Co-founder Joel Leong reveals story of how ShopBack started

In June 2022, Singapore-based cashback reward platform ShopBack raised US$80 million in an funding led by Asia Companions.

The elevate is to assist the Group’s imaginative and prescient to construct a number one procuring and rewards platform throughout the Asia Pacific area.

In a panel dialogue finally week’s Tech in Asia convention, Joel Leong, co-founder of ShopBack and Nick Nash, the co-founder and managing associate of Asia Accomplice, got here collectively to speak about ShopBack in its early-stage days, its hiring technique, in addition to the way it’s staying resilient in instances of crises.

He had an entrepreneurial streak since younger

Throughout Joel’s first week in Major One, his Arts & Class required the usage of some drawing blocks. A few of his classmates didn’t have any drawing block, so he charged them S$0.20 for a single sheet.

Joel managed to promote a few sheets, and was actually completely satisfied that he managed to earn some cash off it. He went again dwelling fortunately and informed his mum about it, who ended up telling him off for promoting it to his associates as a substitute of sharing it with these in want.

Then when he was in Major Six, it was the height of the dot-com bubble and lots of firms had been being created at the moment, largely by younger entrepreneurs. The fascinating factor was that the enterprise worth then was based mostly on what number of “eyeballs” their web site might get.

This sparked his curiosity within the tech area, which ultimately prompted him to hitch the NUS Abroad School (NOC) programme throughout his college days. NOC allowed college students to intern in a tech startup and take up part-time programs in respected universities overseas.

Joel went to Shanghai for a 12 months beneath this programme, and he discovered it fascinating that his teammates and different interns expressed that they don’t want to work for a multinational company (MNC) or the federal government. As a substitute, they need to be part of a tech firm.

It dawned on me that entrepreneurship is definitely fairly fascinating and with that, it allowed me to take a special lens on it. For them, I believe they noticed how these startups grew enormous they usually need to be part of that journey. And at the moment, I believe China was manner forward, and really totally different [from the startup landscape] in Singapore.

– Joel Leong, co-founder of ShopBack

Roping of their ex-colleagues to construct the corporate

In Silicon Valley, there’s the ‘PayPal mafia’, and in Southeast Asia, we’ve the ‘Zalora mafia’. Following within the footsteps of its ex-corporate sibling and rival Lazada, Zalora is now a number one vogue e-commerce platform within the area.

Since its inception, it has produced an extended line of entrepreneurs and executives — Joel being certainly one of them. He was the regional head of partnerships at Zalora SEA earlier than beginning up ShopBack in 2014.

All the opposite co-founders of ShopBack — Henry Chan, Shanru Lai and Josephine Chow — had been additionally from Zalora. A few of their early hires, resembling its Chief Industrial Officer Candice Ong, additionally used to work at Zalora.

There’s no particular espresso served at Zalora that helped spawn these entrepreneurial bunch, joked Joel. Fairly, it was the timing then.

“On the time when Lazada, Zalora and the remainder of the businesses had been establishing, [e-commerce in] Southeast Asia was at a really nascent stage. I bear in mind after I was making an attempt to hitch Zalora, I needed to persuade my mother and father that it was not a blogshop, however an actual e-commerce [platform].”

He added that a lot of them had been fortunate to be part of that e-commerce growth, and had the possibility to be educated beneath firms resembling Zalora, Lazada, foodpanda and the likes — to be part of that development, and study all of the issues firsthand.

So once we wished to start out one thing on our personal, we’ve two benefits. One is that, we perceive a bit bit [more] of run a startup. They taught us info that they learnt from Zalando in Europe, and introduced it over.

The second half is that it helps us get early co-founders and folks to the group — as a result of you’ve labored with them earlier than, so you recognize who’s good and not-so-good. And also you additionally know who you need to associate and work with. So it actually helps lots on the folks entrance. For early startups, individuals are all the things.

– Joel Leong, co-founder of ShopBack

He additionally shared the way it was fairly tough for them to get others to hitch their startup within the early days.

They needed to persuade them that their concept works, that somebody larger gained’t are available in and “squash” them and their concept, and lastly, that they’re the best individual to work with.

