Luc Levesque
VP of Growth, Shopify
Computer Engineering Technology – Class of 1995
2021 Premier’s Awards nominee
Luc Levesque remembers as a young man wandering the streets of Athens on his first backpacking trip to Europe in 1996 looking for an Internet café.
“The Internet was super young and cafés were just starting to pop up,” he says. “I was going around asking people if there was an Internet café anywhere and half of them didn’t know what the Internet was.”
The 21-year-old eventually found the right café and logged into a server at the small Ottawa firm, A&B Computers, where he’d been working since graduating from Algonquin College in 1995.
“I had written and set up software so I could write updates from my travels for my family and friends rather than calling home or sending a postcard. It’s common to do this now but at the time it was a pretty big deal.”
So it proved. While Levesque spent a good portion of his high school years playing around with computers – creating bulletin boards and hacking used computers from his father’s courier business to play video games – his European postings were a key inflection point in his highly successful career in the digital world.
After returning to Canada, and inspired by the popularity of his posts, Levesque created the world’s first travel blogging platform – where people around the globe could post stories about their travels.
What started out as a hobby – TravelPod, he called it – eventually morphed into a business with 10 million monthly unique visitors. Its success attracted investor interest and in 2006 Levesque accepted a buyout offer from TripAdvisor.
He was hired as a vice president and became TripAdvisor’s growth expert, helping to take it from a small company of 80 to the world’s largest travel company across 55 countries with 4,200 employees.
Levesque credits Algonquin College for providing him with the educational foundations of his success. “The Internet was just getting started and every year there was something new that could be done with it. I was really passionate about technology and the College certainly stoked my passion and laid the foundation for my future learning. ”
That enjoyment of adventure and challenge has been characteristic of Levesque’s career. During his time with TripAdvisor, Levesque led teams that created popular websites, including the Traveller IQ Challenge, used by 100 million people, and a photo-sharing site, TripWow, that had 60 million users. Levesque also found himself in demand as an advisor on how to “grow” tech products and companies. His clients included firms such as Twitter, Pinterest, Patreon, Quora, Thumbtack, and ResearchGate.
This work was another turning point for Levesque. “I started to realize the power of knowing how to grow a product online,” he says. “Knowing how to grow a product through digital marketing – optimization, paid search, viral loops, advertising – in an effective way is a science in itself.”
Levesque’s abilities attracted the attention of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. The two met in 2016. “We just hit it off and he spent months trying to convince me to work for Facebook.”
A year later, Levesque and his family – his wife and two children – moved to Palo Alto, California, the heart of Silicon Valley. He spent three years at Facebook, taking on the challenge of engagement growth with younger users on Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
Levesque and his team created Messenger Kids, the first app and platform specifically designed for children as a safer alternative to texting and other messaging products. “It is now the largest family messaging app in the world,” he says. “I’m proud of the positive impact it’s had on families and kids.”
Levesque’s skill as a technology entrepreneur has not gone unnoticed. He’s been the subject of articles in the New York Times, Business Insider, and the Globe and Mail. He’s also been awarded the International Executive of the Year Award by Invest Ottawa, while the Ottawa Business Journal presented him with a Forty Under 40 Award.
Now 45, Levesque is not resting on his laurels. Earlier this year, he accepted a position with the Ottawa-based online commerce firm, Shopify, as its Vice President of Growth. “Over the years we’ve talked about working together. This year the stars lined up. It’s an exciting opportunity.”
One of Leveque’s key pieces of advice for students is simple and direct: “Find your passion. No question, that’s the most important thing. If you look at some of the most successful people, you find people who were lucky enough to stumble on to something they were passionate about. When you’re doing something you’re passionate about, it doesn’t feel like work.”