Monday, May 4, 2026

How ShopMy’s relentless focus on product-market fit turned the shopping disruptor into a $1.5 billion unicorn

Sofia Richie Grainge is one of the top curators on ShopMy.

Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images

It’s the biggest night in fashion (more on that below…) so let’s stay on theme today. But instead of the Met Gala, I want to talk about ShopMy, the influencer and affiliate platform that is now valued at $1.5 billion. Cofounded by Tiffany Lopinsky, who serves as president, the startup entered a space in 2020 that seemed as if it was dominated by a, by now, legacy player: LTK, the SoftBank-backed social commerce platform founded by Amber Venz Box in 2011.

LTK essentially created the social commerce industry—and in many ways, it still dominates. But ShopMy has proven that there is always room to disrupt the disruptor. Lopinsky and her cofounders Chris Tinsley and CEO Harry Rein listened closely to the pain points of both influencers and brands that made it harder to earn a living and move product via these platforms.

For those who aren’t active on Instagram or don’t follow many influencers, both LTK and ShopMy essentially offer a way for influencers to monetize their recommendations. They can use the infrastructure to earn commission on products they recommend, and brands can more easily turn online creators into their own salesforces. “The influencer is a retailer, a mini-Saks, a mini-Bloomingdale’s,” Lopinsky told me over lunch earlier this year. But bringing that vision to reality requires a strong tech product: accurate performance metrics, analysis of the right rates to be paying influencers to promote product in what can still be a wild west, easy ways for brands to boost organic content that’s already doing well, and more. That’s what ShopMy has been building.

At the same time, ShopMy has built a consumer-friendly experience. The platform has an especially strong foothold with a certain kind of NYC or LA-based influencer and many popular Substack writers. Shoppers can follow their favorite creators and browse their recommendations. (Top curators include Sofia Richie Grainge, Aurora James, and Nara Smith. Even Meghan, Duchess of Sussex was briefly on the platform.) Last month, the company launched a personalized shopping service that taps ShopMy creators to shop on users’ behalf—a way to stand out as a platform for human creativity in a sea of AI-driven shopping.

All of this has made ShopMy a new female-founded unicorn. Lopinsky’s best advice for how to get there? Essentially a relentless focus on product-market fit. The 31-year-old founder spends her days meeting with brands and creators to find out exactly what they need. As she says, it’s “actually building what people are telling you they want and not what you think the opportunity is, or what investors are saying they want.”

Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com

The Most Powerful Women Daily newsletter is Fortune’s daily briefing for and about the women leading the business world. Subscribe here.

Read and share today’s online edition here.

ALSO IN THE HEADLINES

Access to mifepristone will head to the Supreme Court. An appeals court approved sweeping restrictions on prescription of the drug used for medication abortion via telehealth and delivery via mail, one of the main ways women have had access to abortion since the overturn of Roe; the case centered on Louisiana's abortion ban and whether delivery of the drug by mail violated it. But the court's decision also applies to states where abortion is legal. Now two manufacturers of the drug asked the Supreme Court to restore full access, which sets up abortion to come back before SCOTUS before the midterm elections.

A female trainer won the Kentucky Derby for the first time! Cherie DeVaux trained the winning horse Golden Tempo, who was ridden by Jose Ortiz. Only 18 women have ever trained horses that competed in the Derby. "I'm glad I can be a representative of all women everywhere that we can do anything we set our minds do," she said.

It's Met Gala night. And this year's event is sparking backlash because of lead sponsor Amazon and honorary chairs Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos. There have been bottles of fake urine placed inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art (a callout to the reported working conditions of Amazon drivers) and video interviews with workers projected on the Empire State Building. The gala is the first since Anna Wintour officially stepped down as editor-in-chief of Vogue.

Maine just became the 50th state to enact at least one piece of rape kit reform. Which means that a campaign started by Law & Order: SVU star Mariska Hargitay to end the rape kit backlog has had success in every U.S. state. "Today marks a watershed moment not only for the State of Maine, but for every survivor who has asked if their rape kit was forgotten, if their truth was abandoned on a shelf, if they have hope of finding justice," Hargitay said.