Industry committee  We take part in the SR and ED program, and that's been really fantastic for us. In fact, one of the reasons it is really important for us to remain a CCPC, Canadian-controlled private corporation, is that we do get access to that. Beyond that, we also get capital gains exemptions.

Industry committee  Is it all right if I speak English?

Industry committee  But it's okay if I respond in English?

Industry committee  Thank you, sir. What you said is really interesting, because a lot of what's happening right now in the retail space is that people are assuming that if big retailers don't take on the new technology, they will become dinosaurs, they'll become extinct. I disagree. I think it's an amazing opportunity for traditional retailers to expand.

Industry committee  I think that's a great idea. The money is one part of it, but the reason I brought up the Irish program—it wasn't very much money, as I mentioned—is that you inspire them and you educate them, Even people who aren't necessarily tech savvy and who aren't reading the New York Times online, are hearing about these cool companies emerging.

Industry committee  Shopify provides all the technology they would need to run an online store. That means two things. It means the front end of the store, so the storefront that you would go and visit—if you go to LaBottega.ca, the thing that you see—but also the back end where they do their inventory management, fulfill orders, and have the ability to accept payments.

Industry committee  Correct. We're not an agency so we won't design the site or the store for them. Having 55,000 stores, it would be tough to design all those stores. But Shopify is a do-it-yourself service. We have template designs, and anyone who knows a little bit about graphic design can customize their site to anything they like.

Industry committee  We're signing up 3,000 new stores every single month currently. Most of that growth is coming from online advertising, so Google AdWords, in particular, is very strong for us. But because we are also trying to be evangelists to small businesses, we run a lot of competitions all over the world—build-a-business competitions.

Industry committee  Good question. The reason we started the business was not that we wanted to be a software company, but that we were frustrated by the software on the market. In 2005 there were two ways to build an online store. Up here you would go to a big company like GSI Commerce or Cactus Commerce in Gatineau, and for $100,000 to $1 million they would build you a custom online store.

Industry committee  Thank you for having me. My name is Harley Finkelstein. I'm an entrepreneur and a lawyer here in Canada. In 2005, I was attempting to build a snowboard shop online with some partners. We found it very difficult to sell a product online at that time. We decided we would build our own piece of software to help retail these snowboards online from Ottawa.