15 Things You Didn’t Know About Shopify’s CEO Tobias Lütke

Think you know a lot about Shopify? Let's find out! Here are 15 facts you probably never knew about Shopify's CEO “Tobi” Lütke, courtesy of The Shopify Story (US | CA) by Larry MacDonald and summarized by Paul Drecksler of Shopifreaks.

#1 He built Shopify's software to power his own snowboarding website after becoming frustrated with out-of-box solutions.

Tobi launched Snowdevil, an online store that sold snowboards, in 2004, and initially, he did not want to build his own e-commerce software because he was burnt out from programming and wanted to keep the store as a hobby.

However he quickly discovered that existing out-of-box software like Miva, OsCommerce and Yahoo! Stores couldn't handle the job, so he built the original Shopify platform. He shut down Snowdevil two years later to concentrate on the software due to demand from other store owners.

#2 Tobi originally named the company Jaded Pixel Technologies.

This company name encompassed both Snowdevil, his snowboarding e-commerce website, and Shopify, the software he built for it. Shopify is a combination of the words “Shop” and “Simplify.” He eventually changed the name of the entire company to “Shopify” since he had stopped focusing on the store itself.

#3 When growing up in Germany in the 1980s, his parents thought he had ADHD or some kind of a learning disability.

Tobi was a poor student who scraped by with minimal effort in grade school. When he was diagnosed with a learning disability, his dad, an internist, and his mom, a teacher, allowed him to be medicated for a time.

#4 Tobi dropped out of school when he was 16 years old and enrolled in an apprenticeship for programmers.

In the program, he discovered he didn’t have a learning disability, only a different learning style. He wishes more countries embraced apprenticeships as an educational pathway.

#5 At his first real job, Tobi received a letter from his employer saying his work was not up to par.

Tobi was initially shocked by the letter because he thought of himself as a really good programmer. Then he realized that his boss may have had a point because maybe he spent too much time playing computer games at night instead of getting enough sleep.

#6 He credits the StarCraft computer game for teaching him more about how to be a CEO than business books.

In his late teens, Tobi became a competitive StarCraft gamer and won several tournaments. Later in his career, he credited the game for helping him learn how to balance priorities in an ever-changing environment.

#7 Tobi once worked as a coder in the porn industry.

In 2012, Tobi, writing under the XAL handle, advised coders on an online forum not to worry about getting hired elsewhere after working in the porn industry. He said he made the transition himself earlier in his career; he also mentioned that he tries to recruit people with that background.

#8 He's not great at finance (or at least wasn't when he got started). 

One of Shopify's early investors said he would invest as long as Tobi promised to use some of the money to hire a CFO. When Russ Jones took the position in 2011, he initially got the impression that Tobi may not have actually known what a CFO does.

He remembers Tobi calling account receivables “negative payables” and speaking about “revenue leakage” — which turned out just to be a discrepancy between the amounts that were invoiced and the amounts that showed up in the bank. 

#9 His father-in-law once saved Shopify from bankruptcy.

After Shopify launched, the customer base expanded quickly, but the revenue growth remained sluggish. At one point, Shopify was nearly out of funds to meet payroll, so Tobi's father-in-law, Bruce McKean, lent the company money to keep it afloat for several more months until a solution could be found.

#10 An early angel investor invested in Shopify because he needed an excuse to visit his parents in Ottawa.

A Toronto-based angel investor named John Phillips had heard about Shopify from an associate who praised the company. Tobi once joked in an interview that Phillips' “parents were in Ottawa, and he needed an excuse to go there to visit them.” Phillips was impressed with Tobi's “acuity, clear and deep thinking, and resolution” and invested $250k in Shopify. Tobi used part of the money to pay off the loan from his father-in-law.

#11 His first website for the Shopify.com domain was simple e-mail capture landing page.

It invited visitors to leave their email addresses if they were interested in knowing when the software would be ready.

#12 Tobi met his wife Fiona online playing Asheron's Call

His first time in Canada was when he flew in to visit Fiona at the Whistler Ski Resort in British Columbia. He was smitten with Fiona, who describes herself on X as “50% Geek, 50% Nerd.”

#13 He initially started a business because he didn't have a work visa in Canada.

After moving to Ottawa to be with Fiona while she studied for a master's degree, Tobi lost his remote work job with the German company he had been working for. While he could not get a job in Canada because he did not have a work visa, there was no law against starting a business. That was the beginning of Jaded Pixel Technologies, which later became Shopify.

#14 Tobi reluctantly took the position as CEO of Shopify.

Tobi originally took the role of chief technology officer because he was good at programming and that's what he wanted to focus on. However, when his co-founder, Scott Lake, quit the CEO job in 2008, Tobi ended up taking the position himself after a search for a replacement came up empty handed. 

His early investor John Phillips also encouraged him to take on the role by saying, “Tobi, you’ll never find someone who is going to care as much about Shopify as you do.”

#15 He since grew Shopify to help over 5.6 million merchants sell over $250 billion in merchandise a year, while employing 8,400 people around the globe.

 

Want to learn more about Shopify's rise from a small startup to one of Canada’s top companies? Check out The Shopify Story (US | CA) by Larry MacDonald, available on paperback and Kindle.

Want to keep up with current Shopify news? Subscribe to Shopifreaks E-commerce Newsletter, read religiously each week by over 15,000 e-commerce professionals.

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