After 3 years, it's time to say bye to Shopify. It's been the best work experience of my life so far — and I am full of gratitude.
Now as I step out and look back, I can better articulate what I admire about the company and what makes it such an amazing place to work at:
1. An environment of care and respect for merchants
Shopify really cares for its merchants, the people who built these businesses, their dreams and aspirations. They don't do this for marketing purposes, but this is really in the company's DNA. This bleeds into every function at Shopify from product, sales to even finance and legal.
No wonder even in the current market environment where most companies are cutting back, Shopify continues to invest in products catering to end-to-end merchant requirements — product discovery and CRM, web3/NFT, AR/VR, B2B fintech, supply chain (from port to porch), POS (incl HW), cross-border commerce, partnering with top global B2C and B2B tech companies and investing in building the enabling infra for the partner ecosystem.
Mind blowing!
2. An environment of trust and transparency
The leadership is personally invested in this one — they regularly share their mental models, roadmaps, learnings and strategic plans for everyone internally to consume. It's shared via slack, video msgs, town halls and detailed thought papers.
Just imagine: all the investment plans for every product-line and for every year are just available for anyone in the company to read. This isn't easy — by doing that you expose yourself to so many risks. But Shopify errs on the side of trusting its people to do the right thing!
This is great not just for the culture, but it's also very good for business - helps in breaking silos, promotes collaboration and cross-pollination of ideas.
3. Hiring for curiosity and growth mindset
Shopify hires people with demonstrated high-level of natural curiosity and growth mindset - and they give you the tools and resources to explore your curiosity, develop your craft and pick-up new skills.
I have personally benefited a lot from the 'Shopify book bar' and 'Own your development' programs.
4. Storytelling as a superpower
Last but not the least, Shopify is one of the best when it comes to story-telling - this can be a super-power if you want to bring change.
The Reality Check
Of course, everything isn't great. The company has become very large, very quickly - and still needs to figure many pieces to build a profitable / CF generating business. The current market environment isn't helping either.
But Shopify has the resources, people and mindset to come out stronger. I have no doubt that it will continue to play a key role in the world of commerce, enabling SMB merchants globally!
Next Adventure
For my next adventure - I am joining a company that's pushing the boundaries of innovation in the world of commerce, focused on the East Asian markets for now. I will continue to serve SMB merchants in a different and bigger role.