Shaan Arora: Co-founder and CEO at Alia Technologies

^{Joe Fox (00:01.016)}
Hey everyone, Joe Fox here with another episode of retain growth thrive. As you know, this is the grow wave podcast. I'm the president over at grow wave. And today I'm super excited to introduce our guests. like Hamish from order editing, this is another very young, cool founder who has achieved incredible things in the space in an incredibly short period of time. so without further ado, I want to introduce Sean from Alia.

and he's gonna take it away and give us a little bit of info about yourself, man. I know I gave you a lot of props in that first introduction, but tell me how you've done it. I know a lot of our guests are gonna be wanting to kind of know your story, the secret sauce, how you guys are doing, what you're doing. I mean, I see the incredible results you're achieving for clients. So tell me a little bit about the journey so far.

_{Shaan Arora (00:53.538)}
Yeah, for sure. And thanks for having me on Joe. I appreciate it. And thank you for all the kind words. Not sure if I'm deserving of all of those, but thank you. totally appreciate it, dude. And I got to get some tips from you on how to get bigger, bro. You got some big ass muscles.

^{Joe Fox (01:00.068)}
You definitely are. You definitely are.

_{Joe Fox (01:08.804)}
It's just time, dude. It's just time.

^{Shaan Arora (01:14.722)}
I gotta get some coaching tips from you, bro. yeah, man, you know, started the company two years ago when I was in university. So yeah, I started the company in college. And what was happening was I was building this application for my school where students could learn about FinTech. This is like pretty far from Shopify, but students could learn about FinTech and get rewarded in my school's currency, which was Husky dollars. You know, every school.

^{Joe Fox (01:36.929)}
Yeah. Yeah.

^{Joe Fox (01:43.839)}
Nice.

_{Shaan Arora (01:44.558)}
and you can spend it at the store and stuff like that. was like, students could learn about FinTech as industry and get rewarded by our school for doing so. So the idea of like, of five rewards, like rewards education. that's how we got started. It was really a school project. And from the school project, I was building this app and I was like, hey, like think this could actually be used for a business.

^{Joe Fox (01:55.308)}
Yes, yeah.

_{Shaan Arora (02:11.36)}
as a business, right? Like this could be used for other businesses where people could learn about their business and get rewarded for doing so. And I could maybe make one day, you know, God willing, could make it into a business myself. That was the inception of the idea, right? So before we were a pop-up tool, we were kind of more of a loyalty education tool for our brands. And by brands at that time, we had none. We had two brands and, you know, very much

very much early stage where neither Rand was paying us any money and we were just trying to learn. So that was us two years ago. We had, we were making $20 a month. Then, you know, I graduated from college. I decided to go full time on my business, which at that time wasn't really a business. It was more just an idea and a concept. So the next six months, we did whatever we could to bring in clients in the door. Like we would, you know, do cold outbound.

straight up cold call people. It my first time ever doing sales. So I was trying to figure out how to sell people which, know, get convincing able to give you money is a difficult thing, which I learned quickly, but it's good thing. Yeah.

^{Joe Fox (03:16.675)}
Well, you've something out, my friend. I mean, it's, it's like such a, such a quick growing product. And, know, from everyone I speak to in the space, everyone's loving it. The brands you've got on now, I mean, you said you didn't have any brands at the start, but you've got some big brands on now, like, and I feel like you're adding to that repertoire every week.

Obviously I know Chris, you know, Goodsell who's now on your sales team, friends with him for a minute. So, you know, you guys are crushing it. I just want to dive into a couple of points there before we go too far. So school projects. So your school must be loving you right now. Like to go from implementing, you know, an idea as a school project to being

_{Shaan Arora (03:48.066)}
Okay. Okay, next.

_{Shaan Arora (03:58.55)}
Yeah, sure.

^{Joe Fox (04:12.992)}
You know, I would say one of the top five quickest growing Shopify apps. don't think I'd be wrong in saying that. that's incredible. What does your school think about that? What are your, what are you, what does your family think about that?

_{Shaan Arora (04:25.838)}
Yeah, our school is very supportive of us. So yeah, like they've, they've actually fun. I mean, we're fully bootstrapped, but they've given us just like grants to help us as we've been growing. They give us like some interns from the school for free. Like they'll cover the cost for our interns, which is cool. So that type of stuff is fun, right? And my family is super proud. Like at the beginning, think with, with the same with everyone else, they were kind of like, like

^{Joe Fox (04:35.457)}
Yeah, yeah.

