Inspiring Innovators: Neha Singh
Founder and CEO of Obsess, On Listening to Your Gut
At SAP.iO, we work with innovative people and new technologies that positively impact our world every day, and we think it’s time to share their stories with you! In our series, “Inspiring Innovators,” we get to hear how leaders of cutting-edge startup technologies overcame, thrived, and pursued their goals. SAP.iO’s Alexa Gorman sat down to discuss the road to success and lessons learned with some of our most inspiring startup founders.
Meet Neha Singh
Her unique path to entrepreneurship included combining her experiences with the ability to listen to her instincts and trust herself to know what to do. Neha Singh combined her love of fashion with her knowledge of technology to create something entirely new for the market, finding the right fit as the Founder and CEO of Obsess.
Neha studied computer science during undergrad and then attended MIT for her masters. Her appreciation for computer science gave her a way to build the things she imagined, prizing the logical aspect of how inputting a set of instructions can result in predictable outcomes. Neha’s accomplishments are many; for Google, she was on the team that created the first dashboard for Google Ad Words. She then spent time on Google News which she described as an amazing learning experience. At this point, she realized she liked the product side, specifically figuring out how to build something and defining it based on how users interact with it.
Neha took fashion design classes discovering she would excel on the technology side of fashion. When she joined an eCommerce marketplace startup, she realized that all eCommerce sites look the same and have a grid-of-thumbnails database interface. This was because that’s the template the eCommerce platforms provide brands and retailers to showcase their products.
After that experience, Neha was the Head of Product at Vogue and worked on projects for launching the Vogue digital properties, including Vogue.com and Vogue Runway. She saw how much luxury brands were struggling with their online eCommerce experience and especially their mobile experience.
“When your entire brand gets reduced to four to six thumbnails on a mobile screen, you cannot translate the brand experience you are creating in retail stores, fashion shows, and events, into a digital shopping format. That’s when I understood the need in the market for a better digital shopping experience.”
As more brands move online and look to differentiate their experience to engage consumers, Neha knew things had to change. To spearhead this effort, Neha launched Obsess in 2017, creating the next-generation eCommerce interface for today’s consumers. Obsess is a Metaverse Shopping Platform that enables brands and retailers to create highly interactive, visual, and branded Virtual Stores on their websites and metaverse platforms. The Obsess platform creates HD-quality, beautiful, photorealistic 3D 360 experiences that increase awareness, engagement, and conversion. Her team combines expertise in platform engineering, consumer web, mobile tech, fashion, e-commerce, gaming, and 3D. Obsess customers include Coach, Ralph Lauren, Charlotte Tilbury, Mattel, General Mills, and NBC Universal among others.
Let’s Chat
How do customers use your technology?
Customers use the Obsess platform in a variety of ways. They can virtualize their retail stores when they open new flagship stores or when they do pop-up stores, to create virtual versions of their shops to increase the audience reach of a physical location. Alternatively, many customers create digital experiences that don’t exist in real life. They can create immersive 3D environments that reflect their brand, placing consumers in a unique environment where they can learn about the brand, discover products, and shop.
For example, the global beauty brand Charlotte Tilbury has been creating exceptional virtual experiences on the Obsess platform for two years. They develop custom campaigns for each new product launch in fantastical environments that highlight the company’s creativity and brand, setting them apart from the competition.
What is the best advice you have received?
The advice shared with Neha that resonated for her most was to be mindful of putting too much weight on the advice people give you. She has experienced this many times as a founder, sharing your company’s premise and having everyone give you their opinion on what to do without knowing the details of the business. As a startup, you have a lot of advisors, and especially when you’re in the early stage, people will give you all kinds of opinions on what you should be doing, which can often be conflicting advice.
“Ultimately, what I learned was to trust my instincts. Your innate knowledge of your business and your market because you have spent so much time on it, is more valuable than anything an external person can tell you about your business. I have learned to listen to what my gut tells me is right.”
What are you most proud of with Obsess?
In speaking with Neha, it was clear that she is very proud of the technology that they have developed. She states that she is most proud of the photorealistic quality of the experiences they can create, on a mobile browser, which is very technically challenging. Neha is also incredibly proud of the massive global brands Obsess has been able to build as a customer base, after starting from scratch as a startup, and who now believe that the technology is valuable.
“Because our technology is so visual, I’m super proud of the fact that they have placed the trust in us to be able to represent their brand in this very visceral and immersive way!”
What character traits do you think you possess that help you be a successful founder?
You can tell right away when speaking with Neha that she is energetic. She credits her energy and positivity being something that helps her as a founder, and she has learned that it is crucial to keep a positive mental attitude. The whole Obsess team values a culture of positivity and optimism, and the consistency of this attitude across the company helps to embrace a positive mindset.
“I would also say to be a successful founder, you need to be persistent because you’re going to face a lot, a lot of challenges. Have a very high tolerance for risk because you will need to take risks if you are trying to create something from scratch.”
What guidance would you give a startup starting a new SAP.iO Foundry program?
When we asked Neha if she had any hot tips for those startups that are about to begin working with SAP.iO, she recommended using the program time to build relationships within SAP and to complete your integration. As this is the time that you will have the most attention and support.
What we learned
Neha launched web and mobile products, reaching millions of users at Google and Vogue, driving significant audience and revenue growth. With her passion for understanding how a business need and technology intersect, she listened to her gut and struck out on her own to create Obsess. Neha is on a mission to replace the generic and tedious e-commerce user interface with visual, discovery-driven, amazingly immersive shopping experiences. She has helped to build a company that is the only Metaverse platform that allows you to sell physical products. Neha married her love of fashion with innovative technology creating genuine works of art.
You must see it to believe it; check out some of their virtual stores.
Obsess was part of SAP.iO Foundry New York’s Omnichannel Customer Engagement program this year. The program comprised of startups that help enhance and personalize the customer journey and experience. Customer Experience (CX) is SAP’s largest addressable market, with a strong demand for more CX partner solutions that SAP customers can leverage. If you are a startup looking to change customer experience for the better, like Obsess, check out our upcoming programs here.
