The story behind Headless

Before Headless I was the dev on a headless Shopify store. Team of ten, agency helping us out, and everything was custom except the checkout: our own analytics, server-side Meta CAPI, custom engagement metrics, CNAME masking (just so it sends the data to our own domain, not some other one, improves stuff a lot). Above average performing store, and we could actually see why.

We only had that stuff because otherwise you're just guessing at what your ads are doing.

Then the agency told us to go native. Standard pixel, standard everything. Overnight the store looked worse, and every metric we'd built was just... gone. No engagement data, no CNAME, no CAPI. Just a pixel and a conversion rate we didn't trust.

We did still make some money that year. But we spent more than we earned, so overall a loss. And the whole time Meta ads were quietly burning cash and nobody in the building could see it. Making decisions blind off a dashboard that looked fine.

I pivoted because I kept running into the same thing: most Shopify stores have zero real analytics. Standard pixel, platform dashboard, same blind calls we were making.

So I rebuilt what I lost, except as a product anyone can install. Server-side tracking that doesn't drop events, 39 metrics the platform won't show you, CNAME masking, an AI analyst that reads your numbers so you don't have to guess. Named it Headless because that's exactly what I gave up to get here.

Look, tracking isn't a nice-to-have you bolt on once you're big. It's the whole difference between knowing what's wrong and guessing. With bad data, every decision after it (creative, budget, product) is wrong too, and you won't notice until the money is gone. That's exactly what happened to us, on a store that was doing well. So yeah, I take this stuff seriously.