It’s been more than two decades since Tobi Lütke’s passion for snowboarding inspired him to try his hand at selling gear online. After choosing the moniker Snowdevil, Tobi faced some bumps on the run towards his first sale—like having to send notarized copies of his passport to American Fork, Utah for the API keys allowing him to accept credit card payments.
Instead of being discouraged by the process, Tobi was intrigued, and wanted to make it easier for others to start their own version of Snowdevil. “The software I built for myself is good. Maybe other people want it too,” Tobi says, reflecting on the decision to start Shopify.
A lot has happened since Snowdevil launched. As Shopify marked its 20th anniversary earlier this year, Tobi sat down with Shopify Masters to share his insights on entrepreneurship and how new founders can succeed in today’s market.
Turn your calling into a craft
While selling online has become a lot easier than when Tobi started, entrepreneurs still face challenges in launching businesses. If taking the first step feels difficult, Tobi suggests tapping into your interests and passions for motivation. “I think the best trick to pull off in life is to find your calling early and hone it into a craft, and then share it in some way,” Tobi says.
Beyond honing your skills and recognizing opportunities, finding the confidence to turn your passion into a business can be tough. Still, Tobi thinks anyone has the potential to be an entrepreneur.
“At some point in life, you’ve realized that everything around us is made by people who are no smarter or more talented than us,” he says.
Don’t wait for an eureka moment, take charge and innovate
In the movies, entrepreneurship and innovation are often glamorized and simplified into dramatic, “lightbulb” moments. But Tobi believes that the true drivers of entrepreneurial success are daily, small improvements.
"People take this Hollywood view, which is like people in lab coats saying ‘eureka’ suddenly, and then innovation has happened,” Tobi says. “Innovation is actually much more blue collar, it's much more vocational, it's the frequent incremental improvement of the things that we care about."
Beyond the big movie moments, innovation is often associated with disrupting industries or creating new product categories. But innovation doesn’t need to be groundbreaking to be valuable. Every day, entrepreneurs drive change, solve problems, and enhance their customer’s lives through small, meaningful ways.
Which is why Tobi believes there’s room for innovation, no matter what you choose to do.
"It's making better shoes. Better shoes that just last longer,” Tobi explains. “It's making the tables that you need anyway, [more] beautiful.”
Embrace AI to unlock new growth possibilities
For Tobi, the excitement surrounding artificial intelligence (AI) and its applications is a big moment for entrepreneurship.
“It’s the most exciting technology shift in my career," Tobi says, adding that he feels it echoes the significance of the internet’s arrival decades ago.
As AI makes programming accessible to more than just developers, Tobi is excited by the opportunity it opens.
“This will [make] it so much easier to figure out what the next step might be in whatever you’re trying to accomplish … making it so much easier to learn things,” he says.
Ultimately, Tobi believes AI can make entrepreneurship accessible to a wider range of individuals, removing many challenges associated with starting a business.
These are just some of the insights Tobi shared from his two-decade-long journey of building Shopify. To hear more from Tobi, watch his full interview on Shopify Masters.
