Alumni Series: Women in Engineering – meet Claudia Sin

• BEng in Computer Science (2008) & MSc in Engineering Enterprise Management (2011), HKUST
• Set up a women-centric social shopping platform “ShopLovers.co” (formerly “Clozetto”) with two female friends in 2012; current users reach 16,000
• “ShopLovers.co” became a top 10 startup in Google’s Empowering Young Entrepreneurs Program (EYE Program) 2015 and is a top 10 startup in Swire Properties’ Blueprint Accelerator Program (cohort 3)
   

A computer science enthusiast, Claudia Sin ventured into entrepreneurship four years ago when she and her friends developed a social shopping platform that targeted women users. She shared the joy and difficulties of her entrepreneurial journey and how she positively learned from mistakes to build her company.

1. Why did you choose to go into engineering and your particular areas of focus?

I have a thing about coding and computers years before entering university. I love to build something out of nothing. The happiness of seeing the final product and the joy of creation is incomparable to many other experiences.

Studying computer science at HKUST not only strengthened my programming skills, but also built up my analytical mindset, especially on problem solving, which is the best equipment for me to take up more challenges later on.

2. What did you find most memorable about your days at SENG?

I was in the Computer Science Student Society back then. The ex-co I worked with have become lifelong friends, and my husband was one of the ex-co too. There were lots of crazy funny things we did together and they became the golden memories of my university days. We still laugh at those moments when we gather.

3. How did the thought of setting up your company come to you?

It was there since my childhood. My family always expected me to be the boss of my family’s small business when I grew up, so I always imagined how I would lead a company. But the business discontinued later on. Since I liked to build my own things anyway, I started my own business and fulfilled the images in my head over the years.

ShopLovers is built because we believe shopping should be a social activity, with lots of chit-chat, and lots of encouragement to shop more during the process. (That’s exactly what we did with each other back in the days. It’s a lot of fun.) But as technology advances we slowly switch to online shopping, which we find the key element of shopping — interaction with other enthusiasts — is lost. As more and more people switch to online buying nowadays, we build ShopLovers, a social shopping platform, to bring social interaction back to the cold lonely online buying world.

4. How did you build your company over the past few years? What difficulties did you face and how did you overcome them?

It was tough. There are so many things that can go wrong and every new day has a new problem. At the beginning I just freaked out and thought maybe it wouldn’t work (but I continued to fix things anyway), and now I just treat it as a normal day like any other days. It’s normal to have different new problems coming every single day when you are building something new and different.

In the process of building the company, I am thankful for my great friend and partner Jubee’s support in the good and bad times. It’s much easier to give up than to hang on and stay in the game, and during the difficult times it’s important to have support from your partner, friends and families.

5. Do you have any engineers in your team?

I have two engineers in my team now. They both surprise the other international teams at Blueprint Accelerator, as they are learning so fast with great attitude and communication skills. I have been asked quite a few times where I get them, and I told them they are both from HKUST Engineering.

6. How do you feel about being a woman in engineering?

At work I don’t consider myself as a woman engineer, but just an ordinary engineer. I think if one loves analytical challenge, s/he will love to be an engineer, and be a professional one, no matter of their gender.

7. What do you see as your most satisfying achievement to date and what are your overall goals?

The achievement is not my own, it’s a team’s effort and achievement. Our company ShopLovers has proven to be a profitable business, receiving recognition from Google EYE Program as a top 10 startup in 2015, and entering Blueprint Accelerator (cohort 3) as a top 10 startup among fierce international competition. There is still a lot to be done, and we are making progress every day.

My goal is to make ShopLovers successful, and to make the team happy to work here.

8. Any advice for students who are interested to go for entrepreneurship? And for those who are interested to study engineering?

Find good, compatible partners to work with — this will be the cornerstone of your company’s future success. Do not settle for partners with indifferent skill set, or have different values from you, or who you don’t respect. Be patient in finding your future partners, don’t settle.

It is also better to learn through working at a startup at the beginning. You could learn the skills, meet the network, and observe all the mistakes with salary. (So you don’t need to burn your own money to learn all these.)

For studying engineering, I think preparation before class is very important to keep the overall learning speed.