Tobias Lütke was unsatisfied. He was aware that he had amazing products to sell (a line of elite snowboards), but he was struggling to find a practical method to sell his products online. Despite his numerous years of professional programming knowledge, Lütke discovered that his hard work was thwarted by inflexible e-commerce platforms with partial design selections and decided to create the ideal software himself with a friend Scott. The duo spent a year and a half growing and refining their software, paying particular attention to flexibility, and officially launched their online-storefront builder in 2006 and called it Shopify.It was a difficult beginning: The co-founders were without salaries for almost two years, and soon after launch, Lake departed. The start was slow, but then people started to see that Shopify had a good product. Later on, Lütke brought on Cody Fauser as CTO and Daniel Weinand as chief design officer. The new team’s emphasis on completing their formation paid off in 2008 when the company became profitable. In 2010, Shopify attracted the attention of investors, securing $7 million in funding, and in 2011, the company raised another $15 million. Regardless of Lütke’s knowledge in programming, he worked closely with each position at Shopify–from sales to customer support. That experience provided him with an instinctive sense for hiring and helped him make a decision as to who the top candidates for the job positions were at Shopify. Lütke continues to hire people according to this model to attract additional top talent, even as the company has grown tenfold. Shopify began in 2011 with 10 employees and now has more than 100 employees. Some of Shopify’s secrets to success are:
#1 Develop something you need
When Lütke wasn’t able to find an e-commerce platform to sell his products, he developed one himself. He believes that it is extremely powerful for people to resolve the problem they have. Also, a very close proximity to the people who in fact use the product is a key element.
#2 Create something unique
Develop something excusive; there should be a necessity in the market for your knowledge, product or service. Shopify isn’t the first e-commerce platform, but it was created to give retailers a new choice in the e-commerce world.
#3 Make the best version
Regardless of the fact that the product planned to be sold is not excusive, businesses should make the product the greatest version out there. Lütke was aware that the innovative platform he created for his online snowboard store wasn’t what each e-tailer was searching for, so he spent a year and a half refining Shopify before launching his online store. He continues to highlight product expansion and progress: as a result of a 2,000 percent growth in Shopify stores’ sales through mobile devices, the company recently released features for users to create designs specifically for tablets and iPhones.
