The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 47 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Lütke: Selling company shares creates a ticking clock to IPO or sale
“I took the investments knowing that I'm going to be raising the clock to either go public or get sold. That was the duality of outcome. And by the way, this is true for every person who sells shares in their company. Just most people don't realize that that's …”
VCs rescinded Shopify's term sheets during the 2008 financial crisis
“So basically, I got this around this time, notice that term sheets will no longer be honored, because everyone needs to tighten bells, and so on.”
Lütke intentionally slowed Shopify's growth in 2009 to keep it manageable
“At this point, I intentionally slowed down the growth of the company a little bit just because I needed it to be manageable for me.”
Lütke: The pandemic pulled 2030 forward, leaving society with 2020-quality software
“Like, we brought 20, 3010 years forward. So that also means we all are in 2030 right now, with circa 20 20 quality software.”
Lütke: Good non-Amazon e-commerce experiences were powered by Shopify
“If you bought something online, and it wasn't on Amazon, and you liked the experience, it was Shopify.”
Lütke: If one entrepreneur needs a tool, thousands more will too
“And I'm not that different from other people. Like, if I needed this at some point, there's gonna be at least a couple thousand people who also need this.”
Lütke believes making a first sale is what truly defines an entrepreneur
“I think that's what makes you an entrepreneur. Like, the first time you sell something, or first time someone hires you for, when the phone rings, or something like this. Because until then, you're just someone who builds something, which is already great, but…”
A merchant makes their first Shopify sale every 52 seconds
“Every 52 seconds, someone has that experience of getting a first sale.”
Lütke believes Shopify would have failed if founded two years later
“Like, this is not a kind of company that could have been started even two years later, right? It needed to be started right then, and it needed to be ready and good by the time the opportunity around the financial crisis came around.”
Shopify's original transaction fee model repelled high-volume merchants
“And the model was, I think we charged like three and a half or 3.75% per, per sale. It was a complete failure of a business model because what basically everyone who didn't expect to have sales thought it was amazing and people who expect to sell a lot would T…”
All 2008 Silicon Valley term sheets required Shopify to relocate from Ottawa
“But all the offers were always conditional on moving the company to Silicon Valley.”
Armbrust generated $320,000 in direct-to-consumer Shopify sales on day one
“I signed up for Shopify at seven a.m. And we did 320,000 dollars in sales that day.”
Lütke: Shopify fast-tracked local delivery features despite software quality concerns
“So what we try as much as we can is launch everything, even if you're uncomfortable about the quality. If you have something in the pipeline and the roadmap that makes a difference Right now, we are currently getting this out of the door. So we are trying, lik…”
Lütke: Loosely coupled teams only work with shared fundamentals
“We love to be loosely coupled, but loosely coupled only really works when we come together and base our decisions on the same fundamentals.”
Lütke: Treating company culture as static destroys it as organizations scale
“The way a lot of companies end up destroying their own culture is by seeing it as a static thing that has to be kept rather than wanting to evolve it with the situation that they are in. Like it's impossible to have the same culture in a five people company as…”
Lütke: Founder swings between optimism and dread accelerate as companies scale
“I think the thing that changes as the company gets bigger is that the oscillation between those two things just keeps getting faster”
Lütke: VCs pulled Shopify term sheets during the 2008 crash
“So basically I got this around this time notice that term sheets will no longer be honored because everyone needs to tighten bells and so on.”
Lütke: Making your first sale is what defines an entrepreneur
“I think that's what makes you an entrepreneur. Like the first time you sell something, or first time someone hires you for when the phone rings or something like this. Because until then, you're just someone who builds something, which is already great.”
Lütke: In 2004, no software made building an online store easy
“There's no software that would make this easy, and especially the credit card part.”
Lütke: Shopify's Early Percentage Fee Failed Because Big Sellers Rejected It
“And the model was, I think we charged like three and a half or 3.75% per, per sale. It was a complete failure of a business model because basically everyone who didn't expect to have sales thought it was amazing, and people who expected to sell a lot would, th…”
Lütke: A Shopify merchant makes their first sale every 52 seconds
“Every 52 seconds, someone has that experience of getting a first sale.”
Lütke: Shopify could not have succeeded if launched two years later
“This is not a kind of company that could have been started even two years later, right? It needed to be started right then, and it needed to be ready and good by the time the opportunity around the financial crisis came around.”
