Rajiv Kumar, CEO & Founder, StoreHippo interacts with Yo! Success

StoreHippo is a new age Mobile E-commerce platform that provides comprehensive turnkey solutions for retailers to sell their products and services in the online marketplace. Powered by a truly mobile architecture and most advanced technology stack, StoreHippo creates feature-rich online stores for its clients in domestic as well as international market.

“An entrepreneur is one who surmounts difficulties and forges new paths,” said Rajiv Kumar, CEO & Founder of StoreHippo in an interaction with Yo! Success publication about his journey and challenges in creating a platform to build online stores.

Let’s read the excerpts from the interview:
Answer in less than 50 words:

Let’s read the excerpts from the interview:

What inspired you to build StoreHippo.com?

StoreHippo.com was the result of the frustration I felt when exploring the existing e-commerce platforms. Most of these were had too many limitations, were not flexible enough for customization and were not ready for Mobile commerce which is the future of online stores. Despite increasing demand for SaaS-based mobile ready platforms, existing platforms had not stepped up to cater to this requirement. There was a gap between the demand for a futuristic e-commerce platform and the existing solutions available in the market. We decided to fill this gap by coming up with a platform that can be leveraged by the online businesses for future. When I started StoreHippo, my aim was to help businesses bypass all the challenges that lie on the e-commerce path, and bring all related services under a single umbrella. Thus, StoreHippo.com was born as the one-stop solution for e-commerce businesses of all size.

What was the most challenging part of your journey till now?

Explaining technology and our technical edge to clients were a challenging task for us. Most of our clients could not differentiate between old and new technologies. Until they had a first-hand experience with the remarkable improvements and benefits of the new technology they were unable to comprehend the advantages we were offering over the existing platforms. They had a hard time understanding why we had a technical edge over the others and thus, we ended up hand holding some of the clients initially.

Please provide a brief overview of about StoreHippo.com

StoreHippo.com is a holistic, SaaS-based platform, which offers the complete range of services required to create and manage a successful online store. These include responsive web design, mobile apps, integration with payment providers & logistics firms, marketplace integration, multi-seller stores and much more. Our customers are entrepreneurs, vendors and individuals, across various industry verticals, who wish to sell products online and create their own special niche. StoreHippo.com allows you to grow from wannabe entrepreneur to e-store owner, in just a few minutes. We are an enterprise which helps other enterprises grow. The SME sector has a bright future. However, much needs to be done to catalyze growth opportunities in this field, especially in the online marketplace. And so Hippo Innovations Pvt. Ltd., the parent company of StoreHippo, was established with a clear aim of helping SMEs and individual entrepreneurs effectively set up their e-commerce portals, without facing any technical difficulties.

What is your life mantra?

Don’t let failures stop you from moving forward; failures are the stepping stones to success!

How did you overcome those challenges?

As mentioned above, explaining the technology and our technical edge to clients was a challenging task for us. Most of our clients could not differentiate between old and new technologies. Therefore, we decided to first give the clients what interests them the most and then slowly up sell the technology, so they get the first-hand experience of the advantages being offered by StoreHippo platform.

How do you protect yourself from the problem of Brain Drain? Tell us about your company’s attrition control practices.

Brain drain usually happens when your employees find the work monotonous or see minimal growth opportunities. Our platform uses the latest technology which is very futuristic and hence growth and learning never ends, for our employees. Instead of making a stable product, we work towards making it ahead of the competition and so we keep adding most advanced and latest features. This creates an environment of learning a constant growth.
Our HR policy is also targeted towards creating a growth-oriented environment, which eventually enhances the skills of our employees. We also work towards fostering loyalty by giving opportunities for enhancement, advancement, and progression. We have the policy to award our employees monthly on the basis of their performance in the given roles. We also offer benefits which are qualitative in nature and can also be quantified. We maintain a stress-free environment where each employee can directly interact with the top management and convey their grievances and problems if any. All these policies have helped us keep our attrition rate in check.

According to you, what are the three qualities an individual must have to achieve success?

The three qualities needed for success are patience, persistence and a futuristic vision that is focused towards problem solving.

Share any one habit which you think makes you more productive.

I believe that keeping your life simple and following a disciple in terms of daily routine makes you more productive. I prefer to eat home cooked meals on time and do yoga and light exercises daily to keep my body fit. I also believe in keeping a to-do list, which helps me in prioritizing my daily work and allows me to multi-task.

Answer in less than 50 words:

One tip to success
There is no substitute for hard work. Keep yourself open to new innovations and work to offer solutions that minimize complexity and maximize profitability. This holds true whether you are developing a new product, technology or any service. I firmly believe that technology should be used to make work and life easier.
One mistake you believe every individual must avoid.
Every individual must avoid being satisfied with what they have achieved. There should be a hunger within you to learn and improve yourself as a person and a professional. This keeps you moving and attaining new heights in life.
One most important lesson that you have learnt till now
The most important lesson is that never let any failure or setback deviate you from your goal. Failures are there to teach you how to succeed. Each time you fail, rework and improvise your plan and work towards achieving your goal.

What are your plans for next 3 years?

Our plan for next 3 years is to make StoreHippo the most popular e-Commerce platform for online businesses. We want to make it the first choice for anyone who wants to build and expand their business. We are also aiming for 100% customer satisfaction. In 3 years from now, we want StoreHippo to reach the level where it is the best company to work for.