_{Shaan Arora (04:56.398)}
I'm not fully sure about this, but you seem like you seem confident in this, right? And now, yeah, for sure. Yeah, no, they always back to me in the beginning. It was more like I, you feel confident like they're like, I'm not sure how I feel about it. But like, you seem like you know what this could be. So I'm like, like, you know, I live with my parents after I graduated from college, because I didn't I mean, didn't really have too much money. So it was like,

^{Joe Fox (05:00.703)}
Yes, yeah, so they backed you. They gave you that support. Yeah.

_{Shaan Arora (05:25.282)}
I can live with my parents for free and build this under their roof and, you know, see where that goes. So yeah, my family is very supportive of me. And now of course they're like really happy and they have been very supportive from the beginning. And at the end of the day, they did kind of want to just see me happy and building this company makes me just really happy in life.

^{Joe Fox (05:45.053)}
Absolutely, man. That's amazing. I love to hear these stories because, you know, unfortunately, like sometimes the younger generation does get a bad rap and does get like this negativity, you know, kind of put towards them in the media and from, you know, people who are out of touch with reality. But I feel so blessed and fortunate to be in an industry where I see young people such as yourself, such as Hamish, who are just like, this is my goal. This is my idea.

I'm going to use the Shopify, you know, community to really build something that's impressive and adds a ton of value. And I mean, you've got some legacy competitors, but like you're crushing them out of the water. Like I know for a fact that you're taking a lot of people's lunch off their plates and it's good though. And that, and you know, I think that's important because I grow away for a little bit similar, like we're taking, you know, brands away from legacy competitors, but it's.

_{Shaan Arora (06:24.493)}
Yeah.

_{Shaan Arora (06:41.198)}
Awesome.

^{Joe Fox (06:41.863)}
It's because it's one of those situations where it's like, if you offer a better product at a comparable or better price, it's the, it's the incumbents fault for not evolving. Right. So like, I think that's the, think competition is healthy. And I think, it's, it's as long as it's benefiting the merchant, then it's a, it's a win-win. So, I, yeah, that's why it's easy for me to jump on and give you praise with barely knowing you, because I see this from the external. know the.

_{Shaan Arora (06:47.084)}
Yeah. Yeah, it's a good one.

_{Shaan Arora (07:02.51)}
Totally.

^{Joe Fox (07:11.654)}
some of the brands you're associated with. And I know some of the people that work for you and it's nothing but good positive things. So congratulations on that. To anyone, you know, well, a couple of things I want to unpack. One is your thoughts on the Shopify ecosystem in general. I'd love to. Yeah, because I mean, that's been a huge part of the success for yourself and for someone like Hamish is like, without the Shopify community,

_{Shaan Arora (07:40.417)}
Yeah.

^{Joe Fox (07:40.508)}
I have no doubt you would have succeeded, it's accelerated by the community. So tell me a little bit about what that kind of looks like and how the Shopify community has supported Aaliyah.

_{Shaan Arora (07:55.116)}
Yeah, it's such a question. And yeah, super fortunate to be part of the Shopify community for sure. Like, and I'll tell you why, honestly, it's because even when we got started, right? Like, you know, we didn't really have much, no one knew us. Like I didn't come from an e-comm background, by the way. Like I knew zero people in Shopify when we launched. Or I also never did anything. I was just like, let's learn what e-commerce is. But, but you know, at the same time people were...

down to hop on a call. Two years ago when we started, when I was doing these sales calls, you know how I started these emails, I said like, hey, I'm a university student looking for help on my company, looking for a research, someone to help me with some research, right? And people were receptive to that and people jumped on calls and they actually, it's supposed to be a research call from their point of view. Obviously I tried to turn it into a sales calls and sometimes they'd succeed and they would actually try out the product. Right now,

_{Shaan Arora (08:50.55)}
If we were to go and sell into banks, sell into large institutions, healthcare, like it's not the same. Like no one is going to be like down to try it out because they like you or they semi believe in your product. Right? Like the ability for young SaaS companies to sell to e-commerce brands.

^{Joe Fox (08:57.791)}
Mm-hmm.

_{Shaan Arora (09:13.58)}
without any traction is unique. Like in most other industries, you need to have years under your belt. You need to show that it's a great product before people will even get on a call with you. So for that reason, I think it's a great place for anyone who is looking to build something cool to get on calls with folks who will actually be helpful for you and might actually use your tool.

