From The Straits Times    |

Nyha Shree. 30, Co-founder of Jumper.ai

Nyha Shree’s entrepreneurial journey is a real story of perseverance. By the time she co-founded social media commerce company Jumper.ai, she already had five other attempted ventures under her belt, three of which failed to take off. Undeterred, she set her sights on unifying social media and e-commerce, and launched Jumper.ai in 2017 to allow businesses to make sales directly on social media platforms.

Before she started the company, Nyha had experience with fielding queries from clients on customer communication, but she finally experienced the frustration of an inarticulate messaging system when she tried – and failed for a full two weeks – to buy winter clothing. Her attempts to contact a seller of a jacket she liked on social media only resulted in a comedy of errors. Instead of addressing her specific query, she was instead bombarded with the seller’s entire inventory in an upselling effort. This lightbulb moment of hers resulted in Jumper.ai. 

Nyha Shree. 30, Co-founder of Jumper.ai

Photo: Nyha Shree Instagram

Her company’s software makes it possible for products on social media posts to be immediately “shoppable” – no hassles with being diverted to other websites – thereby providing shoppers with the shortest route from engagement to purchase. Businesses are now directly linked to their target consumers on social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram. The software also engages customers via automated messaging with the use of a chatbot, so they’re guided through every point of the sale. 

To Nyha, social media is a vast marketplace with immense possibilities. There are more than three billion active social media users worldwide, according to the 2018 global digital reports from media companies We Are Social and Hootsuite – that’s almost half the world’s population. While social e-commerce is still in its infancy (Facebook’s Marketplace feature, for example, which lets users buy and sell directly on its platform, launched only in 2016), but its potential is tremendous when skilfully utilised. Case in point: Nike, in a collaboration with Snapchat and Shopify in 2018, sold out a special pre-release of its Air Jordan III Tinker shoe within 23 minutes. 

Today, Jumper.ai services more than 11,000 businesses globally, including Disney and Unilever. Clients experience an average of a 30-40 per cent increase in sales. Its success landed Nyha on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list (which recognises the achievements of bright young talents) in the retail and e-commerce category in 2018. 

When Disney engaged Jumper.ai with the aim of increasing as well as tracking consumer engagement in its marketing efforts, the team helped to set up a purchase option directly on Facebook Messenger so that users could buy movie tickets for Avengers: Infinity War simply through the chatting app. The project became one of the start-up’s biggest successes, increasing page engagement by 18 times and achieving 58 per cent sales conversion. 

“In Asia, on average, 30 per cent of digital sales happen through social media,” Nyha told e27.co. Together with her co-founder Yash Kotak,Nyha is moving Jumper.aiinto more regional markets: Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, as well as Thailand, where the company will raise funding with Bangkok Bank’s Innohub, an accelerator programme especially designed for fintech start-ups. The future looks bright, and the future looks social. 

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