E-commerce Helix
ecommercehelix.com
Grow your e-commerce business a little every day.
E-commerce Helix is a growth copilot for online store owners. You paste your store URL. Helix keeps auditing the store, the ad accounts, email and social profiles, and connects the dots (is it the ad, the page, the offer or the checkout?). Every day you get one short lesson, one topic and one clear action, plus up to two things Helix noticed. You can do it yourself with a step-by-step guide, or say I'll do it for you. Helix then prepares the work and asks for your approval. In ad accounts it builds paused drafts and you press Launch: Helix never turns on spend.
Think of it as a good ad agency account manager who never sleeps. It watches your numbers, tells you what to fix first, shows you which ad formats are working right now, and keeps a roadmap of what it can take off your plate. It does not take over without asking. You keep oversight and the final call on every change, every dollar of ad spend and every email that goes out.
Who it is for
- Founders running a Shopify (first) store doing anything from $0 to a few hundred thousand dollars a month.
- People who run their own Meta and Google ads, or who want to stop paying an agency they cannot see into.
- Owners who know they "should" be doing email flows, creative testing and site tests but do not know what to do first.
The core idea: compound the business every day
Most stores do not fail from one big mistake. They drift. Helix replaces drift with a 15 to 30 minute daily loop:
- Check the scorecard (is today's profit on track?).
- Take one ad action.
- Take one site or conversion action.
- Take one retention action (email, SMS, reviews, repeat buyers).
- Learn one thing and log it.
Small improvements to traffic, conversion, order value and margin multiply together. Improving each of three levers by 10% lifts revenue by about 33%, and profit by much more. See docs/compound-daily-plan.md.
How it makes money (summary)
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|
| Free | US$0 | Profit dashboard (profit per order and month), daily numbers by hand or CSV, key metrics and marketing % guide, growth chart by day and week, the first course goals (profit dashboard, daily numbers, key numbers), every lesson to read, a one-off store check (home page and a product page), Ad Trends, 3 AI answers a month. |
| Starter | US$29/mo | Attract and Convert course goals, monthly store re-check, "Do it for me" with approval, Meta sync and paused-draft campaigns, Shopify sync (read-only), seasonal and Black Friday prep plans with due dates, full dashboard history (month, year to date, 12 months), 50 AI write-ups a month. Google Ads sync coming soon. |
| Growth | US$59/mo | The full course including Grow and Run goals (90-day plan, weekly meeting, playbooks, handing work to a team), Google Ads guided setup (connection coming soon), all 9 email and SMS flows written as ready-to-paste copy (Helix does not connect to an email tool yet), weekly report page, 150 AI write-ups a month. |
| AI wallet | prepaid | Extra AI work billed at 2x provider cost. Stops at a $0 balance. Never auto-charges. |
Ad spend always runs on your own ad accounts and your own card. Helix never resells media. Full unit economics: docs/pricing.md.
Documentation index
| Doc | What it covers |
|---|
| docs/playbook/ | The Helix Playbook: 30 modules of original lessons, checklists, examples and self-checks, in course order: foundations first, then three stages: Attract, Convert, Grow (stages.md). Also served in the app at /learn. |
| docs/daily-curriculum.md | The Growing track: 66 days, one lesson, one topic, one action per day, ordered by store stage (generated). |
| docs/daily-curriculum-starting.md | The Just starting track: 28 lighter days for new founders (product and offer, Shopify store setup step by step, first small test campaign) (generated). |
| docs/audit-engine.md | Proactive audits: schedules, crawler, PageSpeed, API pulls, cross-diagnosis rules, Insights. |
| docs/email-automation.md | Nine email and SMS flows with draft copy; suggest, draft, approve, set up. |
| docs/execution-model.md | Draft & you launch (paused drafts, user launches) and Guide me modes. What Helix may and may not do. |
| docs/meta-setup.md | Meta integration: the exact steps to create the Meta app, verification, App Review, redirect URIs and environment variables. |
| docs/compound-daily-plan.md |
SOP library
Principles
- Profit first. The north star is daily contribution profit, not revenue or platform ROAS.
