I'm still not convinced that ideation isn't an issue. I get a significant number of app proposals to the Fund for the same items on the wish list, but very few original ideas. I'd really like to have ways to help developers ideate their apps that doesn't specifically involve the wish list. Is there a way that's ideal for developers to ideate an app? I'd like to know what that looks like start to finish.

The best way is to run a store. I have plenty of ideas that may or may not be on the idea list:

* Manually email customers if order is in stock based on templating. (There is an app that automatically emails, but I'd rather not email customers if only 1-2 items are in stock and it doesn't do templating.)
* Code generator. I sell CDs, and many of my artists want to automatically email Bandcamp codes along with the CDs.
* Product setup wizard: Many of my products are made the exact same way, and it would be nice to assign people "jobs" based on the product creation process. For example, I can assign the images to "Jon", and the description to "Charlie". Also have it generate commonly used SKUs and weights.

All these are just pain points from having run a store for quite a long while.

Do you think there's an ideal way to get this information from merchants and into the hands of developers with minimal intervention?

Hmm....

* A better curated list from support. What are shopowners trying to do this month vs. last month?
* Better communication between Shopify and shopowners. As a shopowner, I feel like talking to a brick wall over my pain points. All I have is support, which just sends a "thank you for your suggestion", and the forums which appears nobody from Shopify reads. As also a developer, those tend to be things I can't make into an app, but for most store owners, an app already exists or is on the wish list already. (Thus voting on wish lists.)
* A discussion of shopowners themselves over what takes up the most time. There are the Shopify Forums, but I feel they're largely ignored by most shopowners. Devs can take from that discussion.