^{Joe Fox (09:16.797)}
Yeah.

^{Joe Fox (09:26.409)}
Yes. Yeah.

_{Shaan Arora (09:40.59)}
If you can convince them that you can give them enough value, or if you can convince them that they should just like you, or if you're just kind of a person that they want to support, that's part of it too. Before we were Pop-ups, before we had 1500 brands, before we had the revenue numbers we see today, a lot of people use the app simply because they were like, hey, Sean seems like a good guy. even if this product isn't great, I want to support him. And that is huge for very young founders who are fragile.

^{Joe Fox (10:01.363)}
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

_{Shaan Arora (10:10.252)}
And then, you know, just beyond that, like getting on calls with folks is like the most super, super chill vibes. Like I'll on a call and a lot of times the first word will be like, Hey bro, how you doing? Right? Like that's not, that's not like a typical greeting for most sales calls in other industries over here. It's like, yo, like whatever it's like, you just chill. You're just like, Hey, where are you from? Like, yeah, like I love that football team. This is like, yeah, stuff like that. Like very casual. Like people are open, open, open to learning.

^{Joe Fox (10:16.966)}
Yes.

^{Joe Fox (10:21.648)}
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

^{Shaan Arora (10:39.53)}
open to trying stuff out. And if it doesn't work, they're going to uninstall for sure. They're going to uninstall, but at least they'll give you a chance. And if you can prove value, they'll pay you.

^{Joe Fox (10:44.425)}
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. And it sounds to me, it's like, you, did it. mean, sales, I think is such an interesting concept and obviously it's evolved so much. mean, my first kind of foray into e-comm agency tech was my own agency. So it was very much about having to sell the value and, and sell the value of all of these suite of products that formed a tech stack to continue to add value. But I think.

You you figured it out really well by, kind of like figuring out what your in was and then adding that value and everything like that. But to your point, it's like the, you know, what we were talking about then around the Shopify ecosystem and getting on and everyone's nice and chill. think Shopify in its ecosystem is so unique. It's created this big network of all of these partners, but above all this big network of entrepreneurs such as yourself that want to help each other.

_{Shaan Arora (11:23.404)}
Yeah.

^{Joe Fox (11:47.016)}
So you've got an entrepreneur merchant who teams up with someone such as yourself, who's got an entrepreneurial product and combining those two fuels, everything. And it's all backed by Shopify, right? So it's like, it's really, really cool to be a part of that ecosystem, you know? And I think clearly you figured it out at a very young age is like how important that network is and how important word of mouth is, which is really cool.

_{Shaan Arora (11:47.148)}
Yeah, 100%.

_{Shaan Arora (11:55.822)}
That's true.

_{Shaan Arora (12:01.741)}
Yeah.

_{Shaan Arora (12:13.676)}
Yeah, totally. And I guess one thing I want to touch on Joe, cause you kind of reminded me of this is like, you know, the idea of founder to founder sales, right? Like when, when a founder hops on a call with me, and this is more early days, again, we're like kind of larger now. So I take less sales calls. have a great salesperson that helps out, but, early days it was like, Hey, like I'm the founder. Like I used to think that I should be like, I'm one of the sales guys. Like we're a massive company and I'm like one of the sales guys. And then I realized that like, like

^{Joe Fox (12:21.432)}
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

^{Joe Fox (12:41.245)}
Mm-hmm.

_{Shaan Arora (12:42.712)}
These people are also founders. Like they would probably appreciate knowing that they're on the call with the founder of Alia instead of thinking on a call with a random sales, but like just like a sales guy, right? Like there's a difference. Like, and that was where it kind of clicked for me, like use that to your advantage, right? Because most times if I'm hopping on a sales call with, say a provider, the provider that I want to use, I'm not expecting the founder to be on the call. If I know it's the founder, to me, it feels like a whole different call because

^{Joe Fox (12:52.349)}
Absolutely. Yeah.

^{Joe Fox (13:10.865)}
Yes.

_{Shaan Arora (13:11.426)}
They will be open. They'll be honest. I can be open and honest. And like, am like, even if it's an expensive service, I'm more likely to convert because it's like, I know that being a founder is so hard. So I'll try your thing out simply because like it'd be cool to like, I care about supporting other people who are trying to do cool things. that like founder to founder sales, especially in the early days is a huge unlock. because people are just like, damn, like

^{Joe Fox (13:35.741)}
Absolutely.

