who owns shopify

the interpreters beginning was very hard,fast to get any kind of investment it,was mostly run on fumes on personal,savings by my family in France even in,situations where we had weeks of money,left in the bank I insisted on the,people who worked here to make plans and,think about products that we needed a,year later it's really really hard to,have his discipline but that's what made,the difference so this company honestly,would almost happened by accident when I,came to Canada I picked up the hobby of,snowboarding and eventually me and a few,friends decided he wouldn't be cool to,start Normand business selling,snowboards and that idea just ducted us,so we decided to do it and we ended up,calling it snow devil,I imagined setting up the online store,was going to be the smallest problem in,the business and it just became this,exercise in pure frustration the entire,industry was set up to service existing,businesses that I've gotten to a certain,kind of scale even though you know,Revere's talking 2004 it was clear that,no one has really thought about people,starting new businesses online,eventually I said like enough is enough,em sat down installed programming and,out came a software which ran the store,the way I wanted I had a lot of late,nights and it was really coming together,and I sort of took a step back and said,you know what I yeah god I think was it,I think I've written the last line of,code I remember like shaking before,hitting Enter it was just like it really,felt there was just so much energy which,was going to go into his one command,which might just change my life,arcing space - AR T space dot space snow,devil : and then came summer and and and,and we I I remember it really well we,sat down for a cup of coffee and at a,local coffee shop and this was saying,what is it going to be is it going to be,surfboards that they are going to sell,the summer is a girly skateboards we,should be terminals software company,be quite a Shopify and launched in 2006,a Canadian ecommerce startup is making,shoppers retailers and tech investors,sit up and take notice,Shopify made a name for itself helping,nurture - Jenny an attorney in Ottawa,all this means what in total they've,done really well they've got a really,really good company to this point but I,don't think theater yet there's a ton,more of us and a ton more get we need to,and want to accomplish and I want to,prefer to be one of history's great,companies and amazing how many more,people are able to see what I do because,of Shopify we thrive multiple solutions,nothing was working and to be very,honest with you Shopify just saved our,ass Canadian ecommerce software company,Shopify is going public the startup,plans to list them both Toronto and New,York shop provides technology uses what,Shopify has on a more macro level,fundamentally accomplished is that it,took a very complex thing and wrapped it,into a single well-crafted,easy-to-understand product when you sign,up for Shopify you're just getting a lot,you're getting the 10 years of hard work,by this entire company working to make,you look right as emergent the,sophistication of business they were,created right now that use Shopify,vastly outstrip the capabilities of very,established business that might have,been around for 100 years at some points,this is something that Walmart,I have built for themselves or millions,are probably hundreds of millions of Rd,dollars they've gotten to the point,where they have data where holes that,can give them single views into,everything that's going on in these,large operations which we are giving to,people words starting out this sort of,consideration of enterprise quality,software is powerful as moving as,getting faster and it's everywhere and,Shopify is doing this for comments,so in 1876 a guy named John Wanamaker,created Wanamaker's department stores,actually was the first store in America,that had electricity and had a telephone,in there this was the first department,store meeting was the first time a bunch,of different brands were all being sold,under one roof my opinion is that retail,has been pretty boring ever since John,Wanamaker created Wanamaker's department,store and that for the first time in,about 130 years or so things are getting,pretty exciting again I think the next,five or ten years are getting the most,exciting times of retailing of Commerce,of the last 130 years and I think was,driving its technology technology is,making it easier for anyone to build an,online store technology is making it,easier to connect all these different,pieces our mission is to take the,concept of Commerce and redistribute it,amongst all of people not just give it,to the department stores or the,businesses do you think that commerce is,something massively participatory,something that everyone has a voice and,something that everyone should engage in,we both kind of dabbled in a bunch of,other different types of careers myself,particularly I was in technology for a,number of years and I just kind of found,that to become increasingly less,fulfilling and wanted to put my time and,effort into something that was really,meaningful to me when it came time to,make a big move we kind of just decided,to do what was in front of us to do,which was kind of follow our dreams and,three fish studios was born from that,when we started the business three fish,studios com we got the website and