Company Profile: Shopify
Origin Story
Shopify was started in 2006 by Tobias Lütke, Scott Lake and Daniel Weinand when they wanted to start an online snowboard shop called Snowdevil but hated all the current platforms. They decided to use Ruby on Rails to build their own. Within a few years they had an API built and some funding and were off.
What seems to set Shopify apart is their partnerships, particularly with Amazon. In 2015 Amazon selected Shopify as the preferred migration provider and in 2017, Shopify announced integration with Amazon that would allow merchants to sell on Amazon from their Shopify stores. Both of these deals positively impacted Shopifys credibility and usage.
Shopify also does a lot of (seemingly?) random things. They have a broadcast arm as well as an esports team and even a few physical stores.
SHOP went public in May, 2015 at $28/share.
Funding
Jan 1, 2007 - Seed - 250,000
Dec 13, 2010 - Series A - 7 mil
Oct 17, 2011 - Series B - 15 mil
Dec 11, 2013 - Series C - 100 mil
Today
Shopify frankly continues to explode with growth. They recently announced they are going digital by default, and won’t be forcing all employees back to offices at any point.
The pandemic has been good to the Shopify stock price with March 2020 at around $400/share and in Feb 2021 it peaked at about $1400/share!
Details
Number of Employees 9,239 (this can be a little off due to folks with stores listing Shopify as their employer)
Employees Open to Opportunities: 15% (per LinkedIn Recruiter)
Location - HQ in Ottawa, CAN - WFH global
Compensation - Location based pay
Web Says
Three Interesting Things
CEO - There is definitely a trend of these write-ups….a lot of companies have polarizing CEOs. Shopify is no different. Tobi has made waves by refusing to take down Breitbart’s store and published a cringey ‘10 Commandments of Slack’ video (which now seems to have been wiped from the internet).
Leadership Team - The leadership team at Shopify has had some changes over the years and a theme is that a lot of folks who leave go on to be entrepreneurs themselves. 3 more just announced they are exiting the company in the coming months. I will be curious as a newish remote friendly company if new leadership will continue to be Canada based.
We’re Not Family - This week Shopify sent a letter to managers that included verbiage around the fact that they should be treating each other like team members and not like family. This made some headlines in the tech community.
Leadership
Tobi Lütke, Founder & Chief Executive Officer - 16 years @shopify
Harley Finkelstein, President - 11 years @shopify
Amy Shapero, Chief Financial Officer - 3 years @shopify
Joe Frasca, Chief Legal Officer - 7 years @shopify*
Brittany Forsyth, Chief Talent Officer - 11 years @shopify*
Jean-Michel Lemieux, Chief Technology Officer - 6 years @shopify*
Toby Shannan, Chief Operating Officer - 11 years @shopify
*just announced they are stepping down