Shopify

Business owners are finding financial control in something a 9-5 can't give them: ownership. We partnered with The Harris Poll to survey business owners across the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia, and Spain. One finding stood out: founders aren't just optimistic about the choice they made, they feel in control of it. → In every market surveyed, business owners were more likely to say entrepreneurship feels more financially secure than a traditional job. In the U.S., the margin was roughly 2 to 1 (39% vs. 18%). → In 4 of 5 markets, respondents said a traditional job requires more effort than running a business. In the U.S., nearly twice as many said so (46% vs. 24%). → Across all 5 markets, 61 to 69% of founders said starting a business felt like moving toward something they wanted, not away from something unstable. → In the U.S., 86% of entrepreneurs say ecommerce platforms have made it easier to start a business than a decade ago, and 67% say AI tools are making entrepreneurship more accessible. Most founders would make the same choice again. Not because it's easy. Because it's theirs. https://lnkd.in/ecPPkMtN

Most of the conversation about AI is about execution. How fast you can ship. How many tasks you can automate. How much output one person can produce. But I’ve always thought what’s more interesting is what's underneath it. I've spent most of my career on what I call the “invisible” side of work — decision architecture, information flow, how context gets compressed into something simpler. It doesn't have a name. But as AI extends into the execution layer, it becomes some of the most important work we do. I had a recent conversation with Tobi on Context that went deep on this. A few things I keep coming back to: 1/ Someone still has to design the system. AI can run your critic loop, red team your idea, play devil's advocate. But who decides what gets generated, what you’re solving for, the first principles you’re working from - that's the intentional work. And the outcomes vary enormously based on how carefully it's done. 2/ Context isn't cheap, it's compressed. There's a framing going around that AI makes context "cheap." I don’t think so. What it does is compress it in a way that enables better, faster decisions. That compression still has to be designed. 3/ The ceiling on breadth is now open. Shopify has always hired for T-shaped people: deep craft, broad curiosity. But X-shaped is where I think we're going: two axes instead of one. The vertical doesn't disappear. But the constraint isn't depth anymore. It's judgment: knowing what's worth building, and designing the right conditions to get there. The execution layer is getting a lot better, but the design layer is where the interesting work lives. Watch here: https://lnkd.in/gKRrXWsU

More people are choosing to build, and the data says they're right to. With millions of businesses running on Shopify, we have one of the most comprehensive real-time datasets on entrepreneurship. It all points to one thing: entrepreneurship is accelerating. → More people are starting businesses: 7x more people made their first sale on Shopify in 2025 than in 2018. → Repeat entrepreneurs scale faster: Merchants who have previously launched a business on Shopify and return to build a second earn more than 2x the sales per shop. → Entrepreneurs continue to earn more: Merchants who started between 2017 and 2020 grew revenue 25% over three years. The story is clear. As the traditional 9-to-5 path is contracting, entrepreneurship is expanding. In the age of AI, entrepreneurship may be the more resilient path. https://lnkd.in/eDf4Auv9

The Shopify AI Toolkit is here. Manage your store with agents like Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and VS Code. Try it out → https://lnkd.in/eRFpZ_AH

Tickets are live for DotDev 2026. Get ready for two full days of product demos, deep dives, and connecting with other builders. See you in Toronto → https://lnkd.in/eSCeJyPK

Shopify B2B is now available on more plans. All plans now have access to our key B2B features directly in the admin. The highlights: company profiles, vaulted credit cards, ACH payments, and up to three custom catalogs. https://lnkd.in/gFEPMadg

From biking and golf gear to outdoor furniture, warm weather shaped what US consumers bought in March. We analyzed month-over-month sales from thousands of Shopify merchants to see what was trending. A few highlights: → Lawn and garden season kicked off in a big way. Outdoor misting systems (+302%), sprinklers (+273%), rain barrels (+262%), and weed trimmers (+222%) all saw triple-digit growth. → Backyards got an upgrade, with sunshades (+156%), gazebos (+146%), swing chairs (+130%), and outdoor sofas (+113%) all up. Backyard games, like paddle ball (+92%) and cornhole sets (+46%), were in demand too. → Families geared up for bike season. Child bike seats surged 151%, followed by training wheels (+111%), hybrid bikes (+104%), bicycle baskets (+90%), and helmets (+66%). → Golf season is back. As courses reopen, sales rose for golf club sets (+75%), tees (+51%), and bags (+48%). Entrepreneurs, what trends are you tracking this spring?

Built-in scheduling and A/B testing is now available to all merchants. Rollouts lets you schedule and stage theme changes, from flash sales to full redesigns, directly in the admin. Test variations with real traffic, measure results, and learn what works.

"The time between idea and momentum goes down when creation becomes this accessible." Rousseau Kazi unpacks why we built Tinker, how it works, and what’s possible when the best AI tools are free to experiment with → https://lnkd.in/gpjdxm7a