The Plan for Rivo with Stuart Chaney

In this episode of The SaaS Operators Podcast, we dig into what it takes to scale a Shopify Plus SaaS when the market is no longer surging.

Stuart Chaney, founder of Rivo, joins us to talk about the ceiling on Shopify’s TAM, the realities of platform risk, and why he keeps all his chips on Shopify despite the threat of sudden policy changes.

We break down agentic coding with LLM guardrails, the grind of high-touch onboarding, and the what happens when you're building in public and growth slows down. The conversation moves through pricing power, competitor takeovers, and the simple truth that fixing the product beats every hack.

00:00 The Future of Shopify Themes 03:00 Scaling and Business Growth Strategies 05:56 Understanding Total Addressable Market (TAM) 08:59 Navigating Platform Risks 12:09 The Importance of Passion in Business 15:04 Future Goals and Business Vision 18:01 Agentic Coding and Business Innovation 25:52 Building Frameworks for Claude Code 28:07 Market Dynamics and Demand Inflection Points 30:47 The Importance of Service in SaaS 34:06 Hiring Strategies and Team Dynamics 38:45 Transitioning from App Store to Direct Market 54:05 The Basics of Product Improvement