In 2004, Tobias Lütke was a small business owner, trying to sell snowboards over the Internet. Shopify came about after Mr. Lütke and a partner wanted to set up a shopping cart for the site, Mr. Lütke didn't like what was on the market, so he wrote his own code – and soon realized the real business was in selling the software he'd created for himself. Fast forward to 2015, Shopify went public at a $1.27 billion valuation. Over the years, an entire ecosystem has grown up around Shopify and it continues to be a dominant player in that market segment