Omair Tariq of Cart.com aims to challenge and offer a serious alternative to Amazon and Shopify. The first end-to-end e-commerce platform has raised $140 million in just twelve months of operating. Omair Tariq’s mission: to disrupt a $1 trillion industry.
Since launching in November 2020, Cart.com now employs over 850 people and has over 3000 brands using its platform. This represents just the latest impressive development in Tariq’s accomplished career in retail and e-commerce.
Omair Tariq: a successful retail career
Tariq started his career doing retail finance at Chevron. He then became a manager at Farouk systems, where he led accounting for a manufacturing facility producing multi-billion dollar retail products. In 2010, Tariq became a finance manager at Blinds.com where he helped lead scalable growth from $40m to over $100m. After two years, Tariq became head of Finance, Strategy and Data Science at the company.
In 2014, Blinds.com merged with Home Depot in an unusually successful acquisition: “something like 80 percent of M&As fail, but we actually grew the business by a factor of four in the coming years. It’s a story to be written up in case studies,” Tariq says. He initially worked as strategy director for Home Depot, before becoming CFO and eventually COO of the newly acquired Blinds.com. In 2020, Tariq used this extensive experience to launch his own e-commerce platform, Cart.com.
Tariq mentors for the Capital Factory, helping startups and entrepreneurs with his expert advice. He sits on the board of advisors for various small to mid size companies in technology and retail. Tariq also acts as a serial angel investor. He believes that the value of a start-up lies in the characters of its leaders, and one should be willing to bet on them: “Because ultimately, it’s people who build great companies,” he says.
Omair Tariq inspired by a near death experience
Growing up in Dubai, Tariq initially wanted to be an astrophysicist from a young age. So he figured he’d have to learn physics and applied mathematics in order to achieve his dream. With limited education opportunities in Dubai, Tariq left to study Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. He later earned a BA in Finance from the University of Houston and an MBA from Rice University.
Before moving to the UK to study, Tariq spent some time in Pakistan as a fifteen year old. An extreme experience there laid the foundations for his philosophy: to count your blessings and take life by the horns. Two men kidnapped Tariq and his cousin at gunpoint, using their car to conduct a series of robberies before deciding to kill him and his cousin.
With an incredible stroke of luck, their gun malfunctioned and they ran away, leaving Tariq and his cousin traumatized, but alive. Tariq says it changed him as a person forever, and he came away from the experience with some important life lessons: “1) You shouldn’t feel entitled for anything in life. 2) Nothing is for granted. 3) It can always get worse. 4) Life is short. Do something with it.”
Omair Tariq’s Cart.com
The drive and humility inspired in Tariq from such an early age has now come to fruition with his latest venture. Cart.com proves to be a serious contender in the e-commerce space that has until now been completely dominated by Amazon and Shopify.
The world’s first end-to-end e-commerce platform, Cart.com aims to help brands scale seamlessly and connect them to their customers more deeply. It empowers brands to compete in the big leagues: “We started this business because we know how hard it can be to grow one. We’re making economies of scale available to brands of any size. Our platform puts big tools in the hands of big dreamers,” says Tariq.
GUESS, Dollar General and GNC all use Cart.com, along with over 3000 other companies. With this popularity, the platform continues to grow as a viable alternative to the other e-commerce behemoths. Raising $140 million in just 12 months confirms Tariq’s adherence to his own advice that “Life is short. Do something with it.”
Check out Cart.com to find out more information about the platform.
