Podcast appearances and mentions of glen coates

In this episode of the Startup CEO Show, Mark MacLeod welcomes Glen Coates, former CEO of Handshake and current VP of Product for Core at Shopify. Glen takes listeners on a journey through his entrepreneurial experiences, from founding Handshake to his current role at Shopify.He shares candid insights about the challenges of building a B2B e-commerce platform, including the complexities of serving businesses with thin margins and intricate needs. Glen's transition to Shopify provides a unique perspective on what makes the company a magnet for talented founders. He offers fascinating glimpses into Shopify's culture of innovation, driven by CEO Tobi Lütke's relentless pursuit of cutting-edge technology.The conversation takes an exciting turn as Glen discusses the rapid advancements in AI and their potential impact on e-commerce. He shares intriguing examples of how Shopify is integrating AI into its platform, including a multilingual AI assistant that's revolutionizing customer support. The discussion also touches on the evolving landscape of AI and its implications for businesses of all sizes.Don't miss out on these invaluable insights - listen now and gain a competitive edge in the rapidly evolving world of e-commerce and technology.Since 1999, I have sat at the right-hand side of the leaders of high growth technology companies as either a CFO, VC or deal maker. I served as CFO for software companies including Shopify (NYSE: SHOP) and Freshbooks. As a CFO I experienced outright failures, wildly profitable exits, and everything in between.I was a General Partner in Real Ventures, Canada's largest and most active seed stage fund. My investments there include the fund's largest cash on cash and highest IRR returns to date. Most recently, I founded SurePath Capital Partners the leading investment bank for SMB SaaS companies where we did hundreds of millions in financing and exit transactions.Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/themarkmacleod/Connect on X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/markmacleod_Contact Mark: https://markmacleod.me/

Tobi Lütke is the founder and CEO of Shopify, a $130 billion business that powers over 10% of all U.S. e-commerce. Starting as a snowboard shop in 2004, Shopify has become the leading commerce platform by consistently approaching problems differently. Tobi remains deeply technical, frequently coding alongside his team, and is known for his unique approach to leadership, product development, and company building. In our conversation, we discuss:• Why complexity kills entrepreneurship• How to develop and leverage your unique talent stack• How specifically Tobi approaches thinking from first principles• The importance of focusing on unquantifiable qualities like joy and delight• Why Tobi works backward from a 100-year vision• Why metrics should support decisions, not make them• The power of following your curiosity• What Tobi believes it takes to be a great product leader• Much more—Brought to you by:• Sinch—Build messaging, email, and calling into your product• Liveblocks—Ready-made collaborative features to drop into your product• Loom—The easiest screen recorder you'll ever use—Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/tobi-lutkes-leadership-playbook—Where to find Tobi Lütke:• X: https://x.com/tobi• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tobiaslutke/• Website: https://tobi.lutke.com/—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Welcome and introduction(04:17) The Tobi tornado(07:10) Maximizing human potential(11:05) Education and personal growth(16:47) Operating without KPIs(25:00) First-principles thinking(40:04) Remote work(45:59) Why Tobi never stopped coding(54:46) Embracing disagreement(01:01:27) The 100-year vision(01:09:29) Balancing tactics and positioning(01:17:15) Encouraging entrepreneurship(01:19:34) The power of good UX(01:28:42) The talent stack and unique opportunities(01:34:30) The role of passion in product development(01:36:39) Final thoughts and farewell—Referenced:• How Shopify builds a high-intensity culture | Farhan Thawar (VP and Head of Eng): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-shopify-builds-a-high-intensity-culture-farhan-thawar• Breaking the rules of growth: Why Shopify bans KPIs, optimizes for churn, prioritizes intuition, and builds toward a 100-year vision | Archie Abrams (VP Product, Head of Growth at Shopify): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/shopifys-growth-archie-abrams• The ultimate guide to performance marketing | Timothy Davis (Shopify): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/performance-marketing-timothy-davis• Brandon Chu on building product at Shopify, how writing changed the trajectory of his career, the habits that make you a great PM, pros and cons of being a platform PM, how Shopify got through Covid: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/brandon-chu-on-what-its-like-to-build• IRC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRC• Goodhart's law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law• Glen Coates on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/glcoates/• How Shopify builds product: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-shopify-builds-product• The Last Dance on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/80203144• Autoregressive Models for Natural Language Processing: https://medium.com/@zaiinn440/autoregressive-models-for-natural-language-processing-b95e5f933e1f• Archimedean property: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedean_property• Tabula rasa: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_rasa• Daniel Weinand on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielweinand/• World of Warcraft: https://worldofwarcraft.blizzard.com• Harley Finkelstein on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harleyf/• Monorepo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monorepo• The Sarbanes Oxley Act: https://sarbanes-oxley-act.com/• Shopify builds Shopify Balance with Stripe to give small businesses an easier way to manage money: https://stripe.com/customers/shopify• Stanford marshmallow experiment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment• Brian Armstrong on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barmstrong/• We are the Web: https://link.wired.com/public/32945405—Recommended books:• Finite and Infinite Games: https://www.amazon.com/Finite-Infinite-Games-James-Carse/dp/1476731713• The Infinite Game: https://www.amazon.com/Infinite-Game-Simon-Sinek/dp/073521350X/—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.—Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

