In this episode of The Orita Podcast, Aaron Schwartz sits down with Shaan Arora, Co-Founder & CEO of Alia, to unpack how a scrappy team of college friends turned a simple idea, making ecommerce popups work better, into one of the fastest-growing tools in the Shopify ecosystem.

Shaan shares why “ownership” has been his north star since day one, how the founding team built trust (and staying power) early, and the unconventional growth moves, building in public, betting on partners, and obsessing over support, that helped Alia scale to real momentum.

Together, they dive into:

• Why Shaan cared more about ownership than a traditional career path (and how his parents shaped that mindset)

• How Alia’s founding team formed and the “hot dog stand” promise that kept them locked in through pivots

• The real competitive edge: shameless scrappiness, relentless ops, and world-class technical execution

• Shaan’s boldest sales story and why “doing the most” can win the deal

• What Alia does differently: smarter timing, smarter testing, and popups personalized by shopper behavior

• Why “data moat + speed” is the formula for beating incumbents

• Building in public as a free growth channel and why revenue posts work (even when they feel weird)

• The underrated growth lever: elite support + customer success as reputation engine

• Shaan’s take on SaaS: beware companies that market harder than they build

• Founder lessons on focus, letting fires burn, and not becoming the bottleneck as you scale

👥 Meet the guestShaan Arora, Co-Founder & CEO at Alia

🎙 Hosted byAaron Schwartz, Co-Founder & Co-CEO at Orita.ai

🎧 Chapters

[00:00] Meet Shaan: From CS Kid to Shopify Power Player[02:47] Why Ownership Beat the “Safe Job” Path[05:32] Co-Founders: The Real Moat Nobody Talks About[08:24] How to Build a Team That Doesn’t Need Hand-Holding[10:52] “Be Shameless”: The Sales Moves That Close Deals[13:40] Hiring Filters That Save You From Bad Fits[16:19] The Startup Test: Are You Obsessed Enough?[19:10] What Alia Does (And Why Popups Are Still Underrated)[21:58] Popups, But Smarter: Timing, Targeting, and Auto A/B Tests[24:34] Building in Public: The Free Growth Channel That Works[27:21] Posting Revenue: Why It Converts (And When It Backfires)[30:04] Customer Success = The Flywheel (Not a Department)[32:38] SaaS Advice: Don’t Buy Hype, Buy Proof[35:25] Leadership Level-Up: Stop Being the Bottleneck

🌐 Check out Orita.ai for more episodes of The Orita Podcast, where we sit down with the most interesting operators, marketers, and founders in e-commerce to talk about what’s working right now. Hosted by the Orita team. Orita uses machine learning to help brands send smarter, more profitable marketing, by figuring out who actually wants to hear from you and when.

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