Newsletter #60: Shopify news, Tobi Lütke's interview, and Tiakola's concert

Hi there,

I hope you’re feeling good.

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In today's edition, we’re discussing Shopify news, Tobi Lütke's interview, and Tiakola's concert.

Let's dive in.

Work

A lot is happening in the Shopify ecosystem these days!

• Shopify’s 2024 numbers are out

Shopify’s Q4 earnings are out, giving us a full view of 2024. And all we can say is… what a year!

• Shopify is now over 12% of ecommerce in the US.

• Powered nearly $300 billion in GMV, which is nearly 2.5x more than in 2020.

• Hit nearly $9 billion in revenue, which is 3x more than in 2020.

• Paid out $1 billion (!) to Partners for apps benefiting merchants.

• Crossed $1 trillion in cumulative GMV.

Harley Finkelstein, Shopify’s President, has done 39 earnings calls since he joined the company 15 years ago. In his words, what we are seeing right now is “the best version of Shopify to date”. And, as he likes to say, “we’re still just getting started”.

Learn more about Shopify’s Q4 earnings and 2024 numbers in Harley’s tweet and video.

• Michaël Gallego, co-founder of the French Theme Partner Maestrooo, retires from theme development

On February 10th, Maestrooo submitted their latest theme, Stretch, to the Shopify Theme Store.

As Michaël Gallego announced, Stretch will be his last theme.

Maestrooo started in 2015 with their first theme, Woodie. Back then, they were the only non-English-speaking theme partner. Wild!

Over the past 10 years, Michaël Gallego has seen the platform evolve in many ways, and he describes it as a wonderful experience.

Today, he feels he has nothing more to contribute to the theme ecosystem. He is extremely happy with the results they've achieved and the architecture they’ve come up with for their themes.

While someone else will take over the theme department at Maestrooo, Michaël Gallego is shifting gears. He’ll now focus on experimenting with public app development for the company. He aims to revisit some classic apps.

I can’t wait to see which apps Maestrooo will release on the Shopify App Store!

With 10 years of experience and thousands of support tickets from merchants all over the world, I’m confident they will know exactly where to start and which pain points to tackle. It sounds promising!

Learn more in Michaël Gallego’s tweet.

Inspire

Lenny Rachitsky recently interviewed Tobi Lütke on his podcast.

This 1h40 interview might be my favorite from Tobi. First principles and infinite games are topics he often discusses, but here, I feel like he truly had the space to expand on his thoughts and present his vision. It was super interesting.

Here are a few quotes I’m taking away:

• “There is not a single person on this planet who is even close to being at their maximum potential. Everyone is way better than they think.”

• “There is no speed limit on personal growth.”

• “Any metric that becomes a goal ceases to be a good metric.” (Goodhart's Law)

• “There is plenty of A/B testing tools for commerce. Of course it's important to figure out what your conversion rates are. But ‘how are you representing your brand?’ is an unquantifiable question. Are you proud of the things that you have built? Do you feel it's your own? I think there needs to be more acceptance in business of unquantifiable things.”

• “The most powerful unquantifiable things in the world of business are fun and delight. When people have fun, it's just downstream from so many other things.”

• “Optimism always sounds dumb or at least naive. Pessimism sounds extremely sophisticated. Metric driven sounds extremely sophisticated. Talking about fun sounds naive.”

• “For every product in the world, the quality at the end of the day is simply a reflection of how much the people who created it gave a shit.”

Learn more by watching Tobi’s interview on YouTube.

Explore

Almost 4 years ago, I was watching some episodes of Booska-P’s “1 sound in 1 hour” concept on YouTube.

As its name suggests, the idea is simple: a few beatmakers and an artist gather in a studio to create 1 sound in 1 hour. They have to craft everything: the beat, the topline, the lyrics, and then record the result.

My favorite episode was the one with Tiakola, a young French rapper who was just 21 at the time. I appreciated the track they created of course, but most importantly I really enjoyed his passion and positive energy.

I started following him on Spotify and kept an eye on his upcoming projects.

In 2022, he released his album “Mélo”.

In 2024, he released “BDLM VOL.1” (“Bienvenue dans le milieu”).

Shortly after, he announced two 20,000-people concerts in Paris (both sold out) and a smaller one in London. I couldn’t miss it!

This London concert took place last week, at a very cool venue called the Roundhouse.

The show was too short (1h15) and had no guests (I was desperately waiting for Dave to come on for “Meridian”) but I had a great time! The girl in front of me in the pit knew the lyrics so well I thought she was French, but then I heard the loudest south London accent. She wasn’t French at all, just a massive fan. Fun times!

Let’s wrap up this newsy with “Meridian”, by Tiakola and Dave. A France x UK crossover just as I like them.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for reading this edition until the end.

I'll talk to you soon.

Take good care of yourself.

Coralie