“Merchants can bet on Shopify and not worry about falling behind the cutting edge here,” explains the company's vice president of product, Glen Coates, to Bloomberg Intelligence senior technology analyst Anurag Rana on the latest episode of Tech Disruptors. “We are extremely good at software, so merchants can be really good at what they're trying to build into their business.” The two delve into a broad range of topics and assess the problems facing merchants, discussing how Shopify addresses such issues in a highly unified and integrated manner. Coates compares the needs of an entrepreneur with those of an enterprise, talking through several product areas, including point-of-sale, logistics, capital lending and generative AI.

The Shopify Winter 2025 Edition is out and it's Boring. Scott talks with Shopify VP of Product Development Glen Coates about the need to sometimes slow down and make software better...even if it's boring. Is it boring if it just works? If it's super reliable and does exactly what you want it to do? Glen breaks down how they do software at Shopify on this episode.https://www.shopify.com/editions/winter2025

Archie Abrams is the VP of Product and Head of Growth at Shopify, where he leads a 600+ person growth org across product, design, engineering, data, ops, and growth marketing. Shopify powers over 10% of e-commerce in the United States, with $235 billion in GMV in 2023 (roughly the size of Finland's economy). He previously led Consumer product and growth at Lyft and was at Udemy for 8 years as SVP of Product having joined the company when it was 10 people. In our conversation, we discuss:• Why Shopify optimizes for churn• Why the core product team doesn't use metrics-based goals• Why they keep multi-year experiment holdouts• How they structure their growth team• The benefits of not having a CMO• Lessons learned about integrating sales into a product-led growth model• The power of discounting as a growth lever• Much more—Brought to you by:• Explo—Embed customer-facing analytics in your product• Dovetail—The customer insights hub for product teams—Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/shopifys-growth-archie-abrams—Where to find Archie Abrams:• X: https://x.com/archieabrams• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/archie-abrams-b6aa8b6/—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Archie's background (02:30) Shopify's impressive growth(06:17) Shopify's unique approach to churn and retention(08:43) Monetization model and success metrics(11:08) Long-term experimentation and metrics(23:00) Examples of big wins that Archie's team has shipped(26:42) Monetary friction(27:14) Metrics(29:47) Shopify's growth team structure(33:03) Goal setting and forecasting(37:10) Examples of long-term results within Shopify(41:36) Shipping neutral experiments(42:05) Building a hundred-year company(48:04) Why Shopify doesn't use KPIs(51:30) Shopify's “Get s**t done” framework(54:30) Cross-team collaboration (58:48) The importance of an opinionated founder (01:01:12) Growth and sales integration(01:06:42) Shopify's marketing structure(01:08:49) Insights on discounting from Udemy(01:11:09) Lightning round—Referenced:• Shopify: https://www.shopify.com/• Tobias Lütke on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tobiaslutke• Gross Merchandise Value: Calculation and Best Practices: https://www.shopify.com/retail/gross-merchandise-value• Brian Chesky's new playbook: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/brian-cheskys-contrarian-approach• Glen Coates on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/glcoates• Harley Finkelstein on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harleyf• Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/• Scientific Advertising: https://www.amazon.com/Scientific-Advertising-Original-Claude-Hopkins/dp/1640954252• Four-Minute Mile: https://www.amazon.com/Four-Minute-Mile-Roger-Bannister/dp/1493038753/• The Sopranos on HBO: https://www.hbo.com/the-sopranos• Suno: https://suno.com/—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.—Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