that,was one of my first orders of business,was to put some type of e-commerce,engine onto it Shopify came onto my,radar and it extremely clean easy to use,interface that kind of fell out of the,box and so we moved over to Shopify,about four or five years ago and it has,been great for us so we've been very,happy with it it's really helped us grow,our business,I think if you go back in time and you,look at sort of the the building blocks,of what you need to be a successful,entrepreneur one of the biggest was,capital needed money,in fact you needed money to the extent,that it actually caused you'd be quite,risk adverse because even if you raise,money borrowed money you really only had,one shot of it what's really nice about,today is that I think what you need now,was worthy now is creativity not capital,and the fact that we've shifted away,from caffeine towards creativity is,really great,you don't necessary need a lot of money,to start a Shopify store if you have a,product you have an idea and you have,some passion around that you can build a,store for $29 a month and that store can,grow to be a hundred million dollar,company that was not possible ten years,ago we started mines iron with 2006,mines I wasn't always a shop it was a,blog before and we met some great,artists along the way I want to do,something that I really helped that,create a world so we started up mines I,creative shop we want to sell something,awesome sell something creative so we,started to pick toys so the design of,toys was just as awesome dating we,started to get into last year we started,to think about how to do a website so we,started to look around for e-commerce,platform that was flexible enough for me,that thought about mobile first and,and then we ended up choosing Shopify I,think the best thing about Shopify is,that it's made me not have to worry,about anything that has to do with the,e-commerce portion when I received my,first are online I remember the exact,moment that someone bought something and,it was only like a thirty dollar item,that I was just so excited just,validating all my thoughts,I'm validating everything and I was like,the best,the most important thing that have to do,is to have faith in yourself if you try,to make everything as perfect as you can,it's really going to show I think a lot,of people appreciate that in the end,Shopify is really helping people who,don't necessarily have the web,development skills to connect directly,to consumers I mean that's really an,incredible shift in what the,opportunities are we we started my,living room there was no equipment there,was no factory there was there was,nothing like that and now we have a,10,000 square-foot factory we have about,20 employees which I would never have,imagined would have been something that,was possible two years ago I'm grateful,for Shopify for enabling and I think,there's a lot of examples of other,makers out there who have figured out,hey this is a,we can make something and sell directly,to consumers through services like,chocolate,a lot of people said their business,catalysts right this is really business,catalyst we help people build businesses,here I was a merchant first before I,joined this company and I joined because,I saw what the potential was and it was,guys like Toby I was inspired by his,vision to change all this to take a,retail take a sledgehammer to the,traditional retail model and change it,and I wanted to help spread the word,that you don't have to have a rich daddy,anymore you don't have to have you know,famous last name if you have a product,and passion you can build an incredible,business because of Shopify 'unless and,I'm going to show you how easy it is to,open a Shopify store just head on over,to shop buy calm plug in a few details,and hit create your store once you,create a store you'll see the Shopify,dashboard it's the home base for your,business you'll see things like traffic,sales and all your latest activity now,that you're in your shop let's start by,adding a product I sell ceramic bulldogs,and you can too maybe not Bulldogs but,something the first thing we're going to,do is hit add product put in a title add,some product details snap a photo upload,in add the price and hit save product,now,added products let's make your shop look,really good the best part is you don't,need to be a designer or developer we,have a wide range of themes that you can,pick from from our theme store all you,need to do is add a theme and start,customizing it add a logo change the,colors make it for your brand just right,now that you've set up your store it's,time to start selling it's the best part,any time you make a sale you'll be,notified no matter where you are after,you've made a sale ship your product and,mark the order as complete people don't,only want to shop online they might want,to buy from you offline you can sell to,them in person using Shopify POS in a,retail store at a farmers market or even,a pop-up shop Shopify allows you to take,credit card gift cards or even fake form,you can sell on channels like Facebook,or anywhere you like,and the orders will appear right in your,Shopify dashboard Shopify gives you,access to custom reports so you can make,the right choices for your business and,if you have any questions along the way,there's a Shopify group available 24/7,to lend a hand,Shopify score offering does what most,people need most the time and we're