Shopify

Shopify is the platform that's made launching an online store so stupidly simple that anyone with a product and a dream can be selling by tomorrow. They started as a tiny SaaS tool for snowboarders selling gear online—literally Tobias Lütke building software so he could sell snowboards—and turned it into the backbone of modern e-commerce. Over 1.75 million businesses in 175 countries run on Shopify. Their checkout is called "the world's best checkout" and it's proven to convert better because they optimized it across millions of transactions. Every. Single. One.

They're not just for scrappy startups anymore. Shopify powers enterprise brands too—Beautycounter, Allbirds, Gymshark, Rebecca Minkoff. The platform handles everything: website builder, domain, payments, shipping, inventory, marketing tools, and now Sidekick, their AI commerce assistant that's basically having a expert e-commerce strategist in your pocket 24/7. They've processed over $500 billion in global sales. Yes, billion with a B.

While everyone else was charging transaction fees like it's 2006, Shopify said nah, you keep every penny and just pay a flat monthly rate. That's the move that broke the internet for small business. They processed $685 billion in GMV over the twelve months ending June 2024—and for context, that's roughly the entire GDP of Turkey walking through digital checkout every single year.