How Shopify Became the Go-To Ecommerce Platform for StartupsDissatisfied with options for online storefronts, a snowboard seller and his friend built one themselves. Now thousands of other businesses use their customizable store builder.

Tobias Lütke was frustrated. He knew he had something great to sell (a line of elite snowboards), but he couldn't find a practical way toretailhis merchandise online. Even with years of professional programming experience under his belt, Lütke found that his efforts were continuously thwarted by rigid e-commerce platforms with limited design options, making it difficult to integrate with other services.

"At one point, in an especially frustrated moment on a Friday evening, I said, 'Well, if I spend all weekend working really hard, I can probably create the software myself and then we won't have any of these problems anymore,'" he says.