Imagine your strategy makes a conscious decision NOT to help customers, to help them succeed. 

Whilst strategy is as much about what you’re not going to do as it is about what you will, not doing something purely for the benefit of your customer is unique. 

This is what Shopify does. 

On business breakdowns, Alex Danco talks about how Shopify will make it easy for merchants but they won't do it for them.

“As a merchant, you have to trust in yourself, that you can do this, you need to get your first sale...the reason it's meaningful is because there is friction..we won't do it for you”

Can you imagine the number of times teams would’ve suggested Shopify helping customers make that first sale? 

Shopify could’ve offered to run free ads on Google or Facebook for new customers or ran their marketing in exchange for a cut of sales.

But they didn’t. They didn’t accept the obvious strategy in an effort to make their customers better.  

Shop app from Shopify is another example of this playing out. The obvious product would be a marketplace, but this would destroy value for merchants. 

Instead, Shop App is shaping up to provide consumers a great experience by aggregating the non-differentiated bits of e-commerce. Think tracking packages or processing returns. 

Alex describes Shopify as a game you learn and you learn to get better at it, you start with nothing and you get better, you feel yourself getting better. Not all friction is bad, sometimes progression is important

I’d love to see more companies sacrifice potentially lucrative features for the greater good of their customers. An approach that could lead to better long-term prospects. 

Imagine how much stronger the Deliveroo product would be today if they treated restaurants in the same way. 

Thankfully startups like Jampony are taking the Shopify ethos to this space. 

Same with Uber and drivers, Facebook and users or Amazon and 3rd Party sellers. 

Of course, this approach is unlikely to be part of an effective growth strategy for most companies, but now that I’ve seen it I admire companies that are confident enough to follow this path. 

Alex ends with “it's never acceptable for Shopify to grow in a way that's bad for the merchant”