On this episode of FYI, ARK Analyst Andrew Kim and Associate Portfolio Manager Nicholas Grous engage in a fascinating conversation with Glen Coates, VP of Product at Shopify. They delve into Shopify's transformation from its roots to becoming a pivotal player in both business to business (B2B) and direct to consumer (D2C) commerce.Glen shares insights on Shopify's strategy, highlighting the "unified" theme of their latest edition, aiming to streamline complex business processes. They discuss Shopify's features like Markets and Shop Pay, emphasizing the importance of integrating new features seamlessly into the existing ecosystem. Glen also touches on the role of artificial intelligence (AI) and structured data in enhancing Shopify's capabilities and providing merchants with a robust platform for growth."How do we help businesses scale in a way where they get to grow without their complexity and costs dragging them down?" — Glen CoatesKey Points From This Episode:Glen's journey from Handshake to VP at ShopifyShopify's focus on unification and the latest edition's highlightsThe role of structured data and AI in improving Shopify's offeringsHow Shopify supports both physical and digital goods seamlesslyThe future of commerce and the potential of virtual worlds and digital assetsThe impact of AI and machine learning on e-commerceThe integration of physical and digital goods in Shopify's platformFuture trends in commerce, including virtual worlds and user-generated content (UGC) platform

In this episode of Rocketship.FM, host Mike Belsito takes listeners behind the scenes of Shopify's latest product launch. Featuring an exclusive interview with Glen Coates, Shopify's VP of Product, the episode explores the company's innovative approach to introducing new features and products through their biannual "Editions" events. Coates shares insights into Shopify's product development process, the challenges of maintaining a startup mentality in a large organization, and the theme of their latest release: "Unified." The conversation also covers the growing impact of AI on e-commerce, with Coates discussing Shopify's integration of AI-powered tools like Shopify Magic and Sidekick. He offers valuable advice for product teams looking to incorporate AI into their own products and services, emphasizing the importance of starting small and focusing on simplifying tasks for users. The episode concludes with Coates' thoughts on the future of AI in commerce and key takeaways for product managers navigating this rapidly evolving landscape. This podcast is brought to you by: INDUSTRY: The Product Conference: Join hundreds of Product Managers and Product Leaders this September 23-25, 2024 for INDUSTRY. Save $100 when you use the code Rocketship. Gigantic: Upskill your team with real-world, practical video-based training on topics like Product Strategy, Product Leadership, AI for Product Managers, and more. Rocketship is brought to you by Evergreen Podcasts.

Building an ecommerce business is hard – it requires merchants to have a wealth of skills: technical, logistics, marketing, pricing, vendor management, finance and analytics. That's why Shopify is releasing new AI features that help merchants tackle things like product descriptions, marketing suggestions and search. Today on No Priors, Glen Coates, the VP of core product at Shopify (and former founder of b2b wholesale platform Handshake), joins Sarah and Elad. They talk about the releases from Shopify Editions, why they are deploying “copilot” rather than “autopilot,” AI innovation-at-scale, how to change the basement of a house while people are living in it, and building a leadership team of entrepreneurs. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @glencoates Shopify Editions | AI Section of Shopify Editions Show Notes:  (0:00) Background (2:22) Calling a “Code Red” at Shopify (4:04) Integrating acquisitions, entrepreneurial leaders (12:15) AI adoption (15:51) Deciding when to ship AI products, evaluations (17:33) Shopify's risk orientation (18:50) Changing the core Shopify data model, enabling AI features (26:05) What's missing from LLMs for merchants (28:47) Most interesting AI developments in the industry (33:22) What users want from LLMs and search (38:20) No Priors social