_{Shaan Arora (13:37.678)}
This is like this kid is 20, you know, that time when I saw it was like 20, 23, 22, 23. Like I see myself in him when I was younger.

^{Joe Fox (13:44.241)}
Yes. Yeah. And I think it's like that, comfortability and that familiarity of like, you know, I had this, recorded an early episode today. I'm not sure if you know, Jamil from, other half, big, big, he's very involved in the, you know, Ecoms fear and him and his wife have a really cool agency. But I was chatting to him about this. He, he originally had,

A background that he was a restaurateur and kind of was in that hospitality space, scaled up a business and sold it. But he kind of, you know, mentioned the same thing like that founder to founder. Everyone has these levels of it's not necessarily the wins. It's also the failures and being able to resonate on those levels of like, Hey, we're going through challenges and this is the, this is what we found worked. And you can build a lot of rapport.

_{Shaan Arora (14:31.542)}
Yeah.

^{Joe Fox (14:40.315)}
very quickly with people who are facing similar challenges or who have in the past. So yeah, to that point, it's a very powerful driver when it's founded a founder, not just because of the wins, but also because of the losses. So that's awesome. And did I read your post recently correctly that you named the business after your partner? Is that correct? Or your girlfriend's?

_{Shaan Arora (15:07.641)}
So, no, yeah, it's just funny story. like, I made the post kind of just to get views and said like, so the reason we named the company Alia and when I'm up on calls, a lot of people are like, oh, is that your girlfriend's name? And I'm like, no, it's, but it's not, it's not. So essentially like we, initially wanted, I think startups that are, have Latin names are cool. And that was like me at 21 years old to me.

^{Joe Fox (15:20.314)}
Okay, yeah, yeah.

^{Joe Fox (15:33.722)}
Yeah. Yeah.

_{Shaan Arora (15:35.502)}
we went through a bunch of Latin, like I looked up on the internet, like cool Latin words. I looked it up and found like 200 to 300 words and I picked out the 40. One of them is alias, A-L-I-U-S, which in Latin means different. So I thought that was nice, right? Like alias. Now looking more into alias, the feminine version of alias in Latin is alia, which is the perfect place name. So it is a name in lot of languages and cultures, but for us it's

^{Joe Fox (15:50.075)}
like that. Yeah.

^{Joe Fox (15:57.539)}
Okay. Nice.

_{Shaan Arora (16:05.006)}
a Latin word that means different. you know, first, it's important, right? Like, I think every every company strives to be different. We're no, we're no different, right? And like, we like to be different in both internal and external stuff and just like, be unique. So that's how the name came. A lot of people do think it's not a name, which is kind of funny. Maybe I think my plan is like when I have my first daughter, you know, at some point in my life, I would name her Alia.

^{Joe Fox (16:28.57)}
Yeah, no, I love that. And it's got a really good meaning. It's almost one of those business names where the tagline and the ethos of the company comes through in the name, which is really cool. yeah, very, very, very cool. okay. So I would also love, you know, I, I feel like what you've done is unique. I feel like we're going to see a lot more, you know,

really cool entrepreneurial younger people coming through the Shopify ecosystem. What is one thing, you know, if you could give people who are coming up with a new concept or they're about to launch on the Shopify app store and they're going to be going into this e-comm space or maybe they're in very early stages of planning and everything like that. What would be your sort of key piece of advice to

those younger entrepreneurs starting out that you wish you had have learned earlier.

_{Shaan Arora (17:31.916)}
Yeah, for sure. I'd say my piece of advice would be move with urgency and speed in every interaction. That's what wins. That's what's helped us win a lot is can we be the fastest? Can we be the most urgent? When dealing with clients, right? If you get on a call, you...

want to move things along as quickly as possible. And if they ask you to send something on email, you send it immediately. And if they respond to you on email or text or Slack, you respond even if it's 12 AM at night. When you see anything from a client from literally anyone, especially in the early days, you respond no matter if you're out partying with your friends, you just respond to that. You respond to that message because you have urgency and you have speed. And that will help.

^{Joe Fox (18:23.17)}
Yeah. Yeah.

_{Shaan Arora (18:26.626)}
because if you can get there quicker and you can do it.

at a speed that they don't expect, like that's a winning thing. So I'd say moving with that level of, want to close and I want to win now, like right now, like people see that and people resonate with that and also just helps to build the business faster, my opinion.