Shopify's user numbers accelerated rather than dropped during the 2008 crisis
“We thought the numbers would fall off a cliff, and what they actually did is they started climbing and accelerating.”
Early Shopify payroll was funded by Lütke's family and father-in-law
“Like, up till this point, it was really just, you know, money from John Phillips, from my family, and then for the last year, from my father-in-law, who gave me Money for, to meet payroll.”
Merchants from Shopify's 2006 launch day are still running on the platform
“And, frankly, there are still business running on Shopify. That, that actually started on that day, which is remarkable.”
Lütke runs a secret pseudonymous Shopify store where his bestseller is socks
“Socks, mainly. It's my best seller.”
Bessemer preempted fundraising by quadrupling Shopify's valuation 10 months post-Series A
“10 months after the Series A, Jeremy and Trevor from Bessemer came to me and said, you are still massively constrained by money. How about, instead of you spending a bunch of months on fundraising, we'll just Quadruple the valuation of the company and put much…”
Shopify hit cash flow neutrality for the first time in 2009
“In 2009, the company now hit first time sort of cash flow neutral.”
Shopify deliberately excluded its branding from storefronts to highlight its merchants
“Our job is to make our merchants look good. Like, this is why we exist. So, we wouldn't put Shopify on the merchant stores.”
Lütke: Entrepreneurship inevitably pulls everyone around the founder into the journey
“Even if you make the choice yourself to embark in entrepreneurship, kind of everyone around you is coming onto the trip. There's a lot of people who end up mattering a lot and I clearly was naive about it.”
Angel investor John Phillips saved Shopify with a $400,000 investment in 2007
“We luckily met an angel investor who ended up putting, I think, 400,000 dollars around 2007, and that saved us as an individual by the name of John Phillips.”
Kaye: Building a custom CMS before Shopify was a $40,000 mistake
“And we actually quickly had to move on to Shopify, and it was about a almost 40,000 dollar mistake.”
Lütke: Heinz launched a direct-to-consumer Shopify store in seven days
“We have had Heinz Ketchup go online, which is a 151 year old company that I don't think ever expected to go direct to consumer, but everyone's facing the same problems. And, you know, in seven days they stood up a site and now you can buy ketchup online.”
Lütke: Shopify met early payroll with loans from family and father-in-law
“Like, up to this point, it was really just money from John Phillips, from my family, and then for the last year, from my father-in-law, who gave me money for, to meet payroll.”
Lütke: Early 2008 VC term sheets required moving Shopify to Silicon Valley
“But all the offers were always conditional on moving your company to Silicon Valley.”
Lütke: Entrepreneurship inevitably drags everyone around the founder into the journey
“Even if you make the choice yourself to embark in entrepreneurship, kind of everyone around you is coming onto the trip. There's a lot of people who end up mattering a lot”
Raz: Shopify powers more than 800,000 e-commerce companies worldwide
“It is now used by more than 800,000 ecommerce companies around the world.”
Lütke: Shopify became cash flow neutral for the first time in 2009
“Basically in two fours and nine, the company now hit first time sort of cash flow neutral.”
Tobias Lütke originally intended to build only a twenty-person company
“My intention was to build a twenty-people company. That's what I wanted to do.”
Lütke: Angel Investor John Phillips Saved Shopify With $400K in 2007
“We luckily met an angel investor who ended up putting, I think, 400,000 dollars around 2007, and that saved us as an individual by the name of John Phillips.”
Raz: Shopify's market cap is nearly equal to GM and Ford
“The company went public in 2015, and Shopify's market cap is now just below General Motors and Ford.”
Tobias Lütke runs a secret Shopify store where socks sell best
“Socks, mainly. It's my best seller.”
Raz: Shopify processed over $40 billion in customer sales in 2018
“Last year alone, Shopify processed more than forty billion dollars in sales for its customers.”
Lütke: Merchants emailed asking to license Snow Devil's custom e-commerce code
“And so increasingly, I got people sending me emails and asking me if I would license Snowdevil to them because they wanted to start something similar.”
Co-founder Scott Lake coined 'Shopify' by combining 'shop' and 'simplify'
“It was Scott's idea. It was we talked about what we wanted it, and putting shop and simplify together was pretty straightforward, and then we went to I think on GoDaddy and registered with .com.”