How Shopify Started
In 2004, Tobias Lutke and Scott Lake wanted to start an online store to market high-quality snowboards. Equipped with programming expertise, they felt too limited with the available options of online stores setups. Using the Ruby on Rails open-source framework, they launched Snowdevil which was on their own e-commerce platform that they created in just about 2 months.
Although the snowboarding company did bring in some sales, the team quickly realized that they need to be selling the software for their e-commerce website. So in September 2004 they launched Jaded Pixel, which was the first attempt of selling their online e-commerce software. That year, Lutke brought in his childhood friend, Daniel Weinand to help with design and user experience. It was a pretty slow and tedious process of constantly improving the platform but finally in 2006 the name was changed to Shopify and the software as we know it was launched in Ottawa. Even though it was a slow process, in just two years the company was turning a profit.
And in 2007 Weinand actually left the company to start his own social media online analytics company but still remained on the board. And since then, Shopify has grown to leaps and bounds. In 2009 the company launched in the app store and in 2010 they were available to iOS on iPhones. The next year, its famous Build-A-Business competition started. In this event, participants are encouraged to build a business from the ground up in only eight months. The winners get a cash prize as well as one-on-one mentorship with famous entrepreneurs.
By 2015 Shopify’s success partially forced Amazon to close the Amazon Webstore. And Amazon actually referred their clients to Shopify which grew Shopify's business by 10%. And Amazon and Shopify retain their great partnership as you can create a Shopify store and sell your products through amazon.
As of December 2018, Shopify boasts that they have more than 800,000 different businesses using their platform in more than 175 different countries. And the future is full of possibility for this growing company as in June 2019 they actually released that they will be doing fulfillment centers directly competing with their partner Amazon. In less than 15 years, Shopify has grown from being absolutely nothing to now being Valued at $37Billion with ample room to grow.
And That's How Shopify Started!