#261 Tobi Lütke - CEO of Shopify: How Shopify Became a Cheat Code for Entrepreneurs

Toby Lukhi, welcome to the show. I'm so excited to be here. Man, I've been excited about this for a long time. But, you know, I wanna start this off. I feel like I owe you a thank you. I don't feel like I I owe you a thank you. How so? Because what you've done with Shopify has just it's it it it is what brought success to my business and so many others. And so I'll just give you a story. You know? When it when I started this in around 2015, actually, in December 2015, so almost exactly ten years ago. And, you know, this kinda started as a as a as a tactical training company, and I had just gotten I had just left CIA contracting for the CIA. Didn't really know what I was gonna do, and I've always wanted to, you know, get into entrepreneurship. So I started this company and but I had no money. And web develop you know, to create a website back then was I mean, it was it was for me, it was a lot of money. I mean, it was if I remember right, it was about, $2,025,000 dollars to get a website made, and I was like, man, I don't have Yeah. 25,000. But I did it. I did it, and I got a shitty website from a developer who I needed to call and have meetings with about every day, every time I wanted a new product out there, and I was just selling courses. And, you know, of course, every time I wanted to add another product, that was several thousand more dollars. And then I think it was, TV. I was watching TV, and I saw a Shopify ad pop up. And, you know, it was it was talking about the do it yourself stuff, and I was like, man. Maybe maybe I should try this. And so I did. Shit. I got the free trial. I tried it, and I was like, holy shit. I just built an entire website in, like, four hours. That's amazing. And and, you know, and that was ten years ago, and we still we're still on the platform to this this day. So if I have a story like that and and and we started so I started selling my courses on there, and then the really the the big win for me on Shopify was dummy bears. So Which we still sell today. That's a bag for you made here in The USA, sold on Shopify. We love that. But, Such a good product. But it just I mean, it's just it it, it, like, unleashed a cheat code to entrepreneurship by being able to sell sell our stuff because web developers would hold us hostage, and and, so thank you for doing that. I mean, that's so meaningful to me to me because, like, again, this is my, I mean, this is my favorite story. …