15 years running e-commerce for global companies. Now I score tools for myself.
I'm Felipe Suarez. I spent 15+ years in web development and e-commerce delivery, including 6.5 years running global e-commerce operations at VMware. Compixels is where I score online business tools the way I used to evaluate platforms at work: against the job, on the record, with the weak spots left in.
I spent a long time waiting for permission.
I grew up on one rule: get a good job, and don't gamble on your own ideas. I studied business administration with no real plan and nobody around me thinking like an entrepreneur.
The first crack came in the ocean. I almost drowned surfing. That was the day I learned the safe path isn't guaranteed either. It took me years to act on it.
I studied web development, and that worked. Promotions came, then bigger companies. I built an intranet tool that shipped company-wide and got me promoted. Later I spent 6.5 years running global e-commerce operations at VMware, across Magento, Digital River, and CleverBridge.
On the side, I kept building. An online store selling Costa Rican products. Affiliate sites. A personal brand. And every time one of them worked, I let somebody else decide it didn't count. A provider wouldn't support the store. A manager tried to take the intranet tool and leave my name off it. My family wasn't impressed by any of it. So I kept my own ideas as hobbies and stayed employed.
Then came a corporate layoff, followed by months of applying to job postings that turned out not to exist. Experienced people were dismissed without a reason. That's where I stopped waiting for someone to pick me.
I took what I'd learned running mission-critical projects for global companies and pointed it at my own business. Compixels is part of that.
For years I did marketing backwards.
Tools and tactics first. Strategy and positioning last. I promoted affiliate offers that didn't fit me because the commission looked good, and I bought software before I knew what problem it had to solve.
That's the tool-first mistake, and it's everywhere. Most "10 best tools" lists are built on it: ranked by payout, written by people who never had to ship anything with the tool.
So why run a tool review site? Because tools still matter once you know what they're for. That's why Problem Fit is the first axis in every Compixels Score. A tool that's great at the wrong job scores low, no matter what it pays.
buying the software before you know what it has to fix.
Every tool gets the same four questions.
Each axis is scored 0–10, for a total out of 40. I set up and use every tool for the task the review covers before I score it. The full scorecard publishes with every review, including the axes where a recommended tool loses points.
Read the full rubricThe rules I don't bend.
Commissions don't move scores.
A weak tool gets a weak score, published as-is, affiliate link or not.
Non-affiliate tools get included.
If a tool with no affiliate program scores as well or better, it goes into the comparison.
No invented numbers.
Specs, pricing, and reliability claims come from the product itself or from my own use. If I don't know, the review says so.
Scores get revisited.
A major version change, a pricing change, or a pattern of reader-reported problems triggers a re-score.
Full detail:
affiliate disclosureWhere the discipline comes from.
None of those companies handed me credit for most of it. Now I use it on my own terms.
Calculated risk, on and off the water.
Kiteboarding, surfing, dirt bikes, mountain biking. None of them reward hesitation, and none of them reward recklessness either. You learn the rules, read the conditions, and commit. I try to evaluate tools and business bets the same way.
Probably not for you if…
That last one is who I used to be.
Some of you aren't just buying tools. You're building something.
The Compixels Score rates software. I also run a second system, Offer Viability, that rates what you're building instead of what you're buying: is the problem real, can buyers tell what you're selling, is the payoff visible, would they actually pay. Same operator, same standards, pointed at your offer. It's the strategy-first half of the story above.
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