^{Joe Fox (18:49.946)}
I love that. And it's kind of one of those things where it's you're showing the merchant that their success is as important to you as it is to them. And I agree with that ethos. always, try and anyone that I add to my team, you know, at any organization that I've been at or within my own agency, I really had a thing about prioritizing.

_{Shaan Arora (18:59.618)}
Yeah.

^{Joe Fox (19:15.906)}
replies, like even if you can't give an instant solution to whatever the request is, or you aren't able to give an answer straight away, replying and letting that person know a clear next step and when that will come, I think is so powerful. And unfortunately, you know, in our industry, it is missed by some organizations. So I agree with that. really resonate with that. and then. Yep.

_{Shaan Arora (19:40.526)}
And also like while you're a young organization, that's like the value, that's the currency you have, right? Like if you're a bootstrap SaaS company, like you don't have too much power, but the power you do have is your time and your ability to iterate quickly and fail quickly. Like when companies at our, you need even at our size, right? Like we cannot iterate as quickly. cannot fail. We still do because we operate extremely lean.

_{Joe Fox (19:51.042)}
Yes.

_{Joe Fox (20:01.601)}
Yeah.

_{Shaan Arora (20:10.562)}
But when we get, let's say to 10 million ARR, like you cannot move as quickly as you used to when you were at zero dollars, right? So like you have that ability to do whatever, do whatever you want really. And there's no consequences. like, you know, you have that and like that's how you beat incumbents who have to move slower. And the goal is like as a company, even if you're at that 10 million, you can still move as agile.

^{Joe Fox (20:17.399)}
Yes. Yep.

_{Shaan Arora (20:38.222)}
as you were at zero dollars. Most companies can't do that because they don't plan for it. We are going to be doing that because we know how important that is, but that's how you the incumbents is you move quicker, fail quicker, and they're not taking those chances and they're not failing quicker. So you're going to beat them out.

^{Joe Fox (20:46.701)}
Yeah

^{Joe Fox (20:53.047)}
Absolutely. I love that. And can I ask too, like with whatever you're comfortable sharing, obviously publicly, you you touched on a few good points there about the future, about still being able to be agile, still moving quick, still really focusing on serving merchants in the best way possible. You know, pop-ups, engagement, quizzes, all of that sort of stuff.

super important gamification. Like it's a, table stakes at the moment, which means that you are going to continue to grow as words, you know, grows and everything like that. But, what's next for, Aliyah, like what, what, what do you, what do you see as like the key that's going to keep you, you know, driving this growth, keep helping merchants. And I think that'll kind of shape, I guess what I'm trying to

_{Shaan Arora (21:42.179)}
Yeah.

^{Joe Fox (21:46.091)}
interested to see is like, are your thoughts for ecom in the future and how are you applying it to Alia?

_{Shaan Arora (21:52.206)}
Yeah, for sure. everything for me comes from the amount of data that we have, right? And what can we do with that? Right? So when you're starting off, you have the issue that you don't have all the data to make great decisions and have great AI models because you don't necessarily have your own data. You can have other data that maybe you can use, but it's not your tested data. Now, at this point we're at, right, when you fast forward to today.

^{Joe Fox (22:10.521)}
Yep.

^{Joe Fox (22:16.568)}
Mm-hmm.

_{Shaan Arora (22:20.462)}
We have 1,500 brands. About every month, we're getting about 120 million views of our pop-ups. So that's a huge number. And meaning we have a lot of data. So when we think about how does our model create the best pop-up, how does our model predict what time to show the pop-up, how does our model iterate through all the tests, like what time should that appear, what copy should be there, what images should be there, how should the buttons look?

^{Joe Fox (22:26.551)}
Wow. Yeah.

_{Shaan Arora (22:49.678)}
Right? Like we have a moat now that we have that data and either other people who are younger than us don't have the data or people who who might be like, you know, ESPs are not utilizing that data correctly and efficiently. So now we have this age where, you know, with the advances in AI, like we can create pop-ups using our moat of a ton of great brands that we know what works for them. How can we apply?

^{Joe Fox (22:49.954)}
Yeah. Yeah.

^{Joe Fox (23:04.354)}
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, yeah.

