Shopify
How Shopify Was Built
An online snowboard shop spawned the operating system for independent commerce.
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History
Tobi Lutke could not find a good ecommerce platform for his snowboard store in 2004, so he built one. Shopify launched as a product in 2006 and grew into a platform powering millions of merchants.
Timeline
- 2004Snowdevil online shop built
- 2006Shopify launched as a product
- 2009Shopify App Store launched
- 2015IPO
- 2020Hyper-growth from pandemic ecommerce shift
Business model
Subscription plus payments and a marketplace of apps and themes.
Key decisions
- - Opening an app store to extend the platform without growing headcount
- - Building Shopify Payments to capture more of the transaction
- - Embracing 'arming the rebels' as a positioning strategy
Challenges
- - Competing with Amazon's gravity
- - Scaling support for millions of merchants
Lessons learned
- - Build the tool you needed
- - Platforms beat products at scale
- - Mission and positioning compound
Workshop exercises
- - Identify a product you would build today if you had to scratch your own itch
- - Sketch an extension model for your business
Sources & further reading
- Shopify - official site — Web
- Shopify - Wikipedia — Wikipedia
- Shopify - Crunchbase — Crunchbase