Your Objective:

1. Research a Canadian TEA company (entrepreneurial and innovative). Provide an overview of the
company and the entrepreneur (detail about the entrepreneur and his/her company and the process they have
experienced).

About the company:

Shopify is a technological company that develops software for computers and other devices, and allow users to they
own online stores and additional this stores can have their own retail point of sale systems. Shopify is a Canadian
company and has its headquarter in Ottawa, Ontario.

This company was based in an online shop of snowboard that was developed by its founders, and was founded in the
year 2014.

About the entrepreneur:

One of the founders of Shopify is Tobias Ltke, who is also the CEO of the company. He received a computer from
his parents when he was 6 and by the age of 11 had already rewritten the codes of the games on the computer and also
modified the computer hardware. Ltke did not finish school; however, he enrolled in a training program to become a
computer programmer after finishing tenth grade. Later, in 2002, he moved from Germany to Canada.

By 2004, along with new partners Daniel Weinand and Scott Lake, they launched an online store to sell snowboard
items from their home garage. Not long after, the founders decided to abandon the approach to snowboarding and
redirect it to e-commerce in general. At that time was launched Shopify in the year 2006.

2. Link your research to our course weekly learning outcomes:

a. Discuss Canadian entrepreneurial attitudes, activity, aspirations, and demographics. (refer to GEM 2014
Canada)
Attitudes: This company project was very well accepted by the Canadian market, quickly gained followers.
Activity:

b. Explain the stages of entrepreneurship and the framework conditions for entrepreneurship in Canada related
to your chosen company.
According to the GEM, this entrepreneurships is in stablished stage.

3. Provide an overview of the role of the Canadian Government in supporting the company you have
identified, in case there has been any involvement.
There is no evidence that there was support from the Government of Canada, the whole concept, the development of
the two ideas (Snowboard's initial store and later Shopify) was a development in free code by the company's founders.

4. Discuss the source of the opportunity (market niche) and new business creation (innovation)

The opportunity arose when the three partners tried to open an online store to sell snowboarding equipment, which
they called Snowdevil. They were not very satisfied with the offer of web page products to perform e-commerce, so
Ltke who was an experienced programmer decided to develop the digital platform to cover this niche. After the
success of the platform, they launched an API platform and an App Store in which developers from all over the world
can sell their applications created for the Shopify platform.

5. Identify the type of entrepreneur who has chosen and link their ideas with the economic and social theories of
entrepreneurship
The chosen entrepreneur is of the type of economic theory.
According to Adam Smith "he does not distinguish between the capitalist as the provider of the action and the
entrepreneur as the ultimate decision maker."

In this case study, the entrepreneur made the decisions of how and when to execute his project, and when to launch it
to the market. In the end, he makes the decisions about his company, and is also currently the CEO of the company.
Jean Baptiste Say "argues that the role of the entrepreneur was the intermediary that organizes and combines the
means of production with the aim of creating goods and services that have value or utility."

In this case study the entrepreneur is literally a broker. He developed a platform where people can establish their own
virtual stores and there you can trade material goods of all kinds.

According to Kirzner, "the entrepreneur is attentive to these opportunities and takes advantage of arbitrating between
buyers and sellers in different markets, the entrepreneur is a profit-seeker."

Again, in this case the entrepreneur took the opportunity that for that time there was a practical, quick and simple way
for ordinary people without programming skills to have an online store.

Quoting Kirzner, "The entrepreneur does not really create anything, he / she is simply more perspective or alert to
changes than others."

Actually, in this case study the entrepreneur and I believe something, a medium adapted to the circumstances. A
digital alternative to facilitate the exchange of goods of all kinds.

According to Schumpeter "Innovation puts emphasis on the commercial application of a new idea. It involves the
acquisition and redirection of current means of production"

Our entrepreneur innovated in how to offer the public a fast, efficient and economical way to have their own
electronic stores. And obviously the application of your idea is purely commercial, since it has extended a web
application and another type to grow the business. It should be noted that each user (each online store) must pay fees
to the company.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shopify
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobias_L%C3%BCtke
http://tobi.lutke.com/blogs/news/11280301-the-apprentice-programmer
http://magentovsprestashop.com/shopify-caracteristicas-y-comparativa-en-espanol/