Winners in Five Different Categories Exemplify Online Entrepreneurial Spirit
Shopify plans expansion, backers make bet on the future of commerce
OTTAWA, ON (July 19th, 2010) – Today, Shopify announced the winners of the “$100,000 Build a Business Contest,” a competition offering a $100,000 grand prize to the new online business launched on the Shopify platform that posted the highest grossing sales in a six month period.
The competition, which gave new online business owners the chance to build the business of their dreams and win cold hard cash, saw more than 1,300 web store entries, 66,503 total orders placed and over $3.5 million in revenue for participating small businesses. Orders for all competing stores were shipped a total of 83.93 million miles—334 times the distance from the earth to the moon.
- Grand Prize Winner: DODOcase (www.dodocase.com)
Handmade in San Francisco, DODOcases are stylish protective carrying cases for your iPad, crafted using traditional book-binding techniques, high-quality bamboo and an elastic strap that keeps your device sealed in when you’re on-the-go.
Additional prizes were awarded to the top grossing businesses in four categories: apparel, digital goods, electronics, and miscellaneous.
- Apparel: Nashville Flood Tees (www.nashvillefloodtees.com)
Nashville Flood Tees was created by a group of local Nashville artists and designers to benefit victims of the recent flooding in the middle Tennessee area. One hundred percent of the proceeds from t-shirt sales go to charity.
- Digital Goods: Buy Mafia (www.buymafia.com)
Buy Mafia offers items and loots that help gamers excel in the popular Facebook gaming application Mafia Wars.
- Electronics: Vaporizers.com (www.vaporizers.com)
Based in Los Angeles, Vaporizers.com distributes a wide variety of vaporizers, grinders and other smoking accessories.
- Miscellaneous: Buy Mafia (www.grovemade.com)
Based in Portland, OR., GroveMade features fun designs on sanded, oil/wax-finished bamboo cases that offer comfortable, robust protection for iPhone devices.
“The range of entries for the competition went above and beyond our expectations,” said Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke. “We congratulate the winners for their hard work, dedication and drive to exemplify the entrepreneurial spirit.”
Shopify partnered with Timothy Ferriss, author of the #1 New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Business Week best-seller “The 4-Hour Workweek” to launch the contest in conjunction with the release of Ferriss’ new edition of the book that hit store shelves at the end of 2009.
About Shopify
Shopify is an ecommerce platform that allows individuals and businesses to create awesome online stores. Shopify currently hosts over 50,000 active online retailers, including: Amnesty International, General Electric, Tesla Motors, LMFAO, Foo Fighters, Encyclopedia Britannica, Tata Group, Evisu Jeans, DODOcase, Penny Arcade, CrossFit, GitHub, Evernote, and Epic Meal Time. Shopify was founded in 2006 by two snowboarding enthusiasts who wanted to create a better way to sell their snowboards online. Shopify has received $22 million in Series A and B funding from Bessemer Venture Partners, FirstMark Capital, Felicis Ventures, and Georgian Partners. For more information, please visit http://www.shopify.com.
Shopify contact:
Mark Hayes, Public Relations
1-888-746-7439 x 755 | mark.hayes@shopify.com