Shopify? You Mean Spotify? (1/2)
When I told my friends that I was going to be working for Shopify, those who were not familiar with the tech industry would ask: “wait, Spotify?”
I don’t blame them. It is quite confusing that two prominent, fast growing tech companies are…
- Founded at around the same time
- Have around the same number of employees
- Share the same number of syllables
- Are only two consonants apart
- And have basically the same colours in their logos
Even our CMO, Craig Miller, thought he was getting recruited by Spotify back when Shopify reached out!
So why haven’t you heard of Shopify?
For starters, Shopify is a B2B Software as a Service (SaaS) company, while Spotify is a B2C SaaS company. Shopify serves businesses while Spotify serves consumers. So it’s just like how as a consumer you know about Airbnb (a consumer facing platform), you’re much less likely to know about Palantir (an equally prominent business facing software).
Even a layer beneath that, Shopify is a major player in the ecommerce space yet its influence and reach is not conspicuous, even to many tech enthusiasts. This is because the nature of Shopify’s platform is to provide all the tools that an entrepreneur would to need to run a successful business, behind the scenes. This includes online storefronts, point of sale systems, access to sales channels and marketplaces, shipping and fulfillment services, an entire app ecosystem to support merchants’ needs, and so much more. What I often tell people is:
“Shopify and Amazon are like two sides of the same coin. While Amazon enables merchants to sell their products through a gargantuan online marketplace, Shopify empowers merchants to build their own stores, create unique branding, and connect directly to their buyers.”
That statement is of course an oversimplification, but what I am trying to convey is that Shopify doesn’t simply give merchants a place to sell, but enable merchants with the ability to sell, without taking credit for it.
It’s pretty unbelievable how many online shopping sites are powered by Shopify. Using a Google Chrome extension called Wappalyzer (which tells me the software that is powering each website), I discovered just in the past week that Triangl, Sweat With Kayla, and Kylie Cosmetics are all powered by Shopify!
If you’re interested in finding out more about the company, the Shopify Roadshow Video is an excellent way to start.
Why did I want to work at Shopify?
It was primarily a combination of four things that resonated strongly with me:
- The reason Shopify was created
- The thesis that Shopify is built on
- The changing scenery in the way (tech) companies generate revenue
- The kind of workplace that I heard Shopify was
1. The reason Shopify was created
Tobias Lütke (Tobi) and Scott Lake, the co-founders of Shopify, started Shopify more out of need than want. They were avid snowboarders who had built up a large collection of high-end snowboards and wanted to make a business out of it — they wanted to sell snowboards online. The only problem was, they discovered that there was no software out there that catered to their needs.
This problem was a result of the dot-com crash, where the prime examples of bad companies from that era were ecommerce sites such as Pets.com and Webvan. As a result, no one wanted to get close to ecommerce. The existing platforms where expensive and cumbersome, and meant for incumbent retail stores. The software companies were also not dedicated ecommerce platforms, but rather ad hoc software that were a part of a larger suite of products. Determined to sell the snowboards, Tobi and Scott realized that they should just build their own software to sell their snowboards instead.
After one season of selling snowboards using their own software, they realized that the software they were building was much more valuable than the snowboards they were selling. And so, the birth of Shopify.
Shopify was created by merchants for merchants, so this makes the company acutely aware of the problems that merchants face. It addresses a huge gap in the market, and the continual improvement of Shopify’s platform is fuelled by the desire to create a platform that in fact serves its users’ needs and wants, and then some.
2. The thesis that Shopify is built on
“There are three major components in commerce: distribution, value, and experience. You can choose to have two — never all three. Department stores choose distribution (they had to be everywhere) and value (they compete on price). Now with the success of the internet over the last two decades, distribution in no longer valued so highly. It has become a commodity which leaves department stores with only a single thing to compete with: price. We estimate the in the near future, department stores will disappear or fundamentally change the way they operate. They are not equipped for providing customers with an authentic experience.” — Tobi Lütke, CEO of Shopify
With the emergence and “takeover” of software (why software is eating the world), the whole premise to this evolution was the question: how can we make the world a better place by being more efficient and eliminating the barriers to entry?