- Fix the real constraint. Ads only fix ad problems. Helix diagnoses before it prescribes.
- Ask before acting, never switch on spend. Every write action (ads, site, email) goes through an approval card with a preview, a cost estimate and an undo path. Ad campaigns are created paused; the owner launches and makes budget changes.
- Extremely easy to follow. One lesson, one topic, one action a day, plus at most two insights.
- Never lose money on a step. Every AI action is costed before it runs. Free usage is hard-capped. Paid usage is prepaid.
Stack (v1)
Next.js on Vercel, Postgres, Stripe Billing, Vercel AI SDK with hosted LLMs and tool calling, SOPs as RAG documents. PWA push approvals in month 2. Native app later. No GPUs or custom model training in v1.
The web app
Everything is written in plain words: short sentences, numbered steps, and a one-line explanation for any tricky word (glossary, also at /learn/words). Setup lessons include numbered drawings that show where to click (public/guides/). The Today screen leads with yesterday's profit and one line on what it means.
Proactive seasonal calendar. From the real date, Helix shows a prominent alert on Today and the home page at the right lead time for each key date: Black Friday (from 1 August, in five stages: August look back, set targets and start testing ads and offers; September order stock 10 to 12 weeks out, lock the offer and scale winners; October build creatives, warm up audiences, build email flows and load stock; November launch and scale winners; December and January review. Every step is also on the Calendar, and from February to July Today shows a light "Test now for Black Friday" nudge), Christmas shipping cut-offs, Boxing Day and New Year sales, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, EOFY and Father's Day (Australian dates). One click on "Add the prep plan" adds dated steps to Today, each with plain instructions and a lesson link. The same alert appears in the weekly report and goes out as a Monday email and push reminder (/api/cron/seasonal-nudges). Logic: src/lib/seasons.ts, messages: src/lib/nudges.ts.
Calendar. /dashboard/calendar lists every key date for the next 12 months by country (Australia and United States to start), with countdowns: Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Click Frenzy, Singles Day, Christmas cut-offs, Boxing Day, Easter, back to school, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day (AU and US), EOFY, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day, Halloween and Thanksgiving. Today shows an "Upcoming key dates" strip with the next six. Export as .ics (/api/calendar?country=AU&download=1) or subscribe (Google Calendar and webcal links; these need a public URL).
Goals ladder. Nine monthly targets in funnel order, from site visits, CTR, add-to-cart and conversion rate, AOV, ROAS/MER and CPA to contribution margin and net profit (the goal), each tagged Attract, Convert or Grow with the same benchmarks as the Dashboard. Set in onboarding or /dashboard/goals, tracked against the last 30 days on Today and the Dashboard, explained at /learn/goals (src/lib/goals.ts).
Two tracks. Onboarding (/start) asks for the store link, the track and the country. Just starting (new founders with little or no sales): 28 lighter days covering product and offer checks, a step-by-step Shopify store setup and a first small-budget test campaign. Growing (stores with regular sales): the 66-day programme covering profit tracking, scaling, retention and Black Friday. Switch any time in Settings (/dashboard/settings); progress on each track is kept.
A Next.js 16 (App Router, TypeScript, Tailwind v4) app lives at the repo root and deploys to Vercel.