Glen Coates is the VP of Product @ Shopify, leading the development of Shopify's core commerce platform. He also oversees the core developer platform and Shopify's partner ecosystem, which includes over 10,000 publicly available apps in the Shopify App Store. Originally a CompSci grad, Glen moved from Sydney to San Diego in 2008 to run US distribution and e-commerce for an Australian eco-products company. In 2010, he attended Columbia Business School for one whole day before quitting to start Handshake, a SaaS B2B e-commerce platform. Glen joined Shopify in May 2019 when the company acquired Handshake. Glen has been in the Vice President role since October 2020. In Today's Episode with Glen Coates We Discuss: 1. From Game Developer in Sydney to Running E-Commerce Warehouse in NYC: How Glen made his way into the world of product and e-commerce having started life as a game developer? Why does Glen believe that the best founders and product people often have their roots in gaming? What does Glen know now that he wishes he had known when he joined Shopify? 2. The Art of Product and Product Management: Is product more an art or a science? If you had to put a number on it, what would it be? What is "product management"? Why can it not be reduced to frameworks? What are "product principles"? How do Shopify use them? How should product teams set them? What makes the very best PMs today? What are the commonalities in them? What is the sign of a poor PM? What would Glen most like to change about the world of PMs? 3. The Art of Product Marketing: What does Glen believe is the true art of product marketing? How did a CEO group teach Glen how to tell truly great stories? How can one tell great stories when you have to cater to multiple different customers/personas? How does Glen evaluate the current state of Shopify's product marketing? 4. Shopify and The Future of Shopify: Why does Glen think it is important for Shopify to have a tops down decision-making process for product strategy? What does Glen believe is the #1 reason why Shopify is such a large and successful company? What is the single hardest element of Glen's role today? How does Glen believe that Shopify will be larger than Amazon in 5-10 years time?

