Radhika Aggarwal

FOUNDER OF SHOPCLUES

As you get closer to the top of the mountain, each milestone becomes important. With ShopClues eyeing an IPO in 2017, Radhika Ghai Aggarwal, CBO and Co-founder, has her heart and mind in the right place.

Started in 2011 with a 10-member team, Gurgaon- based ShopClues was the first to evangelise the managed marketplace from day one. According to company filings with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, the company’s revenue stood at Rs 79 crore in the last fiscal year, compared to about Rs 31 crore in FY 2014. In January this year, they raised $100 million in funding in a Series E round led by a Singapore-based fund, and joined the Indian unicorn club.

While all these major milestones are no doubt important, Radhika keeps a keen eye on small victories, and cherishes them, for she knows that in the long run, they lead to bigger gains – be it merchant stories, complete customer experience or being a good role model. In a freewheeling chat with YourStory, she talks about her own journey, the growth of ShopClues, her annual Town House on Women’s Day and why women entrepreneurs should not be on a separate panel.

Early career graph

In 1999, she moved to the US for an MBA from Washington University in St. Louis, and soon after, joined Goldman Sachs in 2001. The next year, she moved to Nordstrom, an American chain of department stores headquartered in Seattle, Washington that was founded in 1901.

Nordstrom proved to be a great learning ground. Not only did she learn strategic planning, but also understood, having seen it first hand, how an inverted pyramid structure got drilled into an organisation. “At Nordstrom, the customer is on the top of the inverted pyramid, and the CEO at the bottom. With the customer being the priority, even the CEO would be seen on the floor being a shoe runner, just to understand the needs of the customer better. The entire company and its ethos revolve around this concept. It helps you understand what the customer wants.”

Radhika stayed on with the company till early 2006. After she left Nordstrom, she started Fashion Clues (2007-2009) a fashion and lifestyle website targeting South Asia and the US, which she ran single handedly.

Touching people, touching lives

She calls ShopClues her third child and cherishes the ups and downs the company has gone through, particularly the big milestones – from getting 3.5 lakh merchants at the end of 2015 to raising two rounds of funding and joining the unicorn club in 2016.

“When I look back, I think there are multiple places where we could have tripped and fallen, but we didn’t. I am very proud of the way the company has shaped. Some of our early employees have taken up responsibilities beyond their years and it’s good to see them do so well.”

It is the lives that ShopClues has touched that matter most to her. “I cherish the small stories where ShopClues has touched the lives of merchants, merchant families and other stakeholders. The one that I hold close and always share is the one about a housewife who started selling through ShopClues; upon seeing her success, her husband decided to quit his job and join her.”

Why only women panels?

As a good leader and a role model to her employees and other women, the one thing that rankles Radhika is the nonchalant attitude that women entrepreneurs often face. “To many mainstream media houses, we are just a lot of women entrepreneurs. A leading media house mixed up mine and another leading woman entrepreneur’s pictures and quotes. Since we know each other, we had a good laugh. They probably think that just because our numbers are small, it doesn’t matter; we are one and the same to them.”

One of the big changes needed in the startup ecosystem is recognition for women leaders. Also, all-women panels at major events that are slated for odd hours are a thumbs down for her. She believes that women entrepreneurs are no less than their male counterparts, and don’t need to be clubbed into a category and forgotten, or pushed to lunchtime slots. They deserve the same respect shown to men in the entrepreneurial arena.

ShopClues.com is an online marketplace, headquartered in Gurgaon, India. The company was founded in California's Silicon Valley in 2011. It has over 12,000 registered merchants retail 2,00,000+ products on the platform to over 42 million visitors every year across 9500 locations in the country.

The e-commerce company is incorporated in Delaware.

ShopClues joined as 35th entrant in the Indian e-commerce in 2011. The company employs about 700 people across different locations.