
Shopify: A StarCraft Inspired Business Strategy - nongaap
https://nongaap.substack.com/p/shopify-a-starcraft-inspired-business
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terrywang
Good Read. StarCraft and the expansion set (Brood War) had huge influenced on
my student days (they way of thinking, overview of strategies vs tactics,
economy, resources). To some extent it helped me to find passion and inspired
me to be the me today (still benefit from the stuff I learned over the years
playing SC when designing UI, Operational Workflows, software engineering,
Architecture of IT infrastructure), and will definitely go further.

I was very excited to see Blizzard make StarCraft Remastered and purchased
when it was made available, played with some passionate friends from time to
time, unfortunately, it's so hard to find people with similar level of skills
(intermediate) nowadays to have a good game (also, it takes time for a single
game, which we don't have nowadays).

BTW: Grrr..., Slayers_Boxer, remember the names? StarCraft helped to shape up
eSports industry and created 1 of the greatest pro gamers in history. Look at
the eSports industry today, phenomenal and incredible. Cannot imagine taking a
pro gaming career back then, parents would have beaten the shit of that
dreaming boy.

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strikelaserclaw
Loved the original SC, I still remember how Slayers_Boxer put the relatively
"weaker" terran race on the map with his supply depot wall strategy, dropship
micro etc...

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terrywang
Before Boxer, everyone seems to be a bit reluctant to get Terran at random in
a 1v1 game as it's relatively weak and requires lots of micro ops (high APM)
to win against Zerg or Protoss ;-)

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schwurb
Starcraft saved my A-levels, when I realized that school can be considered a
game with points and stuff... Turns out that lecture participation had a great
ROI! Now, if my future product will have any success, then part of it will be
due to the lessons that SC2 ingrained deep into my fabrics of thinking.
Besides the countless hours of fun and memories.

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KFC_Manager
I wonder what Shopify's next move is to expand past it's core business -
really excited a Canadian company is doing so well!

Would The equivalent of Shopify's strategy be massing zerglings against a
couple Amazon Battlecruisers or Google Carriers?

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furgooswft13
No no Zerg is the current OP race now so clearly Amazon plays them. They just
Nydus + Swarm shipping all over the map until Shopify has 2 bases and 6
workers left. Government plz nerf.

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scmicro
Your unit comp is not micro, controlling them is

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ycombinete
Yeah, unit comp, tech, expansions etc fall under macro

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CyanBird
I always preferred to refer to unit comp/tech/countering as "Unit Control",
leaving micro to actual microing of units.

Expansions, etc are clearly under macro, tho it depends on the overall
strategy one is taking

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hartator
Micro in SC is about micromanaging one unit - like keeping at 6 range when
enemies is at 5 - not timing your economy.

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balthasar
Bit of a stretch

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simplify
I think so too. But it was cool to see how they hired someone solely based on
their professional StarCraft skills :)

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outworlder
> But it was cool to see how they hired someone solely based on their
> professional StarCraft skills

That's actually smart. It demonstrates a bunch of useful skills.

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jdsully
An interesting point in there on culture fit which I always had in the back of
my mind. It's quite possible your "cultural fit" is way too restrictive. Being
challenged with new ideas can be a good thing.

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juskrey
In 1990s is was not uncommon to be hired to IT solely based on your Mortal
Kombat or Doom skills - pretty good proxy for geekness at that time.

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taurath
I enjoyed this primarily as a bio. Surprised at the similarities in mindset
(and even being a Zerg player) that I feel with Tobi! Definitely rooting for
him, though working in the online payments space myself I can’t help but feel
like he’s gonna put me out of a job someday.

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dwd
There's an interesting podcast with Tobi here, where he also mentioned
StarCraft.

[https://fs.blog/tobi-lutke/](https://fs.blog/tobi-lutke/)

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artursapek
This guy is very dedicated to wearing that hat

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xal
I call it my haircut.

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noso
My favorite comment of the year!