very,disciplined about that we don't want to,bulk up Shopify with every feature Under,the Sun because that's not what most,people need most of the time we've,created an ecosystem where by app,developers are building apps for Shopify,theme designers are making themes for us,and agencies and freelancers from all,over the world,referring numerous Shopify what we've,done is we create a set api's and gone,out to third parties some big companies,like Intuit for example or MailChimp for,example or Constant Contact and we've,encouraged them to build applications,for the Shopify app store whereby our,merchants can use those applications,in other cases we have these really,really cool groups of engineers like,bold apps and Winnipeg all they do all,day long these 50 people are build new,functionality new apps and extension for,Shopify,so whole is a commerce company,specialized primarily in paps but we,also do e-commerce solutions for small,lawn pod ecommerce stores all the way up,to Fortune 500 companies like time-life,Cirque de Soleil but it's all centered,around Commerce in one way or another,Shopify is a commerce platform so if,someone just joined Shopify it's really,easy to get started you don't need any,of the apps you can just sell or there's,stops and there's shop my partner's,doing development for that you can go to,get the custom work done because of that,API we have 14 live now on the App Store,for production as we speak one in,testing our goal actually for the next,year is to release an app robot that I,think we're going to pass that through,watching bold apps sort of grow from,these for entrepreneurs to being a team,over 50 people,I gave me goosebumps the fact that we've,not only had this great team building,you a functionality for us we helped,them create their own multi-million,dollar business that was awesome for me,and so in a similar way to how we have,this app ecosystem at this very moment,we have designers all over the world,thinking about how to make Shopify store,fronts look better,and thinking about what merchants may,require in terms of the front-end design,and again that theme is really important,right because that's the first thing,that a customer sees when they come to,your online store most companies that,have a theme story kind of create these,very generic looking themes a white,theme a black theme something that kind,of looks artsy or hipster others that,are a little more professional we've,taken a very very different approach,we've actually created a theme program,where themed store whereby some of the,best designers around the world can,build the intro Shopify and these,designers are thinking about all the,different verticals that humor cheon's,are selling on so for example we have,themed designers that have built themes,for Shopify that are particularly suited,for selling children's clothing so if,you want to build a store and shop by to,sell children's clothing,we have themes that were built with,children's clothing in mind if you want,to sell tires for a racing car we have,themes that that appeal to that,particular demographic and so to have a,very unique theme that you can also,customize beyond just the template of,theme settings and allows you as the,merchant to tailor your online store the,way you want it to look like as opposed,the way we think it should look and we,important to some of the most incredible,web designer most famous web designers,in the world to build new themes for,Shopify and many of them are free what's,interesting is that that partner,ecosystem can use to grow and grow,they're building new apps for us they're,making you themes for us,they were referring new customers to us,small partners become much larger,partners and we become the most,important tool and our partners,businesses in a similar way that we're,the most important piece of software,that our merchants use we're very much,the most important tool than many of,partners use as well what makes Shopify,special in terms of engineering and the,core platform is their focus on quality,of would deliver and building for the,long term so not cutting corners making,sure that things are going to scale we,have the tools and systems in place to,know you know when things are going,right and when they're going wrong we,make sure that we exercise the full,limits of the platform regularly we,don't leave anything to chance,I joined chopped by just over four years,ago and the sort of the catalyst for,that is when Toby was doing the series a,financing one of the investors said we,want you to take some of this money and,hire yourself a CFO and so shortly after,that I met up with Toby and we've been,working together ever since one of the,most impressive things about Shopify has,been our growth if you look over the,last three years we've grown that more,than a hundred percent each of those,years and I growth is continued into q1,2015 where again our growth with roughly,a hundred percent there's two major,elements to our business one is what we,call subscription solutions which is the,SAS base predictable part which has been,growing nicely throughout this period of,time and the other which is becoming a,bigger part of the business which is,merchants solutions and that's the,success based part of the business and,on that what we're trying to do is,really take things that a lot of times,the merchants would have to get on their,own we brought it