Skip to main content
C
CorpDigest
Search

Shopify Inc.

E-commerce Software & PaymentsFounded 2006
Reviewed by Swet Parvadiya
Company data updated: October 2026

Founders

Who Founded Shopify?

Tobias Lütke, Daniel Weinand, Scott Lake · Founded 2006 · HQ today: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Who founded Shopify?

Shopify was founded by Tobias Lütke, Daniel Weinand, Scott Lake in 2006. It is now led by Tobias Lütke.

Founders
Tobias Lütke, Daniel Weinand, Scott Lake
Founded
2006
Headquarters
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Number of founders
3
Current CEO
Tobias Lütke (since 2008)
Where was Shopify founded?
Shopify was founded in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada in 2006.
When was Shopify founded?
Shopify was founded in 2006.
Who started Shopify?
Shopify was founded by Tobias Lütke, Daniel Weinand and Scott Lake.
How old is Shopify?
Shopify is 20 years old as of 2026.

Founding Story

In 2004, German-born computer programmer Tobias Lütke and his friends Scott Lake and Daniel Weinand wanted to launch an online snowboard retailer called Snowdevil in Ottawa, Canada. Lütke evaluated prevailing commercial e-commerce software of the era, such as Miva Merchant, OsCommerce, and Yahoo! Stores, and found them catastrophically clunky, rigid, and ugly. Leveraging his expertise as a core contributor to David Heinemeier Hansson's newly developed Ruby on Rails framework, Lütke spent two months writing custom open-source e-commerce software from scratch. Snowdevil launched in time for the 2004 ski season, but fellow tech entrepreneurs were far more impressed with Lütke's fluid checkout and database architecture than the snowboards. In 2006, the trio abandoned equipment sales, repurposed the proprietary codebase into an automated SaaS merchant platform, and launched Shopify, democratizing enterprise-grade digital retail tools for independent entrepreneurs globally.

Tobias Lütke

Co-founder 2006

Background

German-born programmer and Ruby on Rails core contributor who created the Liquid template language.

Role at Shopify Inc.

Tobias Lütke co-founded Shopify after building the Snowdevil snowboard store in Ruby on Rails in 2004. He has led Shopify as CEO since 2008 and holds a founder share that gives him about 40% of total voting power.

Tobias Lütke was born in 1980 in Koblenz.

Lutke was born in 1980 and is German-Canadian. He was part of the core team of the Ruby on Rails framework and created open-source libraries such as Active Merchant. He also races sports cars.

Daniel Weinand

Co-founder 2006

Background

Programmer and designer from Germany.

Role at Shopify Inc.

Daniel Weinand co-founded Shopify in 2006 alongside Tobias Lütke and Scott Lake. As the Chief Design Officer, he was responsible for the highly intuitive, clean aesthetic of the early Shopify platform, ensuring that small business owners without technical expertise could easily build beautiful online stores. He transitioned to a part-time role in 2012 and eventually left to pursue other interests. (Exact birth year remains publicly undisclosed).

Scott Lake

Co-founder 2006

Background

Serial entrepreneur and former executive at a mid-sized Canadian tech firm.

Role at Shopify Inc.

Scott Lake co-founded Shopify (initially called Jaded Pixel) in 2006. While Lütke wrote the code for their initial snowboard store (Snowdevil), Lake managed the massive early operational and business development challenges, recognizing that the software they built was far more valuable than the snowboards. He served as the company's first CEO before departing in 2008. Scott Lake was born in 1970.

Shopify Inc.: CEO & Leadership History

Full timeline →

Jeff Hoffmeister

Chief Financial Officer

2022 – Present

Hired away from Morgan Stanley to serve as CFO, he successfully re-aligned Shopify's cost structure following the catastrophic post-pandemic crash in e-commerce growth.

Harley Finkelstein

President

2020 – Present

As President, he acts as the highly visible, energetic public face of the company, aggressively courting massive influencers (like MrBeast) to launch their brands exclusively on Shopify.

