Why We Built Our Own Theme Licensing System

Vero has grown quite a bit from where it started.

What began as our own Shopify theme built specifically for makers has turned into something used by businesses all over the country, with new features, regular updates, integrations, documentation, and Vero 2 now in development.

At some point, managing all of that with what was basically an honor system stops making sense.

So, naturally, we built our own licensing system.

Why Licensing?

The obvious answer is protecting the work.

Building and maintaining a Shopify theme like Vero takes a ridiculous amount of time. And as more people start launching their own themes, tools, and suspiciously familiar ideas into the world, protecting that work becomes a little more important. Funny how that happens.

But protection honestly isn't the biggest reason.

The bigger reason is making Vero easier to manage for everyone actually using it.

Vero licensing now gives customers a proper place to manage their theme license, connect their Shopify store, download the latest version available to them, and transfer ownership when we build a store on their behalf.

For stores where we manage theme updates directly, basically nothing changes. We handle it.

Building Vero Like a Product

This is really another step in Vero growing from “the theme we use for our clients” into a proper Shopify product.

We've been building out better documentation, improving the update process, developing Vero 2, expanding integrations with our apps, and generally trying to make the whole thing feel less like buying a ZIP file from some guy on the internet.

Even if, technically, you are still buying a ZIP file from some guy on the internet.

The goal isn't to make licensing annoying or lock legitimate customers out of something they paid for. It's the opposite.

We want Vero customers to have a simple way to access what they purchased while giving us the infrastructure to keep building, supporting, and improving it for the long haul.

And now we have it.

One less thing held together by spreadsheets, GitHub branches, and my memory.

Probably for the best.