ShopBack

Familiar with cashback? Basically, for each transaction you make, you get a portion of what you paid returned to you in cash. 

ShopBack is a Singaporean e-commerce start-up that is also present in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and Taiwan. It offers cashback when users make purchases from over 1,300 registered merchants through the ShopBack app or website. The cashback first goes into the user’s ShopBack account, and can later be withdrawn when the accumulated cashback amount reaches over $10. Merchants include popular e-commerce giants like ASOS, Taobao, Shopee, Lazada, Sephora; travel-related merchants like Scoot, Agoda, Hotels.com and even lifestyle brands like Watsons, Guardian and Cathay Cineplexes. 


ShopBack has a beautiful office that screams ‘this is what a startup should look like’. More importantly, we’ve heard a lot of companies tell us “our employees take ownership” but few had interesting stories to back-up this claim, unlike ShopBack. Their school-themed office interior is designed by interns who stayed overnight once and decorated everything. All the furniture was assembled by ShopBackers and the mural in the entrance was painted entirely by their in-house designers. The meeting room booking software was also built by an intern who saw that people were just taking rooms and there was no visibility of when rooms were available. So he went to find out how to code the software and built it in a week. Talk about owning the change you seek. 
 
Here’s what Alex, who heads the People team at ShopBack shared about the applicants they hire for. “Apart from people with deep expertise who can contribute immediately, we do take in interns and fresh grads for various roles, and they are expected to hit the ground running. But beyond skills and culture-fit, learning agility and grit are also important to us. The truth is, a point will come where the skills we possess may not be good enough. Everyone has to recognise that, so you have to constantly figure out how to improve yourself and make sure you’re at the level that your team mates need you to be at. Why? Because talented people want to work with other talented people. Otherwise, for the sake of the team, they'd rather have someone else who can do a better job. Even our leaders aren't spared. To paraphrase Henry, our CEO and Co-founder, he said this to me during my first week at ShopBack: 'The boss is the company. If I’m doing a bad job, you need to tell me that. If you’re just going to be a yes-man, then we don’t need you.' To me, that said a lot about what ownership meant in the company." 
