Applying to Shopify's Apprentice Product Manager program · Spring 2027
Kevin Grewal.
Email me

I've spent a decade in the trenches with small business merchants. Now I want to build for all of them.

Every day I work hands-on with small business e-commerce owners whose stores do millions of dollars in sales. I know their day: the orders, the inventory, the fulfillment, the ads, the customer emails, and the systems that break at the worst possible time. I've taken five products from zero, sold one, and done it on lean budgets with nobody handing me a playbook.

Email meSee what I've built
  • Daily work with e-commerce owners
  • AI automation for online stores
  • 10+ years building for merchants
  • 5 products taken from zero
  • AI in my workflow every day

Apprentice Product Manager · Spring 2027

You hire people, not resumes. Here's the person.

Every project on this page started with a merchant describing a problem in their own words. On the right are a few of them, and what I built in response. That loop, listen, build, ship, own it, is the job I want to learn to do at Shopify's scale.

Years building
10+
From zero
5 products
Exited
1 business
Email meSee what I've built

Merchant problem

Real project · 1 of 4

Example: a courier company · lower mainland says “Corporate clients book by phone and our team lives in spreadsheets.” and Kevin built: Delivery platform: 24/7 online booking, Client dashboard, Company dashboard. Status Live, result: One dashboard.

Real merchants. Real problems.

Email me
  • Industries I've built for
  • Supplements & Health
  • Food & Snacks
  • Startups
  • Fintech
  • Transportation
  • Event Rentals
  • Automotive
  • Real Estate

Opportunity isn't evenly distributed. Neither is good software. I've spent a decade closing that gap, one merchant at a time.

  • Built from zero

    Five products started as a blank page and a problem someone was living with. One I scaled and sold.

  • More with less

    Small budgets, tight timelines, usually just me. I ship the smallest thing that works, then make it better.

  • AI as a working tool

    Claude Code and Cursor are how I build. I've shipped my own agent system, not just a prompt or two.

Inside a merchant's day

What running a growing e-commerce business actually looks like

These are the problems I help owners with every week. They don't come in as feature requests. They come in as a stressed text at 9 PM.

  • 01

    Orders across every channel

    Website, marketplaces, DoorDash and Skip, in-store. Keeping them in one view instead of five tabs.

  • 02

    Inventory that stays in sync

    Stock counts that drift between channels, oversells, and the reorder that gets missed.

  • 03

    Fulfillment and shipping

    Picking, packing, labels, carrier rates, and same-day expectations from customers.

  • 04

    Returns and customer service

    Where's my order, refunds, exchanges, and the inbox that never empties.

  • 05

    Ads and customer acquisition

    Ad spend climbing, attribution unclear, and deciding what's actually worth paying for.

  • 06

    Email, SMS and retention

    Abandoned carts, win-backs and reviews that should run on their own but usually don't.

  • 07

    Payments, fees and the books

    Payouts, processing fees, chargebacks, sales tax, and reconciling it all with accounting.

  • 08

    Site speed and conversion

    A slow page or a broken checkout step costs real money every hour it stays broken.

E-commerce owners I work with

Stack Supplements

Supplements retailer

BC Vapor

Vape retailer

Mr. Munchies

Exotic snacks and drinks

AI automation for e-commerce

The systems I build so stores run themselves

The same merchant problems, solved with automation and AI so the owner gets their evenings back.

  • AI customer support assistant

    Answers order status, shipping and returns questions 24/7, and hands off to a human when it should.

  • Order and inventory sync

    Store, marketplaces and delivery apps connected so stock and orders stay in one place.

  • Automated customer journeys

    Instant replies, follow-ups, post-purchase emails and review requests that run on their own.

  • CRM, accounting and app integrations

    Orders, customers and payouts flow into the tools the owner already uses, so nobody retypes data.

  • AI-ready storefronts

    Fast pages, clean product data and structured markup so search engines and AI assistants recommend the store.

  • AI agents for routine ops

    Background agents that handle the repetitive back-office work, with the owner reviewing at checkpoints.

Built from zero

Things that didn't exist until I built them

01 · 2020 to now

Digital Vancouver

My small business tech practice. Websites, automation, AI and hosting packaged into one monthly plan, with a free homepage preview before the owner pays a cent.

02 · 2017 to 2019

BCPresales.ca

A real estate lead generation platform I built from scratch, grew with a team, took to profitability, and sold.

03 · 2019 to 2022

FinPic

Led a fintech platform from concept to production in React and Python, automating real-time financial data collection for lenders.

04 · Auto financing

AutoLoaner

Connected car buyers with bad or no credit to 300+ local vehicles and specialized financing programs.

Projects

What I'm building now

Client work
workpad os · modules
  1. 1Goals & OKRsWhat I'm trying to move this quarter
  2. 2Projects & tasksEvery client and build in one place
  3. 3Workflows & playbooksRepeatable processes, written once
  4. 4Scheduled agent runsAI agents doing the routine work
  5. 5Handoffs & reviewsWork comes back to me at checkpoints

Workpad OS

What it is
AI operating system
Status
In daily use

Running client work solo meant goals, projects and handoffs scattered across tools that never talked. So I built Workpad OS: one place for all of it, with AI agents that run the routine workflows on a schedule and hand work back to me at review checkpoints. Built with Claude Code and Cursor on Cloudflare Agents.

wordplayos
  1. 1In active developmentMore to share soon

WordplayOS

What it is
My next product
Status
In development

The product I'm building now. AI-first from day one, and shaped by everything I've learned shipping Workpad OS and building for merchants.

ai business systems
  1. 1AI customer support assistant24/7, with human handoff
  2. 2Order and inventory syncStore, marketplaces, delivery apps
  3. 3Automated customer journeysFollow-ups, post-purchase, reviews
  4. 4CRM and accounting integrationsNobody retypes data
  5. 5AI agents for routine opsOwner reviews at checkpoints

AI business systems

What it is
Automation for e-commerce
Status
Live with clients

The systems I build for e-commerce and small business owners so their stores run with less manual work: AI support, synced orders and inventory, automated customer journeys, and integrations with the tools they already use.

How I work

Listen, build, ship, then own it

The same loop on a $1,000 site or a full platform. It's how I'd approach a merchant problem at Shopify too.

  1. 1

    Sit with the merchant

    Owners don't ask for software. They tell you what's eating their evenings. I start there, not with a feature list.

  2. 2

    Prototype fast with AI

    A working preview in days, not a deck. Owners react to something real, and I learn more in one call than a week of specs.

  3. 3

    Ship the smallest useful thing

    Launch what solves the problem today, measure it, then improve it. Fixed scope, honest timelines.

  4. Own it after launch

    If I built it, I'm accountable for it. Hosting, fixes and the next improvement stay with me.

How I use AI

  • Building

    Claude Code and Cursor write, refactor and debug alongside me every day.

  • My own systems

    Workpad OS runs AI agents on Cloudflare with human review at the checkpoints that matter.

  • For merchants

    Support assistants, automated follow-ups, and AI-ready site structure so businesses show up in AI answers.

  • Thinking

    Claude and Grok for research, analysis, and pressure-testing a decision before I commit to it.

Let's build for merchants. At Shopify scale.

I'm applying to the Apprentice Product Manager program for Spring 2027. If you've read this far, I'd love to talk.

Email meSee what I've built

grewal.kevin7@gmail.com · (604) 499-7447

  • Vancouver, BC
  • 10+ years with merchants
  • 5 products from zero
  • 1 business sold
  • AI-native workflow