share one thing:

They depend entirely on the quality of the leaders implementing them.

And most of those leaders — the chairs, directors, and coordinators making roughly 80% of daily institutional decisions — were never trained to lead.

They were hired to teach. To research. To excel in their discipline.
Then someone handed them a department and hoped for the best.

Tomorrow's issue of The Academic Leader's Playbook is about the one investment that makes every other investment actually work.

It's not what most institutions are spending money on.

Subscribe in the comments.
It goes out to 900+ campuses tomorrow morning.


#highereducation #academicleadership #highered

Few things damage trust faster in higher ed than this: 
An administrator overruling a search committee's recommendation.

Yes — the leader gets the candidate they want. 
But at what cost?

As someone who has served on both sides, I've seen it up close. 
And when it happens, it's a flashing red light that something in the process is broken.
It does more than ruffle feathers: 
🚫 Undermines months of committee work 
🚫 Shatters trust between leadership and faculty 
🚫 Drains morale across the department 
🚫 Puts the selected candidate on shaky ground from day one (often without realizing it)

What's the solution? 
Try these two basic check-in meetings:

✅ Meeting #1: 
Align at the Start Before the search begins, I sit down with the committee to clarify:
- Workload expectations
- Salary constraints
- Must-have qualifications
- Departmental needs
This ensures we're not evaluating different jobs in our heads.

✅ Meeting #2: 
Debrief After Final Visits After all campus visits, I meet with the search chair to hear their perspective and share mine. That input is shared with the committee before they finalize their recommendation.
The goal? No surprises.

Because let's be honest: 
👉 Committees and administrators sometimes weigh different qualities in candidates.

But those viewpoints should be resolved through collaboration, not override.

Overruling the committee isn't just poor form — it's poor leadership. 
An ounce of prevention here saves a year of fallout later.

Which of these two conversations do you think most administrators skip?

I write about shared governance and the hard parts of academic leadership every week in The Academic Leader's Playbook. Link in comments.

#highereducation #academicleadership #highered #sharedgovernance #facultydevelopment

Leadership training has a design flaw nobody talks about. 
It changes the person. 
Not the system around them. 

Ted Lasso figured this out the hard way. 
The optimistic outsider arrives with new language, new frameworks, new energy. The club's culture resists him for two full seasons. 
His individual development of players doesn't stick until the team buys in together. 

That's good television, but it's also how culture actually works. 

A leader goes to a retreat or conference. 
Comes back energized. 

Then walks back into a team that didn't go. 
An organization that didn't change. 
A culture that has no idea what they learned.

Within 90 days, it's gone. 

The leader can be capable. 
The content can be good. 

But you cannot install new software in one person and expect the whole system to run differently. And you start to wonder if the problem is you. 
It isn't. 

A better leader without a developed team isn't transformation. 
It's a more articulate source of friction. 

Real development means building shared language first — around what success looks like, how you'll get there, and why the work matters. 
Then developing leaders within it. 

Many organizations skips that step. 
Which means they're solving the right problem with the wrong target. 

What's the most common way you've seen leadership training fail to stick?

Most of what actually determines whether you succeed in this role never makes it into a handbook. That's what I write about each Saturday in The Academic Leader's Playbook. Link in comments. 👇 

#highereducation #academicleadership #highered #universityleadership #facultydevelopment

This week's issue of The Academic Leader's Playbook went out to 900+ campuses this morning.

It's about what to promise when you can't promise a promotion.

"I love working here. But I don't see a future." — One of my best staff members said this after three years with us. 

And that conversation changed how I think about retention.

Most of what keeps great staff isn't the org chart. 
It's whether they trust someone is in their corner.

Link in comments.
#highereducation #academicleadership

Yesterday I had a conversation with a colleague about arts pathways, and it left me sitting with a question I can’t shake.

In their downtime, what do most people turn to?

Music.  
Films.  
Television.  
Games.  
Live performance.  
Design.  
Stories.

We rest inside worlds that artists create.

Yet at the same time, arts education pathways are being quietly reduced, underfunded, or treated as optional extras rather than essential learning. We are relying on the outputs of creativity while slowly dismantling the systems that nurture the people who make them.

If arts education fails, what then fills that space?

Who composes the soundtracks we use to regulate our emotions?  
Who tells the stories that help us understand ourselves and each other?  
Who designs the games that build problem-solving and connection?  
Who creates the films, performances, and visual worlds we escape into at the end of long days?

The arts are not a luxury. They are infrastructure for human experience, identity, empathy, and innovation.

Every industry draws on creativity. Every community benefits from it. Every person consumes it, often daily.

Protecting arts pathways in education isn’t about preserving a subject area.  
It’s about protecting the future of culture, wellbeing, and imagination.

Because if we stop growing artists… we eventually run out of what everyone turns to when they need to feel human again.

Leadership development is everywhere — and nowhere — depending on who you ask.

What does it look like on your campus?

Most strategic plans talk about developing people.

But how does that translate to actual support?

Drop more context in the comments if your situation doesn't fit neatly into one of these.

I write about building leaders in higher ed every week in The Academic Leader's Playbook. 
Link in comments 👇 

#highereducation #academicleadership #highered

What support has shaped you most as a leader?

This week's issue of The Academic Leader's Playbook is out.
It's about the one investment that makes every other investment succeed — and why most institutions keep skipping it.

Marketing gets people through the door. 
Leadership determines whether they stay.

80% of the decisions shaping your campus happen at the middle management level.  And most of those people were never trained to lead.

Let's do something about that.

Link to subscribe in comments.

#highereducation #academicleadership

taplio

The Battle

Ohad Michaeli

Kevin Sanders

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreOhad Michaeli's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreKevin Sanders's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Ohad Michaeli

Kevin Sanders

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Ohad Michaeli's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreKevin Sanders's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreOhad Michaeli's LinkedIn Performance