Tobias Lütke

Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer

2008 – Present

Co-founder, original engineer and CEO since 2008, Lütke has guided Shopify from a snowboard-store codebase to a platform with $11.56 billion of 2025 revenue.

Daniel Weinand

Co-Founder

2006 – 2019

As Co-Founder and Chief Design Officer, he established the core user experience philosophy that made Shopify the undisputed default for non-technical e-commerce entrepreneurs.

Keep researching Shopify

Who Founded Shopify? FAQ

Who are the founders of Shopify?

Shopify was co-founded in 2006 by Tobias "Tobi" Lütke, Daniel Weinand, and Scott Lake.

How did Tobi Lütke and Scott Lake start their partnership?

Tobi Lütke met Canadian native Fiona McKean while snowboarding in Whistler, British Columbia, and moved to her hometown of Ottawa in 2002. McKean introduced Lütke to Scott Lake, a local tech executive, and the two bonded over their shared passion for snowboarding, deciding to launch Snowdevil in 2004.

Who was Daniel Weinand and what was his role in Shopify's founding?

Daniel Weinand was a German programmer, graphic designer, and classical musician who was a close childhood friend of Tobi Lütke. In 2005, Lütke invited Weinand to move to Ottawa to join the venture, where Weinand served as Chief Design Officer and Chief Creative Officer, shaping Shopify's clean user interface, brand identity, and theme engine until 2017.

What role did Scott Lake play in Shopify's early trajectory?

Scott Lake served as Shopify's first Chief Executive Officer from 2006 to 2008, establishing initial corporate partnerships, incorporating the business, and securing early seed capital before leaving to launch other tech ventures.

How was Shopify financed in its earliest days?

After initial personal savings and Snowdevil profits ran out, the founders secured vital angel funding from Ottawa angel investor John Phillips (Klister Credit Corp) and family members, keeping the company alive before raising a $7 million Series A in 2010 led by Bessemer Venture Partners.

What was the first physical office of Shopify?

In 2006, the founders operated out of the apartment of Fiona McKean's parents and later rented space above a Bridgehead coffee shop on Elgin Street in downtown Ottawa, where engineers worked alongside coffee aromas.

Why did the founders open-source their software libraries?

Believing in open collaborative engineering, Tobi Lütke open-sourced Active Merchant and key Liquid templating libraries used in Shopify, helping the global Ruby on Rails developer community while establishing Shopify as the technical gold standard for e-commerce.

What is Daniel Weinand's career after leaving Shopify?

After spending twelve years building Shopify's design and culture, Daniel Weinand stepped back from operational leadership in 2017 to focus on classical piano composition, angel investing, and startup advising, while remaining a major shareholder.

What was the early reaction from venture capitalists to Shopify?

Early Silicon Valley venture capitalists urged the founders to relocate Shopify to the Bay Area. Lütke and his co-founders fiercely refused, insisting on keeping the company in Ottawa and proving that world-class tech giants could be built in Canada.

How did the founders cultivate a merchant-first culture?

In the early years, all employees—including the founders—were required to spend regular hours answering customer support calls and building their own test stores, ensuring everyone understood the daily struggles of small business merchants.

What happened to the original Snowdevil snowboard site?

Snowdevil was phased out as Shopify's software platform grew, but it remains a legendary piece of corporate folklore, with Snowdevil snowboards hanging prominently in Shopify offices as a reminder of the company's humble origins.

How are the founders remembered in Canadian business history?

Lütke, Weinand, and Lake are celebrated as national icons of Canadian innovation, proving that a bootstrapped idea born in an Ottawa apartment could scale into a global e-commerce titan powering millions of businesses worldwide.

Related Founder Profiles

Compare founding stories, origins, and entrepreneurial journeys

Competitor

Amazon

View Founder Profiles
Competitor

Salesforce

View Founder Profiles
Competitor

Wix

View Founder Profiles
Competitor

Paypal

View Founder Profiles
Competitor

Stripe

View Founder Profiles

Explore Shopify

Core profile pages, founders and related research hubs for this company.

Content is for informational purposes only. Not financial advice. Data sourced from SEC filings, annual reports, and public records. See our full disclaimer and methodology.