How Shopify answers that question is by using software to eliminate the middlemen currently involved in commerce. There is no need for store clerks or department stores when people can directly buy the goods they want online, or be connected directly to the producer of the product.
3. The changing scenery in the way (tech) companies generate revenue
For a while (and still), advertising revenue was the solution to the monetization woes that yet unprofitable companies faced. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Buzzfeed and too many other examples were unprofitable until they started earning major advertising revenue. However, advertising is intrusive and consumers are getting smarter at not falling into advertising traps. More and more, the ROI of advertising is getting lower as the competition for advertising opportunities gets more fierce.
Not to mention, the rising business in creating fake viewers for advertisements. From bots to offshore outsourced works, these fake “views” to advertisements account for something like 30% of all online ads. While ads add no value to people’s lives, they are also wasting the money of advertisers.
Shopify offers a new major way for companies to monetize: to sell (and deliver real, tangible value). The platform makes selling online incredibly easy, such as being able to integrate a buy button anywhere online. An example of a company that is using Shopify to monetize is Pinterest, with their creation of Buyable Pins.
4. The kind of workplace I heard Shopify was
In an article I read about Tobi, when he was asked what career and life advice he would give to new college grads, his response was:
“It’s pretty simple. I just tell them to optimize their choices to be exposed to growth. Being part of something that’s growing fast is better than being part of something that isn’t growing fast because opportunities are essentially everywhere and you’re not competing for something. And I tell people to not treat a career as a ladder. That’s really the most important thing. At our company, we talk about career being more a jungle gym.”
I really value Shopify’s perspective on career paths. I didn’t see my career as being linear nor did I see myself being bogged down by bureaucracy. It was a relief to know that Shopify saw it the same way.
Other people also told me about the fast-paced growth and learning you experience at Shopify:
“Working at Shopify for a year is equivalent to working ten years pretty much anywhere else.”
That sounded pretty exciting. I also heard that the office was a pretty sweet work environment as well.
It’s true that Shopify is a trendy place to be right now, and ecommerce in general is a trendy industry to be in. But Shopify has no plans of just being ‘trendy’ and becoming obsolete in the next couple of year, or decades really. That is why I want to be working here.
So how did I wind up at Shopify?
“I often tell people that I don’t think I would get hired at Shopify if I applied now.” — Brittany Forsyth, SVP of HR
It wasn’t easy, I’ll tell you that.
My path to getting to Shopify was incredibly nonlinear. If you want to work for Shopify, it will be the same way for you too. Long story short, I went through at least 12 chats/interviews with 7 different people for 4 different positions over the course of 4 months. With the one role I really wanted, I wrote a BuzzFeed article, created a case study on a product, created a Shopify store, and endlessly bugged my now manager until he could take it no more.
Even though I appreciated this process, I did feel a little like I got thrown into a blender and somehow came back out alive. However, after coming onboard and talking to others as well, I realized that my experience was actually not as extensive as many others.
So why does Shopify put their candidates into this blender?
Well to start, a lot of people want to work for Shopify, it is one of the most successful Canadian companies currently, and the hiring rate is incredibly low. But more importantly, there are certain key characteristics that Shopify looks for when it comes to the new hires:
“I find the strongest predictor of people who do well at Shopify is whether they see opportunity as something to compete for, or do they see opportunity as essentially everywhere and unlimited? It’s a rough proxy for pessimism and optimism.” — Tobi
How people see opportunity is not exactly something that is easily identifiable. As a result, all Shopify candidates usually start off their recruitment journey with a chat about their life story. This helps identify moments that people had to make important decisions, and the thought process behind the decisions.
Some other key qualities I’ve identified in my co-workers are having:
- Drive
- Passion
- An entrepreneurial nature
- Creativity
- Open-mindedness
- Collaborative nature
- The ability to draw the f***ing owl (Resourcefulness)
*Number 7 is a deal breaker
Although you could argue that many of these qualities are quite cliché, especially for a tech company, I would argue that to actually find people who exudes them is certain not easy. In my next blog post, I will give examples of how it’s like to work in an environment with these kind of people and the culture that gets shaped.
If this article got you interested in joining Shopify, we are hiring!