_{Shaan Arora (23:18.35)}
the learnings and the insights in an automated fashion to every new brand that comes on. So the brand number 1,501 is going to benefit from the other 1,500 brands that we have. And these other 1,500 brands are going to benefit from brand 1,501 because the new brand gets better with all of our old brands and all the old brands get better with every new brand coming in. So that's the future for us, right? It's like, we have this mode, we have this data. Now, how can we...

^{Joe Fox (23:31.307)}
Yes.

^{Joe Fox (23:42.613)}
Yes.

_{Shaan Arora (23:48.77)}
take those learnings and then automated fashion using AI and accelerate growth for our merchants. And that's the future that we see. And I think that's a future that is going to be the most important way to scale a business and stay relevant in the age of AI. And I don't think a lot of incumbents are doing it. And for that matter, I think we'll be able to knock them out. the newer ones that are coming in, they don't have the amount of data that we have. So we'll beat them in that. And the incumbents, if they're not working on this.

I mean, it's gonna be tough for them just to compete to.

^{Joe Fox (24:21.143)}
Well, I mean, you're eating that lunch every single like every second that we're sitting here, you're doing that. So I, I'm not, I don't, I'm sure you're as I'm worried about that. I mean, it's healthy to be aware of your competition, but I truly think that you've created enough of a, as you said, moat and you've created, you've carved out some blue ocean for yourself to be able to really, you know, proceed and continue to grow. So I love to love to see that. And it sounds exciting. I mean, I think.

_{Shaan Arora (24:26.382)}
Yeah.

^{Joe Fox (24:51.714)}
The AI scares a lot of people, but I also think if you utilize AI in a good way and like, I always say this, it's like AI is only as good as the ideas and the people behind it. You know what I mean? So it's like, if you're putting in good ideas into AI and you've got the right people coming up with those ideas, then it's nothing to be afraid of. It's something to embrace. And it sounds like you've got that well thought out with the data and everything like that. So I love to hear that.

if a brand is looking today, say for example, Sean, they're sitting there and they're saying, Hey, you know, my pop-ups aren't doing well, or like, I want to be getting more out of, you know, all of the new customers that are coming through top of funnel. What is the best place for them to get in contact with you to get a trial of, Alia like what, what's the best way that they can do that?

_{Shaan Arora (25:48.93)}
Yeah, for sure. And for more context of exactly what we do, we just do pop-ups. So think about if your Klaviyo pop-up is converting at 2 or 3%, we can get that number up. We'd be 30 days free where we would be able to create the pop-ups for you, run the A-B test, and you can truly test it out without any worries of having to pay until after the 30 days if you choose to continue.

^{Joe Fox (26:13.431)}
Amazing.

_{Shaan Arora (26:14.818)}
That's the goal, right? Like if you're looking at your Klaviyo, your Tempted, you're on this end account, you're like, damn, these pop-ups are not doing that well. Even if they are doing well, we can make them do much better. know, do a trial with us and you will see that your options are improved and you will make more money when you become an Alia customer. The best way to get in contact is our website, AliaLearn.com. You can go there, get a demo with someone from our team, or you can just sign up yourself and start the trial. You can self-serve where you can.

to speak to our team, either sort of go with us. And at 30 days free and our pricing is, I believe it's fair and I believe like you'll feel that it's a good price after you do a trial, honestly.

^{Joe Fox (26:57.364)}
Yeah, I think it's like your pricing model. I checked it out. think it's like really good the way that it works. And the 30 day kind of like trial intro is like, brands already get to see that ROI. And that's, you know, really important. think, I think the way that you shape it and do it is very clever. So congratulations on that as well. And just letting you know, I'll put all the links in the show notes as well. And, it's where's, where's the best people.

_{Shaan Arora (27:17.368)}
Thank you,

_{Shaan Arora (27:23.438)}
Thank you,

^{Joe Fox (27:26.111)}
place for people to follow your journey to right like I really like the content you put out about what you what you're up to what you're working on you know you're very upfront and honest about that journey I think that's quite inspiring is linkedin the best place for people to connect with you or do you have another social channel you prefer

_{Shaan Arora (27:29.399)}
Yeah.

_{Shaan Arora (27:45.548)}
Yeah, for sure. LinkedIn, I post on there about our journey and then on Twitter as well, I post a lot. So Twitter is at I am Shaan Arora and then LinkedIn is just my name Sean.

^{Joe Fox (27:55.965)}
No, awesome. No, no. cool, man. Well, look, I always close it out with this because we all travel so much in this industry. So I always like finding out, you know, we always go to so many like conferences. think we're probably one of those industries in econ where we travel more than almost anyone else, especially if you're working with various teams globally and everything like that. so my question to you is you cannot say a person.