“There are numerous permutations to persuade them for, and I believe what we observed was that should you work with folks that you simply’ve labored with earlier than, they can provide you some low cost on the thought — however they belief you. In order that they’re becoming a member of due to you and having labored with you earlier than, they see that perhaps there’s some probability,” he added.

This explains why a lot of their early hires had been ex-colleagues, which actually helped them to construct a robust group. They introduced the identical learnings and tradition, and since they’ve labored collectively as a group earlier than, working at ShopBack is sort of like a “half two”.

The truth that they’ve labored collectively earlier than additionally meant that they’ve established some form of belief with the opposite individual.

“You belief that the man is coming from a very good angle and place, and that permits you to make much more unpopular selections, and lets you make much more selections sooner. You don’t second guess and stuff like that, in order that helped lots,” mentioned Joel.

“Nice expertise helps entice nice, or higher, expertise”

ShopBack was first based mostly out of BLOCK71 by NUS Enterprise, the place different startups like Carousell and 99.co had been additionally incubated.

Again then, they got a small room to work in. It might solely match 4 to 5 folks comfortably, however they determined to squeeze in 13 folks as a substitute to maximise the house.

However one factor they observed was that each time they did job interviews in that workplace, the conversion price was very low. This led them to start out taking interviews at a close-by Starbucks outlet, which proved to be a a lot better selection.

Lots of the time, folks be part of a startup due to the startup concept itself, but in addition due to others who’re in it. So why we had been very profitable in hiring — although we had been early-stage on the time — was that individuals had been coming as a result of they belief the those that had been inside.

– Joel Leong, co-founder of ShopBack

Usually instances, once they ask job candidates how they heard concerning the firm, a lot of them mentioned that they joined or observed ShopBack due to its current workers. This exhibits lots concerning the “credibility” of the corporate.

“That actually helped us to usher in skills that we in any other case wouldn’t have gotten for our measurement and stage, and that basically helped us develop a lot sooner. It’s all concerning the folks. We observe our development and each time we convey somebody good, you discover that helps to alter one thing within the firm.”

ShopBack is at the moment nonetheless on a hiring spree of making an attempt to get actually good expertise — these good skills don’t solely have the work functionality, however in addition they have some type of buying prowess. “Nice expertise helps entice nice, or higher, expertise,” he quipped.

One factor that they appear out for when hiring skills, particularly for the extra senior and managerial roles, is that the person must have a very good strategic and operational sense.

“If it’s all simply technique and you’ll’t implement it, then you’re only a actually good PowerPoint designer, and that’s not what we wish. One factor we attempt to do is actually to ask a candidate like, ‘what was the challenge you’re most pleased with or most profitable at’,” defined Joel.

Each time they provide a solution, they attempt to perceive deeper and hit them again with one other ‘why’. Those which might be actually operational can go fairly deep in understanding the ‘whys’ and the trade-offs, however for the high-level strategic guys, by the second or third ‘why’, their solutions grow to be very broad.

“It’s how far they’ll go into the ‘why’ that basically exhibits how a lot they actually find out about their stuff. They don’t should be the one doing it, however they should know the way that’s finished. They need to have the ability to information their group and say ‘that is the route that we’re going for’ and ‘this is the reason we’re doing it’.”

Staying resilient in instances of disaster

The previous few years have been a difficult local weather for companies. Past the COVID-19 pandemic, there’s additionally the specter of a world recession, rising rates of interest, elevated power costs, coupled with the raging struggle in Europe.

So how does ShopBack adapt and keep resilient in a time like this?

We attempt to assume from the opposite aspect of the desk. [By doing so], we’re in a position to provide you with options to the scenario or the issue. One instance could be to firstly perceive the those that we’ve — how possible are they to have a look at the technique that we’ve, have the ability to change with that, and that entails making errors.

That’s one thing I believe we additionally attempt to confirm rather a lot for. The primary motive is that individuals are almost definitely going to make errors on a regular basis. When you don’t, then perhaps you’re not making an attempt an excessive amount of. When that occurs, then we want to have the ability to say ‘we made a mistake and we made a change’.

– Joel Leong, co-founder of ShopBack

This is the reason ShopBack additionally are likely to not rent candidates who’ve an ‘I’m all the time proper’ mentality.

