The AI Reality Check
Luke Sandelands on replacing Shopify apps with server-side pipelines
Luke Sandelands founded Stack Architect after seeing Shopify store owners lose money to third-party apps that hurt both margins and page speed. His company builds custom server-to-server web-hook pipelines that replace those subscriptions with backend architecture. The useful part of his story is not that AI is doing everything, but that it is handling the repetitive parts while customers themselves are arriving better informed than before.
AI is saving time on integration work, not replacing the core thinking or writing. In this market, customers are already using ChatGPT to diagnose tracking problems before they reach out, which means the real sales work now starts with specific technical language rather than generic pitching.
What’s the quick origin story of your business, and what makes what you do genuinely different from the other options your customers are looking at?
I spent years working in various business operations roles before shifting into web development where I quickly noticed the standard Shopify app ecosystem was destroying profit margins and page speeds. I noticed Store owners were bleeding hundreds of dollars a month on third party apps that dragged down their sites. With this in mind, I founded Stack Architect to do the exact opposite. We replace expensive subscription apps with pure server-less backend architecture by building custom web-hook pipelines that operate entirely server to server.
Where does most of your new business come from today, and where do you wish it came from?
Most of our inbound work comes from developers and founders finding my open source code on GitHub or stumbling across our technical breakdowns while trying to fix specific API errors. I really wish that more business came directly from marketing agencies before they build out their tech stack. They often waste months trying to patch broken browser pixels before finally realizing they need a server side architecture to fix their attribution gaps.
What’s one thing you’ve actually handed over to AI in the last year, and one thing you tried it on and went back to doing the human way?
We have handed over the tedious work of structuring JSON payload maps and generating boilerplate code documentation which saves us hours on new web-hook integrations. Alongside this, I took back all the technical writing and marketing copy. I did try letting a language model draft blog posts but they sounded incredibly sterile. Explaining complex engineering problems to frustrated founders requires a human voice that speaks directly to their specific pain points.
Have you noticed a change in how customers find you or what they already know before they reach out? Is anyone arriving through AI assistants like ChatGPT yet?
Yes, their technical awareness has increased massively. Customers rarely send us generic requests about setting up a store because they already know that iOS privacy updates broke their tracking. We are definitely seeing the impact of AI assistants here. Founders are using ChatGPT to diagnose missing conversion data and then the AI tells them they need a web-hook based data pipeline instead of a browser pixel. They then search for those technical terms and land directly on our blueprints.
If you were advising someone in your industry on all of this for the next 12 months, what would you tell them to actually do, and what would you tell them to ignore?
I’d advise them to move every critical operational and tracking function to the backend immediately. The customer browser has become a hostile environment that is filled with ad blockers and tracking prevention protocols, so it is now essential to learn how to orchestrate web-hooks and APIs server to server. Also, I would tell them to completely ignore any new analytics tool that relies on injecting more JavaScript into a storefront.
Thank you to Luke Sandelands and the team at Stack Architect for sharing what actually worked with Leaders Perception readers.
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