But what's one thing that you cannot travel without? I'll go first to give you inspiration. Mine is this. Everyone, portable battery. So this is the best one that I've found out there in the market. It's completely waterproof. It's heavy enough for me to actually remember that it's, you know, somewhere in my pocket or it's in my backpack. It gets about three laptop charges and about four to six.

phone charges total without before I need to charge it again. So that's mine. I can't be disconnected. I'm sure you're the same, but what's your thing that you can't travel without?

_{Shaan Arora (29:00.51)}
huh.

Yeah, I mean, there's just one book that I'm pretty much obsessed with and I read it like all the time. It's called Life of Pi. It's a very famous movie about it, but the book itself, I never travel without. Even I've probably read it like eight times, but I resonate with it a lot and I just love every part of it. And like every time I read it, I learn something new. I would like, I find something else that I think is cool. So I never traveled without that. Even like, yeah, I know you're supposed to read different books, but I just like that book and I just keep reading.

^{Joe Fox (29:17.224)}
Wow. Yeah.

^{Joe Fox (29:31.282)}
No, well, I have to say I'm a, used to be someone who was like, really get through a book, get through a book, get through a book. And, know, I've read thousands of books in my lifetime. I started reading very like impactful, powerful books at a young age. And I think, you know, readers are leaders, but to your point on the repeatedly reading one, I think that is incredibly important as well. I have about 10 books that are kind of like,

_{Shaan Arora (29:49.262)}
Thank

^{Joe Fox (29:59.6)}
always in circulation, even if I'm reading something new. know, like, for example, I've just added another one back into my rotation is like Peter Thiel zero to one, I'm constantly like, looking back at notes that I've highlighted and I may not reread the whole thing, but to your point, it's like going back to particular lessons, I think that's really important to do. So no, I love that. I'll have to check that out. I have seen the movie, but I've

_{Shaan Arora (30:03.729)}
nice.

_{Shaan Arora (30:11.854)}
Yes.

^{Joe Fox (30:27.379)}
I'll be honest, haven't read the book. I'll definitely take your invest, your lesson on that one. perfect man. Well, look, I would love to do a part two of this and like a year time. have no doubt that you're going to continue to skyrocket with ARR. And, know, as I said, I know some of the, you know, Chris on your team and I really love seeing what you're doing. I think you're inspiring a lot of people. So, you know, keep up the amazing work and,

_{Shaan Arora (30:43.374)}
Thank you.

^{Joe Fox (30:56.446)}
Hopefully we can pick this conversation up, you know, middle of next year and, and talk about some of the things that are happening over at Alia and the growth that you're having. So congratulations, man. Thank you very much for coming on board. I'll make sure all of those links are below so that everyone can connect with you and follow the journey. And most importantly, if you're a merchant watching this, I highly encourage you to take advantage of this 30 day trial.

I you know, a grow wave how much that lifecycle marketing and getting you know, top of funnel sorted out is so crucial to building loyal long term customers. So I absolutely employ you to go check out alia's pop ups. And it will help you regardless. So please take advantage of that link below. But yeah, man, thank you so much for coming on board, dude. I'm looking forward to catching up in person at some point to

_{Shaan Arora (31:49.802)}
Thank you. Of course. Yeah, that's good.

^{Joe Fox (31:55.131)}
I know you're super busy, so I'll let you get on with your day, but thank you so much. Appreciate having you on, Shane.

_{Shaan Arora (32:00.418)}
Yeah, thank you for the time and you are an awesome host.

^{Joe Fox (32:02.963)}
Appreciate it, man. Thank you so much. Enjoy the rest of your day. Cheers. Everyone. Thank you so much for tuning into another episode of retain grow thrive the grow wave podcast. as you can see, I really get excited in particular about the young founders that come in this podcast. I think, what Shaan and Alia are doing is, it's just really game changing. And I think it's a Testament to the Shopify ecosystem. As I said, if you're a merchant, please click the link below.

_{Shaan Arora (32:05.933)}
Sure.

^{Joe Fox (32:33.049)}
I really encourage you to follow their journey and to check the product out. It will have a really positive difference. So thank you for tuning in. If there's another guest you'd like to see come on board, feel free to write in the comments or send us an email at joe.fox@growave.io and thank you for your time.

Awesome brother, thank you so much.