To suss this out, they ask candidates on among the errors they’ve made earlier than. It’s shocking to study that many individuals will say that they’ve by no means made errors earlier than, or even when there have been errors, these errors had been attributed to another person.

On that be aware, he burdened the significance of being nimble and to always reassess the scenario.

“Are you making the best transfer? In case you are, proceed. When you’re making the mistaken transfer, shortly make a change. I believe that’s an actual essential skillset that we want our groups to have — each on the senior, in addition to junior stage,” he mentioned.

In the end, ShopBack seems to be out for individuals who make errors after which transfer ahead. This group of individuals have a tendency to start out the slowest as a result of they don’t head-dive into one thing, however once they take a look at the trajectory — six months or a 12 months later after the disaster is gone — these groups are likely to carry out the very best.

Aligning pursuits with customers and retailers

This mindset of “pondering from the opposite aspect of the desk” doesn’t solely apply to hiring, but in addition when it comes to its product improvement.

Since they hailed from Zalora, they might typically ask themselves if they might ever use ShopBack’s service or no matter new product they’re constructing, in the event that they had been to imagine their earlier roles.

“If I wouldn’t use it myself, then no quantity of enterprise improvement or no matter goes to maneuver the needle. In order that’s one half that’s tremendous essential that we take a look at,” mentioned Joel merely.

Secondly, ShopBack makes a aware effort to have a look at different elements of the world to see who else has finished it earlier than, and attempt to study from that.

Like with Rakuten’s funding in earlier rounds, ShopBack was in a position to get quite a lot of learnings from it. In spite of everything, the e-commerce agency has been round since 1997, so there’s positively a wealth of expertise and data that the group might faucet on.

In a manner, this acts like a “crystal ball” — it tells you what others have finished and the result of it, and if there’s any errors which have been made alongside that journey, they’ll study from it and keep away from falling into the identical pit.

Sharing extra about how ShopBack develops consumer-centric merchandise, Joel mentioned that it additionally lies of their enterprise mannequin itself. He cited an instance of how Google is adopting a profitable mannequin of doing cost-per-click.

“To provide a numbers perspective, we despatched 400 million clicks and procuring journeys to our retailers in 2021. Think about if we charged for all that — we can be richer, however the curiosity is just not aligned with the service provider.”

For instance, throughout the pandemic, Joel noticed that there have been quite a lot of cancellations on transactions. Though extra folks clicked on web sites and added to their carts, not many observe via with their purchases.

The fascinating half is that you simply nonetheless should pay your advertising and marketing associate for the clicks they introduced in. What occurs is, you pay for the clicks upfront and you then get the sale. After that, if the client doesn’t order or need to purchase anymore, or do returns with the free return [policy], you continue to should pay the advertising and marketing company.

However for us, we cost on a cost-per-sale mannequin. If the order is cancelled, we don’t receives a commission. So our pursuits are extraordinarily aligned with the service provider. And if we’re in a position to assume from the retailers’ viewpoint, we’re assured we are able to construct a [good] product that [both consumers and merchants] will like.

– Joel Leong, co-founder of ShopBack

The tip aim is to construct a holistic procuring ecosystem

Transferring ahead, Joel expressed that he would really like ShopBack to grow to be a “procuring ecosystem”, during which they assist customers of their procuring journey. The aim is to assist them within the rewards house, each on-line and offline.

Though they’ve a transparent focus in serving to customers with procuring, they might not discover issues that they’re “not nice at”, resembling logistics. However in relation to procuring, ShopBack should have the ability to assist its customers throughout the totally different verticals to buy smarter and higher.

To attain this, ShopBack may be very a lot centered on the ‘now’.

My tennis coach informed me this, ‘don’t deal with the tip aim of simply successful’. Give attention to the play, as a result of it lets you win the factors. Each level lets you win the sport. Each recreation lets you win the set. And once you win the set, lastly, you win the match.

To me, I believe an important half is actually what performs we’re making now that’s serving to to convey us nearer to [our end goal]. So we’ve finished on-line cashback, offline [cashback], and now, we’ve gone into Purchase Now, Pay Later. We hope to piece that up collectively and convey it to extra markets.

– Joel Leong, co-founder of ShopBack

Featured Picture Credit score: ShopBack