2015 Letter from Tobi
Key ideas
Lütke's letter traces Shopify from a snowboard store's homemade software to a platform for new entrepreneurs, telling investors it puts long-term value ahead of short-term revenue.
- 1
Start from the software you wish existed
Lütke writes that the first Shopify store was the team's own snowboard shop, and that the software available was expensive, complex, inflexible and made for big businesses moving online. Their custom software met their needs so well that they shifted the business away from snowboards to fix that gap.
- 2
Build for people just getting started
He argues many future businesses would be created online first, so software had to support an entrepreneur's first steps and not only established companies. He says Shopify showed a single platform can work from an idea to millions of orders, and that many of its merchants started their businesses on it.
- 3
Give up revenue to build an ecosystem
Lütke says Shopify supported app developers, design agencies and theme designers rather than carving out those profits for itself, forgoing short-term revenue. He tells potential investors the company has always prioritized long-term value and that he doesn't see this changing. He wants Shopify to be a company that sees the next century.
- 4
Treat simplicity as the product
Lütke calls simplicity the most important thing Shopify delivers to merchants, and says it is hard to produce. Merchants selling through many channels often hack different tools together, he writes, and Shopify is showing them that setup can be reduced to one platform.
- 5
Stay out of the merchant's spotlight
Lütke writes that Shopify is virtually invisible to consumers as a brand, and that this is by design, because its job is to make merchants look their best in every interaction.
In Tobi’s words
“Existing software was not designed with the new entrepreneur in mind, so we rejected the existing models and created our own.”
Tobi Lütke·2015 Letter from Tobi·Read in context(opens the original in a new tab)“Simplicity isn’t simple. It takes tremendous care, discipline, and craftsmanship to take something inherently complex like commerce and make it intuitive.”
Tobi Lütke·2015 Letter from Tobi·Read in context(opens the original in a new tab)“we do not chase revenue as the primary driver of our business”
Tobi Lütke·2015 Letter from Tobi·Read in context(opens the original in a new tab)About this entry
- Published
- May 2015 (month only)
- Publisher
- sec.gov
- Type
- Essay
- Language
- English
- Added
- Nov 2, 2026
- Source last checked
- Nov 2, 2026
Cover photo of Tobi Lütke, not from this work: Benjamin Forrest, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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