So, I started a thing. Then another thing.

Hey, I’m Kenneth, a software creator from Singapore.

Back in 2023, I launched my startup, Shopmatey.

It went well. We launched on Product Hunt, hit #2 Product of the Day, and got a shoutout on the ProductHunt account here. The sign-ups rolled in.

It was cool.

The idea was a platform for dropshippers to quickly spin up stores without committing to a subscription like Shopify, especially when testing new ideas.

But we hit a wall. Building the kind of app ecosystem that makes Shopify powerful was a massive challenge. We also started attracting users who treated it like a marketplace for used goods, which wasn’t the vision.

I tried to solve this by integrating Rye.com’s API. Justin Kan even liked my LinkedIn post about it. I was hyped.

Eventually, the initial excitement fizzled out. The core idea didn’t feel right anymore. I haven’t given up on the concept entirely, but it needs a different approach.

This led me to my current startup, Omni.

Omni started as a solution to Shopmatey’s social commerce problem, initially building on Bluesky’s open protocol. It was made during buildspace s4, where I demoed the first prototype.

Now, I’m rebuilding it.

The new Omni is AI-focused. I know, it’s trendy. But the goal is to be more than just a GPT wrapper. It will bring together everything I’ve learned and built into one platform, truly living up to the name.

We even managed to get the domains Omni.me and Omni.channel, a story for another time.

A new version of Omni is in the works. Let’s see where this goes.