| Area | Route | Status |
|---|
| Marketing home, About, pricing, FAQ | /, /about | Real |
Learn (30 playbook modules rendered from docs/playbook, Start here first, then grouped into Attract, Convert, Grow with a stage chip on every module and lesson) | /learn, /learn/[slug] | Real, static (src/lib/stage-map.json) |
| Sign-in (Google, email magic link, or demo login) | /signin | Real (Auth.js v5) |
| Onboarding: store link, track (Just starting or Growing), country | /start | Real |
| Today: seasonal alert and prep plan, upcoming key dates, day N lesson + action for your track, two insights, streak, compound score, right-hand roadmap | /dashboard | Real logic, seeded curriculum |
| Calendar (AU and US key dates, countdowns, .ics export, subscribe links) | /dashboard/calendar, /api/calendar | Real; subscribe links need a public URL |
| Settings (switch track and country; "My prices include GST/VAT": AU 10%, NZ 15%, UK 20% or before tax, default by country, so Helix strips tax from sales automatically) | /dashboard/settings | Real (src/lib/tax.ts, User.salesTaxMode) |
| Seasonal nudges (weekly email and push) | /api/cron/seasonal-nudges | Message real; email sends only with NUDGES_LIVE=1 and Resend keys; push is a stub |
| Insights (proactive audit, cross-diagnosis) | /dashboard/insights | Rules engine real, signals EXAMPLE |
| Approvals queue | /dashboard/approvals | Real; Meta paused drafts execute for real when connected |
| Connections (Meta connect, asset picker, sync, disconnect, activity log) | /dashboard/integrations, /api/meta/*, /api/cron/meta-sync | Real (mock mode without a Meta app) |
| Dashboard: week, month, year to date and last 12 months; revenue, costs, profit, ROAS/MER, channels, new vs returning, cost donut; every metric has a plain-words panel (what, how, what good looks like) and green/amber/red against your own break-even lines |
Run locally
npm install # also runs prisma generate
npm run dev # http://localhost:3000
With no environment variables the app runs in demo mode: in-memory data (resets on restart), a demo login form, and plan changes without payment. A banner says so.
To go live, copy .env.example to .env.local and set:
| Variable | Purpose |
|---|
AUTH_SECRET | Auth.js secret (npx auth secret) |
AUTH_GOOGLE_ID, AUTH_GOOGLE_SECRET | Google sign-in |
AUTH_RESEND_KEY, EMAIL_FROM | Email magic links (needs the database) |
ALLOW_DEV_LOGIN | true keeps the demo login on next to real providers, in local development only (ignored in production). The demo login is on automatically while no Google or Resend login is configured, and every demo sign-in creates a new, isolated test account labelled "Demo account" |
DATABASE_URL | Postgres; then run npm run db:push |
STRIPE_SECRET_KEY, STRIPE_WEBHOOK_SECRET | Stripe test mode keys |
STRIPE_PRICE_STARTER, STRIPE_PRICE_GROWTH | Recurring price IDs |
NEXT_PUBLIC_APP_URL, APP_URL | Public URL used for redirects (APP_URL wins for the Meta OAuth redirect) |
META_APP_ID, META_APP_SECRET, META_CONFIG_ID | Meta app and Facebook Login for Business configuration (setup steps) |
TOKEN_ENCRYPTION_KEY | 32-byte key (openssl rand -hex 32) for AES-256-GCM token encryption |
CRON_SECRET | Protects the cron routes (daily Meta sync, Monday seasonal nudges) |
NUDGES_LIVE | 1 lets the seasonal nudge cron really send email (uses AUTH_RESEND_KEY and EMAIL_FROM). Otherwise it logs a stub |
BUSINESS_POSTAL_ADDRESS | Postal address shown in the footer of every marketing email (daily steps, sale dates, win-back, alerts, Monday scorecard, seasonal nudges). CAN-SPAM requires a valid physical postal address for US recipients; a PO box or private mailbox registered with the postal service is fine (https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business). One line, or lines joined with commas. If unset, no address is shown (none is invented) and the server logs a warning |
Tests: npm test (paused-only guardrail, token encryption, Graph client retries, insights mapping, day ordering, seasonal dates and nudges, calendar by country, .ics export, tracks, dashboard periods, break-even maths and ratings).
Regenerate generated docs: python3 scripts/build_curriculum.py (curriculum JSON + doc) and python3 scripts/build_email_doc.py.
See STATUS.md for what is stubbed and the open questions.
Independence note
E-commerce Helix playbooks are original operating procedures written for this product. They are based on widely used e-commerce growth practice (unit economics, creative testing, conversion rate optimisation, lifecycle marketing). They do not reproduce or republish any third-party course, coaching program or paid community content.
