E-commerce is not an industry; e-commerce is a tactic.
If you believe something needs to exist, if it's something you want to use yourself, don't let anyone ever stop you from doing it.
It's not a principle unless it costs you something.
I'm always trying to think of ways to make something more efficient. If I have to do something once, that's fine. If I have to do it twice, I'm kind of annoyed. And if I have to do it three times, I'm going to try to automate it.
You really want a company that's full of people from all these different backgrounds and then allow them to be creative as possible, come together, and come up with great ideas.
It took about 10 years' time for Shopify to be an overnight success.
I'm against exclusion of any kind - whether that's restricting people from Muslim-majority nations from entering the U.S. or kicking merchants off our platform if they're operating within the law.
Being part of something that's growing fast is better than being part of something that isn't growing fast because opportunities are essentially everywhere, and you're not competing for something.
It is incredibly powerful if you solve the problem you actually have yourself. It's really tough to develop a good product when you don't have very close proximity to the people who actually use your product. The closest proximity you can have to those people is to be that person.
One of the most important tasks as a leader in a startup is to pick the right metric to track. This is often referred to as the 'compass metric' because it will be your compass for growth. It's important to note that 'compass metrics' will likely change over the lifetime of a business.