Howard Lindzon has a podcast called Panic with Friends. It was started last March (hence the name) and he uses it to interview entrepreneurs, investors, venture capitalists, and other business people about what they're up to. In today's episode he speaks with Harley Finkelstein, President of Shopify, about the future of ecommerce and about how they're positioning the company. What was interesting but not surprising to hear was that in the early years people didn't believe that Shopify had a large enough total addressable market. Supposedly, there weren't enough people out there who might be interested in starting their own online store. That, of course, has proven to be false and there are new and successful ideas emerging all the time. We're also now talking about how ecommerce is reshaping the landscape of our cities. Given all of this, the company has grown to think of itself as an entrepreneurship company. If you're at all ambitious, then you're an entrepreneur in their eyes and Shopify wants to be the platform for you. As a Canadian, it's great to see them doing so well. If you can't see the embedded Spotify player above, click here.

The Wall Street Journal's recent piece about "Silicon Valley invading Toronto" is, in my view, describing a generally positive outcome.

We are one of the largest cities in North America (the exact ranking depends on where you draw the urban boundaries).

We have more enlightened views around foreign and high-skilled workers (I was given a short window in which to leave the US after I finished my first graduate degree there).

And we have a large and highly educated pool of tech talent (the salary differential discussed in the article looks to be, at least partially, a result of the weaker Canadian dollar).

Howard Lindzon has a podcast called Panic with Friends. It was started last March (hence the name) and he uses it to interview entrepreneurs, investors, venture capitalists, and other business people about what they're up to. In today's episode he speaks with Harley Finkelstein, President of Shopify, about the future of ecommerce and about how they're positioning the company. What was interesting but not surprising to hear was that in the early years people didn't believe that Shopify had a large enough total addressable market. Supposedly, there weren't enough people out there who might be interested in starting their own online store. That, of course, has proven to be false and there are new and successful ideas emerging all the time. We're also now talking about how ecommerce is reshaping the landscape of our cities. Given all of this, the company has grown to think of itself as an entrepreneurship company. If you're at all ambitious, then you're an entrepreneur in their eyes and Shopify wants to be the platform for you. As a Canadian, it's great to see them doing so well. If you can't see the embedded Spotify player above, click here.

The Wall Street Journal's recent piece about "Silicon Valley invading Toronto" is, in my view, describing a generally positive outcome.

We are one of the largest cities in North America (the exact ranking depends on where you draw the urban boundaries).

We have more enlightened views around foreign and high-skilled workers (I was given a short window in which to leave the US after I finished my first graduate degree there).

And we have a large and highly educated pool of tech talent (the salary differential discussed in the article looks to be, at least partially, a result of the weaker Canadian dollar).