1. One developer, no bureaucracy

Big platforms have layers of support, product managers, and executives between you and the person who can actually fix your problem. At Easel, you email the developer who built the software.

This means slower feature development and sometimes slower support. It also means honest answers, real solutions, and someone who actually cares if the software works for you.

2. Your business is not our product

Shopify makes money when you use their payment processing. Amazon makes money when you sell through their marketplace. Facebook makes money by surveilling your customers.

Easel makes money when you pay your subscription. That's it. We don't take transaction fees. We don't mine your data. We don't compete with our own customers.

Simple alignment: you succeed, we succeed.

3. Open source means you own it

The entire Easel platform is AGPL licensed. You can read the code, fork it, modify it, or host it yourself. We'll never take that away.

Most "open source" companies dual-license or keep key features proprietary. We don't. Everything is AGPL. If you don't like our service, you can run your own.

True ownership means true freedom.

4. Bootstrapped and proud

No venture capital. No growth-at-all-costs mentality. No pressure to maximize valuations for investors.

This means we grow slowly and sustainably. We focus on building something that works rather than something that scales infinitely. We optimize for longevity, not hockey sticks.

Boring businesses last longer.

5. Honest about constraints

We can't do everything. We won't pretend we can. We'd rather be excellent at core commerce functionality than mediocre at everything.

No marketing automation. No complex shipping integrations. No drag-and-drop page builders. We focus on what matters: selling products, tracking inventory, processing orders.

Constraints breed creativity and focus.

6. Privacy by design

Your customer data belongs to you, not us. We don't track visitor behavior for advertising. We don't sell analytics to third parties. We don't even want access to data we don't need to run the service.

European servers. GDPR compliance from day one. Complete data export at any time. No questions asked.

7. Small business first

We're not building for enterprises. We're not building for venture-funded startups. We're building for small businesses that need reliable, honest commerce tools.

The bakery down the street. The artist selling online. The freelancer with a product line. The family business going digital.

You deserve better than platforms that see you as a revenue unit.