Welcome to the Proof of Usefulness Hackathon spotlight, curated by HackerNoon’s editors to showcase noteworthy tech solutions to real-world problems. Whether you’re a solopreneur, part of an early-stage startup, or a developer building something that truly matters, the Proof of Usefulness Hackathon is your chance to test your product’s utility, get featured on HackerNoon, and compete for $150k+ in prizes. Submit your project to get started! Welcome to the Proof of Usefulness Hackathon spotlight, curated by HackerNoon’s editors to showcase noteworthy tech solutions to real-world problems. Whether you’re a solopreneur, part of an early-stage startup, or a developer building something that truly matters, the Proof of Usefulness Hackathon is your chance to test your product’s utility, get featured on HackerNoon, and compete for $150k+ in prizes. Submit your project to get started! Proof of Usefulness Hackathon spotlight Proof of Usefulness Hackathon spotlight Proof of Usefulness Hackathon Proof of Usefulness Hackathon $150k+ Submit your project to get started Submit your project to get started Today we are interviewing Samuel Noriega, the mind behind Shugert. Shugert is a certified Shopify Select Partner agency that provides expert e-commerce development, custom theme design, SEO optimization, and data-driven marketing to help retailers scale profitably. Shugert What does Shugert do? And why is now the time for it to exist? Shugert is a certified Shopify Select Partner agency providing expert e-commerce development, custom theme design, SEO optimization, and conversion rate improvements. We've completed 1,200+ Shopify tasks for over 600 stores, offering flexible pricing from one-hour quick fixes to full-scale store builds and migrations. Our team combines technical expertise with data-driven marketing to help online retailers scale profitably. Now’s a good time for Shugert to exist because e-commerce is more competitive than ever, and brands need accessible, high-level technical expertise combined with AI-driven insights to optimize conversions and stand out in a crowded digital marketplace. What is your traction to date? How many people does Shugert reach? Shugert serves 600+ e-commerce businesses monthly through our Shopify development services, reaching their combined customer base of millions of online shoppers. We also provide digital marketing, analytics, and machine learning solutions to B2B and B2C clients across the USA, Spain, Mexico, and Latin America, managing 52+ projects per month on average with content published across 35 different markets. Who does your Shugert serve? What’s exciting about your users and customers? Shugert primarily serves e-commerce store owners, online retailers, and brands looking to scale their Shopify presence through expert development, theme customization, and conversion optimization. Our clients range from small businesses to enterprise brands across industries like fashion, health, beauty, food & beverage, and B2B services. Notable customers include Unreal Deli, Poker Power, Valley Flowers, and 600+ other Shopify merchants who benefit from our certified expertise and data-driven approach. What technologies were used in the making of Shugert? And why did you choose ones most essential to your techstack? As a specialized e-commerce and marketing agency, Shugert's technology stack is deeply rooted in the Shopify ecosystem alongside proprietary analytics and machine-learning tools. We chose these platforms because they offer the most robust, scalable, and customizable foundations to directly improve our clients' conversion rates and drive sustainable growth. What is traction to date for Shugert? Around the web, who’s been noticing? Shugert has built impressive momentum, successfully growing from a local agency into an international operation recognized as a certified Shopify Select Partner. Our work has been featured in Forbes Spain, and our portfolio boasts over 1,200 completed tasks across 600+ client stores worldwide. Forbes Spain Shugert scored a 392 proof of usefulness score (https://proofofusefulness.com/report/shugert) Shugert scored a 392 proof of usefulness score (https://proofofusefulness.com/report/shugert) https://proofofusefulness.com/report/shugert What excites you about this Shugert's potential usefulness? * Shugert bridges the gap between technical complexity and business growth, making advanced e-commerce development and data science accessible to businesses of all sizes. What excites us most is democratizing expertise—a small retailer can access the same level of Shopify optimization and machine learning-powered analytics that enterprise brands use, starting with simple one-hour tasks at $89. We're solving real problems daily: slow site speeds that kill conversions, inefficient marketing spend, poor customer retention. By combining our certified Shopify expertise with predictive analytics and AI-driven insights, we help businesses make data-informed decisions that directly impact their bottom line. The potential to scale this model globally and help thousands more e-commerce brands succeed through affordable, expert-level solutions is what drives our team every day. Meet our sponsors Meet our sponsors Meet our sponsors Bright Data: Bright Data is the leading web data infrastructure company, empowering over 20,000 organizations with ethical, scalable access to real-time public web information. From startups to industry leaders, we deliver the datasets that fuel AI innovation and real-world impact. Ready to unlock the web? Learn more at brightdata.com. Bright Data: Bright Data is the leading web data infrastructure company, empowering over 20,000 organizations with ethical, scalable access to real-time public web information. From startups to industry leaders, we deliver the datasets that fuel AI innovation and real-world impact. Ready to unlock the web? Learn more at brightdata.com. Bright Data: brightdata.com Neo4j: GraphRAG combines retrieval-augmented generation with graph-native context, allowing LLMs to reason over structured relationships instead of just documents. With Neo4j, you can build GraphRAG pipelines that connect your data and surface clearer insights. Learn more. Neo4j: GraphRAG combines retrieval-augmented generation with graph-native context, allowing LLMs to reason over structured relationships instead of just documents. With Neo4j, you can build GraphRAG pipelines that connect your data and surface clearer insights. Learn more. Neo4j: more Storyblok: Storyblok is a headless CMS built for developers who want clean architecture and full control. Structure your content once, connect it anywhere, and keep your front end truly independent. API-first. AI-ready. Framework-agnostic. Future-proof. Start for free. Storyblok: Storyblok is a headless CMS built for developers who want clean architecture and full control. Structure your content once, connect it anywhere, and keep your front end truly independent. API-first. AI-ready. Framework-agnostic. Future-proof. Start for free. Storyblok: Start for free . Algolia: Algolia provides a managed retrieval layer that lets developers quickly build web search and intelligent AI agents. Learn more. Algolia: Algolia provides a managed retrieval layer that lets developers quickly build web search and intelligent AI agents. Learn more. Algolia: Learn more

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Shugert Earns a 392 Proof of Usefulness Score by Building Expert E-commerce Solutions

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