within the platform to,better understand the subscription,solution part of the business the way,that we look at that is through our key,metric called the monthly recurring,revenue and in terms of that it's very,simple it just takes the number of,merchants on the platform at,and of any month multiplies it by the,plan that they're on and that,combination you can see over time has,grown by approximately 89% on a,compounded basis for thirteen quarters,for the merchant solution component of,our revenue the best way to look at that,is through the gross merchandise volume,in 2012 that number was 700 million in,2014 that numbers grown to 3.8 billion,dollars,we've now processed over eight billion,dollars worth of orders on shop by,platform which is exciting in terms of,both it shows a scalability of platform,as well as the success merchants are,having using it to fully appreciate the,power of the shop fight business model,the best way to look at this is through,cohort analysis every year builds on,prior cohorts and overall any merchants,loss is largely offset by the remaining,merchants upgrading plans selling more,on the platform or purchasing some of,the many other services that were making,available for their success when Toby,was starting out with a few guys in a,coffee shop coding a platform,cash management was critical to them,their longevity that do you on cash and,making sure that you manage it,effectively something that's been,ingrained in the culture of Shopify,which as a CFO certainly makes my life,easier and the result of that is since,inception the company has earned less,than 30 million dollars of cash and its,operating cash performance over the 13th,quarter has been a positive six point,six million dollars now that doesn't,mean that we don't spend money it just,means that we're very scientific in how,we spend the money and what we spend it,on so we're always looking to get the,best bang for the buck or the highest,return on that amount and if you look at,an operating expenses as the percentage,of revenue that has declined from 84%,back in 2012 to 62% in the most recent,quarter and that again will lead to a,company that can stay in business and,grow for the long term,and what do you think happens to reach,out I mean cuz ever we have a massive,implosion of malls in the United States,right mm-hmm which is going to be a,problem because well it's good problem,for people on the moors it's a problem,for society you think that this is a,continuing trend but the big thing that,the malls exploded on the backs of a,department store and I'm operating under,the sort of assumption that if like what,department store started like in 1860,under John Wanamaker and like via chop,if I operate on the assumption that the,department store is a dead branch of the,larger history of retail emerge is gonna,change significantly it's gonna be,nothing like it is right now how is it,gonna change in your mind what do you,think the big changes we'll see in our,lifetime in a lifetime I bet you at some,point probably in this decade you're,gonna walk into a store you're gonna buy,a product and they are gonna give you,the products and then you gonna be,annoyed at them because now you have to,carry it home we've seen this happen so,much in the past 10 20 years where,technology has radicalized industries,you saw it first with things like,blockbuster disappeared overnight with,the advent of Netflix you see it now,with the taxis that are being supplanted,by and so I think when the time is right,when everything lines up and consumers,really buy into these concepts the,adoption by consumers will happen I know,and fast but to me that's really just,the beginning this right this is just,sort of day one I thought the great,change that's gonna happen and I think,that those that can't adapt can't evolve,and innovate will die now more than ever,the expectations that consumers have are,acting as a catalyst for this retail,revolution that's happening and so,technology is going to drive it,companies like Shopify are going to,power it but ultimately it's the,retailers who have to understand that,the future of retail is an online versus,offline it's not one or the other its,retail everywhere and Shopify will power,retail everywhere,we think that in the future many many,many more people become the sauce,commerce people will always create,products people always enhance products,for stories and people to always try to,find an audience they exchange goods is,so fundamental to the human condition,entrepreneurship in general and building,businesses is just such a pure form of,human self-expression we're not trying,to build a company for the next two,years when able to cover the next 100,years and that takes an incredible man,of discipline you know if I look back in,the last ten years of this business I,think we've done that,I think Shopify as a company but us as,individuals were constantly getting more,comfortable with being uncomfortable,we're constantly challenging ourselves,or constantly throwing out past,assumptions based on new data points,we're trying to build products for the,future of retail for the future of,commerce and in some cases hasn't,actually happened yet but we believe,that's where it's going,you

Congratulation! You bave finally finished reading who owns shopify and believe you bave enougb understending who owns shopify

Come on and read the rest of the article!