Shopify Unite brought together Shopify partners from all over the world. The event offers Shopify product releases, app presentations, business model development in workshops – not to mention networking and a glimpse into the future!
This year Woolman set off for Toronto with a record number of delegates. Present were CTO Tero Junttila, COO Petteri Mustalahti and Growth Hacker Mikko Rekola.
The official event ran from Tuesday to Thursday. Nevertheless, Day Zero, Monday and the unofficial start day for Shopify Unite, was worth experiencing. On that day we visited such places as the Toronto Raptors NBA team’s victory party, which was lively and full of carnival atmosphere. Monday was topped off by a visit to the Shopify head office.
Shopify is visible around town
Our first surprise when we arrived in Toronto was seeing Shopify in the streetscape. As Shopify has grown it has hired more staff at its head office. More than 1,500 people already work there, and the company has several branch offices in addition to Toronto.
When we visited the head office we met other European Shopify Plus partners and app developers. Also, we ran into Hain Joubert, who gave a presentation in Helsinki last year, and his colleagues.
The main goal of visiting the Shopify head office was to understand the office’s and company’s ways of working. Being close to the merchant and creating the future of commerce really gained new meaning on the tour.
It was also nice to talk to other partner offices and share notes with Britons and Germans, for example, on the opportunities for global e-commerce.
We haven’t really been given any revelations about the promised overhauls. However, we have been firmly promised that last year’s overhauls and updates are nothing compared to what we’re about to see. The magic words that repeatedly came up when chatting with Shopify representatives were scaling and enabling growth.
Stay tuned! More coming up!
Partners Day on Tuesday will really get the official part going at full steam. This year activities have spread all over Toronto and our experts are attending numerous presentations, workshops and meetings.