At Shopify, we are trying to make things as simple as possible, but for the business owner, it's not unlike starting your own little shop along Main Street somewhere.
E-commerce is not an industry; e-commerce is a tactic.
Being a start-up has nothing to do with the numbers. It's that everyone who works there has the chance to do everything and have an impact.
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.
It took about 10 years' time for Shopify to be an overnight success.
In my worldview, time is energy that you can invest in things, and money is energy that you can invest. Time has significantly more leverage than money in terms of how much energy you get out of time.
