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This Entrepreneurial Story is about Two Entrepreneurs who Founded ‘Shopo.in’ located in Chennai, India.
Team Introduction
- Krithika Nelson (Co-founder & CEO) – Graduated from MOP Vaishnav College for Women, Chennai (Madras). Worked at BIG 92.7 FM and Co-Founder Shopo.in Aug 2010
- Theyagarajan Sundaramoorthy (Co-founder & CTO) – Graduated from NIT Trichy and Co-Founder Shopo.in Aug 2010.
What Motivated you to start your Business?
Krithika Nelson was a designer just before she started Shopo. On an auto ride, about a year and half back, with her good friend and star Techie Theyagarajan, she was ranting about how designers could not take their business to the next level, the idea of Shopo was born.
Tell us about your Business
Shopo is a social online marketplace and a platform for Indian creators to take their products to global customers, with minimum effort and cost. By that we mean Designers, Artists, Artisans, NGOs, Organic food creators and Homemade food artists.
Shopo only takes a cut in every sale that the creator makes.
What is a Day in a life of you like?
Well, If our day did not have about 500 mails, a couple of firefighting sessions, at least a dozen calls, and a whole lot of chalk dust, we must have been dreaming 🙂 To sum it up, We have a new kind of day everyday, each one in pursuit of making Shopo a lil better, and so far, it has been an amazing, exciting, rollercoaster ride.
One particular skill you got right and gave you best results.
Obsession. With the quality of sellers, with what we want to be as a company, with hiring only the best people. We are still perfecting this skill, but it has most definitely given us the best of results so far.
What have been your biggest challenges in running your Business so far? And How did you overcome these challenges?
One of the biggest challenges, in the initial days was operations. To make sure that a package from any seller’s home at any city in India reached the buyer at any part of the world, safely and in time. We took a while to understand the processes, but at the end of the day, found the best solution to keep our operations sane.
The other challenge, that still exists is scale. With a marketplace model that is fast growing in 100s of sellers every month, we needed to stay a small team and still scale up everything we were doing. A lot of automation in processes has helped us achieve this. So while being a team of 25, we are able to achieve what a 200 member team is achieving in other similar companies.
What have you found the most effective way to get new clients?
If by clients, you mean the designers on shopo, just getting in touch and talking to them! The need for such a marketplace is pretty evident and it costs them nothing to try it out. This makes it fairly simple for us to convince them.
What advice to you give to other business owners?
Ask and you shall receive 🙂 Even if you dont, dont stop asking! Just dont be shy to knock every door you might have to, even if it means facing a few rejections.
How did you keep motivated through difficult times?
Well, everytime we go through a difficult time, motivation comes by, on its own. The last time we were down, we heard that one of our sellers who was not even sure about starting a brand on their own, quit their job, sold their house and got in full time on their home decor brand. That just totally pushed us further. We know we have been changing the lives of a few people, even if in a very small way. Thats what keeps us going!
Whats your Your Marketing, Funding and Team Building Strategy
Marketing – We are big believers of Organic Marketing. We believe that, in the long term, that is what will help us reach a profitable point. So far, the bet has paid off for us. Most of our marketing comes from social media activities and PR.
Team Building – We are very particular that we want only the best guys in our team. We intend to stay a small team forever, and most people here have to multitask at most points. We keep that in mind while picking anyone to join the team. We have found some of our best hires on social media too.
Your Achievements
- Grown from 20 sellers to over 500 sellers, from 21 different states in India, in a year – Each of them handpicked and original creators, and NOT re-sellers.
- A 113,000 fan-base in Facebook with predominantly organic measures.
- A small, but strong team of individuals from varied backgrounds, that work as hard as, and sometimes harder than us.
- Pioneering an organic marketing strategy that is giving us almost 40-50% growth in traffic month on month.
- The first and only social marketplace in India, with everything, right from our home page, being user generated.
Whats your favorite quote?
“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.” – Steve Jobs
Who inspires you?
Every Indian designer who creates something beautiful 🙂
Do you have a Business Philosophy?
We want to be the first platform for every emerging Indian designer. To play a part in taking the Indian designer Industry to its rightful glory.
Contact links
Website | Facebook | LinkedIn | Twitter
More Info
Startup Freak wishes Best of Luck to Shopo and Team!
