Originally a qualified accountant, Sonu co-founded Shopper.com – a global community of shopping enthusiasts with tens of thousands of active community members from over 40 countries. Sonu started her career with Citi Bank and later moved to Financial Advisory at KPMG before gaining 10+ years of experience in retail marketing platforms.
Sonu is passionate about women entrepreneurship and innovation and regularly gives talks at various events including TechWeek, retail forums and entrepreneurship groups. She also frequently gives guest lectures on topics related to entrepreneurship and women in tech at various leading universities and events.
What is Shopper.com all about?
Shopper.com is a community for online shoppers to discover products and deals. We launched the company in Nov 2018 with our deals platform. In a short span of time, our 75,000+ contributors have already shared 500k+ deals. This community-driven approach helped our users from 40+ counties save millions of dollars in online shopping for 42k+ stores. We are currently working on a product discovery feature that will allow shopping influencers to showcase the products they love.
Tell us a little bit about your background and how you started your business?
I am an accountant turned tech entrepreneur. I’ve been working in eCommerce marketing space for the last ten years. I was focused on helping eCommerce stores in gaining more customers and improving their conversion rates.
A few years back I came across a Facebook group, a community of people that were helping each other in finding deals and sharing their product experience. I’ve seen the community members painstakingly go to lengths to hunt for deals, and post them on the group to help others save money. I was amazed by the power of community in discovering new products and saving thousands of dollars for its members. I realised that I could create an impact if I could create a tool for everyone to seamlessly share and earn from shoppable information, and this led me to launch Shopper.com. We started with the deal hunting option for which 500k+ deals are already added. We are now in the process of launching our product sharing option.
What was the biggest problem you encountered with your business and how did you overcome it?
When we launched the company, we had a great start. We had raised funds, we launched the platform, our users loved it and we were in the next phase of growth. We were quite fixated at raising capital by the end of last year. But things quickly changed because of the pandemic and we had to change the gears and instead of fund raising and quick growth, we looked into the revenue side of the things. Our user acquisition slowed, however in less than six months, we grew our revenues over 30 times. So, reflecting on it, I think it’s important to be adaptable and sometimes you need to take unprecedented actions in unprecedented times.
What were the top mistakes you made starting your business and what did you learn from it?
There are several mistakes entrepreneurs make, and we are generally just one bad decision away from closing down. I’ll share top two mistakes that had profound impact on me and the company.
Hiring in a hurry is almost always wrong. In the initial phase of starting up, we hired for a senior position in the company. Our new hire said all the right things, understood all the right problems and had all the skills necessary to perform. But, there was no cultural fit and it weighed the entire team down. Although bad hires in initial days are inevitable, my mistake was to try too hard and too long to make it work. Sometimes I even hoped that things will turn around on their own. Although we parted ways amicably, I learned that startups should hire slow and fire fast.
Another one was waiting for the perfect moment to launch the product doesn’t really work. As entrepreneurs, we obsess about our product and every tiniest detail about it. One of the biggest problems we faced was about prioritizing the product features. We are a community driven platform, and we love to talk to potential users before finalizing the product. Talking to a diverse set of users gave us a lot of valuable insights that could all be converted into features but at the same time extended our product launch timelines a few times. The best way to mitigate this issue and to avoid choice paralysis, we grouped features in three groups that align with the company goal, product vision or overall strategy. Set a score for each group and go ahead with the features with the highest score. Ensure to regularly reprioritise the score as with time the business needs change, markets change, and the customers change.
What is one thing that you do daily to grow as an entrepreneur?
My startup life changed dramatically after my daughter’s arrival and I spent sleepless nights and long days trying to find an agreeable balance between my work and personal life. I think time management is of essence when managing different roles and responsibilities. I can’t say I have mastered it now either, but I am being more mindful about how I use my time. I am very much goal driven. I write down all tasks whether, company related, personal goals or social goals and divide them into time brackets. So, this way I can prioritise and focus on what’s essential and important. And in case I am pulled away unexpectedly, when I return, I know where i need to start and what I’ve missed. Because of this simple routine, I am now able to accomplish at least 60% more tasks than before. Each day I feel I have achieved something and that I’m making progress in the right direction.
What are three books or courses you recommend for new entrepreneurs?
My favourite books are Zero to One, Autobiography of a Yogi and The Conscious parent.
I can recommend number of books, but these three books helped me to think differently and had a big impact on me as a business leader and an entrepreneur.
Zero to One is a thought-provoking book on exploring the possibility of creating something big and impactful.
Autobiography of a Yogi teaches you the purpose and the potential of humans.
The Conscious parent – I know its not really a business book but this book made me realise that every situation we face or every person we meet is for elevating us to the next level. It also explains that once we learn from the setbacks and prepare ourselves, we learn to navigate through situations smartly, something I think is important for entrepreneurs.
What is the one thing you wish you knew before starting your business?
Value of having a supportive eco system. I did not realise how lonely a startup entrepreneur’s life can be, and it’s even worse when it comes to women entrepreneurs in tech. It’s important to be in company of like minded people. In the early days of launching the company, we were growing, we were hiring, we were fund raising; it is all thrilling but at the same time it all came with setbacks. Just because you planned something and it did not happen, you have to quickly recover from it and do the best in that given situation. It’s then I realised the importance of having a supportive eco system and how valuable people can be. Having the support of friends and family is important in sailing through these challenges. I was able to achieve my business and personal goals because of the support I got around me.
What has been your most effective marketing strategy to grow your business?
User referrals has been one of the most successful marketing strategies for us. When happy customers bring their social clout, the retention rate is high and users are more loyal. For getting more referrals, there are two things that form the basis of what we do and everything we do. Give the best experience and listen to your users. We are obsessed about giving a good experience to our users. For example, we have hundreds of thousands of coupons in our database and there are thousands of people who use us everyday. So, we need to match the coupons with products in their basket to ensure savings. So, we are constantly working on optimising this and giving the best experience to our users.
And we listen to our users. when the pandemic started, almost 40% products went out of stock compared to just 8% before the pandemic. So a lot of our community members mentioned that if we could help them in any way during this pandemic would be great. As a team, we brainstormed on the idea that we could instantly alert shoppers when a product comes back in stock. Although this notification was available for some large stores, it was not available for majority stores and shoppers went to at least 6 stores to buy everything they need. So, we took just under six weeks to release our notification system where we tracked millions of products from top three markets UK, USA and India. The result was overwhelming where members appreciated us for helping them stay safe during the pandemic. It also made us feel that we were playing our part in keeping the community safe.
What’s your best piece of advice for aspiring and new entrepreneurs?
I’d say don’t fall a victim to self doubt. People don’t really envy entrepreneurs life, at least at the beginning because the journey is not for all. Often people think that entrepreneurs have it all sorted or they are confident or know it all. In fact, it’s very easy to get discouraged when you don’t grow as fast as you’d like or get disappointed when things go wrong or people don’t believe in your idea. And quickly self doubt creeps in and you feel like giving up. And its ok to feel this way on some days, but as entrepreneurs we are always seeking solutions for a problem. I think one of the best ways to deal with self doubt is to log everything you do, the daily goals you set and your daily achievements. This way when one day is hard, you can flip the pages and see where you started, how far you’ve come, the obstacles you overcame and so on. This provides a reassurance that you’re on the right path and that you are one step closer to your goals.
What is your favorite quote?
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life and don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. Most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.”
– Steve Jobs
How can we get in touch with you?
You can connect with me via social media on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.
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