Don Mal. He’s the CEO and co-founder of Vena Solutions which was established in 2011 and is the fastest growing provider of cloud-based corporate performance management software. Prior to Vena, he’s owned several executive tech positions along the way with companies like Clarity Systems and IBM. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Who Moved My Cheese What CEO do you follow? –  Satya Nadella Favorite online tool? — Dropbox How many hours of sleep do you get?— 7-8 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “I wish I knew that sales cures all”   Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:44 – Nathan introduces Don to the show 01:21 – Vena was the fastest company to acquire a hundred customers 01:29 – Vena is growing a 100%, year over year 02:05 – CPM or corporate performance management is budgeting, planning and forecasting financial performance 02:28 – A fastfood chain can use Vena’s service to capture the sales of their burger 02:55 – CPM is about measuring results in a couple of different dimensions 03:16 – The Top had Glen Coates of Handshake and they’re an inventory management 03:31 – Vena is more horizontal based and vertical industry based 04:20 – Vena doesn’t compete with Bill.com and Expensify.com 04:31 – Annual RPU is $50K 04:53 – Vena was launched in 2011 05:02 – Team size is almost 200 05:18 – Vena has raised capital with equity rounds 05:49 – Don was running sales for a company in the same space that Don sold 06:02 – Don has already built credibility, so he was able to convince families and friends to invest 06:21 – Don has raised over a million to launch the business 06:50 – Don’s process of closing 07:06 – Don was able to raise $3M from other sources 07:30 – If your friends and families can’t write a $25K check, a $1k check will do 07:42 – Don has now raised a total of $50M 08:35 – Having the right kind of partner is important in raising a round 09:17 – Vena is approaching 350 paying customers 09:38 – Average MRR is $1.4M 09:47 – Vena finds new customers with a combination of inbound and outbound marketing 10:04 – Vena also nurtures their prospects through drip campaigns 10:22 – Total spend on paid acquisition is a couple of hundred grand a month 10:40 – Vena has a team that does the testing for new channels 11:05 – Don wants to keep their CAC below a 12-month cost of the revenue 11:38 – Don is looking at a 12-month payback 11:55 – LTV 12:05 – A customer stays with Vena up to 10 years 12:48 – Don sees the significant expansion of their platform 12:55 – Client starts with 2 user cases and can end up having more than 20 13:28 – Gross churn 13:39 – Vena has hit their net negative revenue churn 14:05 – Vena’s dollar will turn into $1.20 with their current system 15:15 – The Famous Five   3 Key Points: Before a big round of fundraising, master your pitch and start with your friends and families. Make your product stick to your customers and you’ll experience amazing growth. Have experts in your sales and marketing team; trust and release them to do their job.   Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox  – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Glen Coates. He’s the co-founder and CEO of Handshake. It focuses on putting the right product on every shelf in every store. He goes between Sydney, San Diego and New York City. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Five Dysfunctions of a Team What CEO do you follow? – Dave Yarnold Favorite online tool? — Boomerang for Gmail Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Glen wished he knew how intense running this company was going to be and to spend a lot more time making music and going surfing.   Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:37 – Nathan introduces Glen to the show 02:15 – Handshake is about getting the right product on every shelf, in the world 03:30 – Handshake brings the Amazon-like buying and selling platform to businesses 03:55 – Handshake Rep is the mobile app used by sales reps who work for the brand 04:21 – Handshake Direct is the mobile and web-based ecommerce for B2B 05:00 – Handshake is a SaaS business and they sell to manufacturers and distributors 05:10 – Handshake’s customers are the manufacturers, distributors, and their customers who log into Handshake 05:22 – Handshake has a similar model to Salesforce 05:40 – Glen started working with Handshake in 2010 and got their first customer in 2011 05:51 – First year revenue 06:16 – Average number of customers at the moment 06:51 – The pricing model is per seat per year for Handshake Rep, Handshake Direct is made-to-order 07:37 – Average customer pay per month 08:24 – December 2016: total average revenue range 09:35 – Handshake used to have monthly contracts 09:59 – Most of the contracts now are annual contracts 10:07 – Total capital raised is around $24M inclusive of Series B 10:29 – Series B closed in February 2016 10:40 – Handshake isn’t in any acquisition talk 12:03 – What Glen and his team is building is grand in scale and requires a lot of hard work 12:44 – Team size and location 13:05 – Glen shares the number of people per team 14:10 – LTV 14:15 – “I don’t think much about lifetime value” 16:51 – “I care about delivering 100% growth with a better payback period than I care about delivering 200% growth with like a terrible payback period” 17:05 – Handshake growth is 100% annual 17:30 – Glen shares the flagged payback period in VC communities 18:48 – Glen is currently burning close to $500K a month 18:56 – Glen thinks that it should take at least 6 months before having to raise again 19:50 – Glen usually raises for a couple of years and each time he raises gives them 2 years of runway 20:15 – Gross annual customer churn 20:30 – Churn has come down when they shifted their market 21:25 – Glen shares what they did to combat high monthly churn 22:38 – Handshake always has a negative revenue churn 23:30 – Glen wouldn’t sell Handshake for Nathan’s sample offer 25:10 – The Famous Five   3 Key Points: It’s difficult to create a SaaS that is web-based and mobile-based – it takes hard work. Delivering 100% growth with a better payback period is better than delivering 200% growth with a terrible payback period. Raising usually takes 6 months and it is the CEO’s responsibility to decide how he can leverage each raise.   Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip’s email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn’t have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible. Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books. The Top Inbox  – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11” secure even when he left it in the airplane’s back seat pocket Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Glen Coates founded Handshake in 2010 with only one day at Columbia Business School under his belt. Glen came up with the idea for Handshake while he was attending trade shows for an employer. He became frustrated by writing down orders with a pencil and paper and saw thousands of others fumbling in the same way. Glen knew that if he didn’t find the solution himself, then someone else would. Handshake is a mobile sales and B2B eCommerce platform that helps manufacturers & distributors grow their business by making it easy for their customers to order the right products from them, in-person and online. In six years, Handshake has acquired 65 employees and has made over $1 billion in orders across 47 countries. Major companies such as Roland, Starkey, OXO and more are using Handshake today. Check out this week’s episode of Smart People Should Build Things to hear more about Glen’s career journey from programmer to general manager of an exciting startup!

Glen Coates is the CEO of Handshake.com who is driving mobile salesforce automation. He shares how their App onboards users "bottom-up" allowing instant experience of the power of the platform in stark contrast to what a Salesforce deployment may look like. Glen also has some great tips for anyone writing B2B Apps - there is much to learn about acquiring new customers here. The full transcript and Mobile Engagement scores are at http://streethawk.com/blog/2015/02/2-user-acquisition-tips-for-b2b-mobile/