# Mitchell Harper

> Mitchell Harper is an Australian software entrepreneur who co-founded Interspire and BigCommerce with Eddie Machaalani. His public work spans engineering, product marketing, leadership, startup advising and founder education, including PeopleSpark, Startup Growth Blueprint and the Insane Growth podcast.

- **Role:** Co-founder of BigCommerce; former co-CEO (historical founding designation)
- **Organizations:** BigCommerce, Interspire, DevArticles.com, PeopleSpark, Capital H Labs, Insane Growth, Foundr
- **Nationality:** Australian
- **Known for:** Co-founded BigCommerce with Eddie Machaalani., Built a bootstrapped software business before raising venture capital., Helped bring hosted ecommerce software to small and medium-sized merchants.

## Career timeline

- **2003** — Met Eddie Machaalani in a PHP chat room; began the collaboration behind Interspire.
- **2004** — Sold programming community DevArticles to Developer Shed, according to his retrospective account.
- **2009** — Co-launched BigCommerce, the hosted version of Interspire Shopping Cart.
- **2011** — BigCommerce raised a $15 million Series A.
- **2013** — Revolution Growth invested in BigCommerce; Steve Case joined the board.
- **2015** — Left BigCommerce’s daily operating leadership and launched PeopleSpark.
- **2016** — Promoted Startup Growth Blueprint and described his focus on teaching and advising founders.
- **2017–2020** — Published the Insane Growth podcast for business owners.

## Achievements

- Co-founded BigCommerce with Eddie Machaalani.
- Built a bootstrapped software business before raising venture capital.
- Helped bring hosted ecommerce software to small and medium-sized merchants.
- Nathan Chan publicly credits Harper with teaching him hiring strategies used at Foundr.

## Latest updates

- **2025-01** — Foundr republished an archive interview with Harper as episode 546, Building BigCommerce: Mitch Harper’s Guide to Scaling a SaaS Empire; it was an archive release, not identified as a new interview.
- **2025-07** — The company he co-founded announced Commerce as its parent brand and changed its corporate name to Commerce.com, Inc.; BigCommerce remained a product brand.

## Links

- Website: https://mitchellharper.me
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mitchellharper
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/MitchellHarper
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mitchellharper/

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/mitchell-harper
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-10-23