Shajgoj

About Shajgoj

Shajgoj is a Bangladeshi platform built to bring authentic international cosmetics brands to local shoppers, at a time when counterfeit beauty products were common in the market. Nazmul Sheikh co-founded the company in 2013 alongside Sinthia Sharmin Islam and Milky Mahmud, bringing a telecom engineering background rather than a retail one to how the platform was built from the start.

His path into e-commerce ran through telecom engineering on two continents rather than a traditional retail career.

An Engineer in Telecom, Not Retail

Nazmul Sheikh graduated from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology with a degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, studying there from 1999 to 2004. He began his career as a telecom engineer at Grameenphone, Bangladesh's largest mobile operator.

He later moved to Nigeria to work as a technology consultant for MTN, another major telecom operator. That stretch abroad, working in a different emerging telecom market, gave him operational experience far removed from cosmetics or e-commerce before he returned home to build Shajgoj.

Working across two large, fast-growing emerging telecom markets, Bangladesh and Nigeria, gave Nazmul Sheikh a comparative view of how infrastructure gaps play out differently across similar-sized developing economies, a perspective that shaped how carefully he approached trust and authenticity as Shajgoj's founding problem rather than treating it as a secondary concern behind logistics.

Solving a Trust Problem in Beauty Retail

Nazmul Sheikh founded Shajgoj in 2013 alongside co-founders Sinthia Sharmin Islam, who became Chief Commercial Officer, and Milky Mahmud, who became Chief Operating Officer. The founding idea addressed a specific problem in Bangladesh's beauty market: shoppers had limited reliable ways to buy genuine international cosmetics brands, with counterfeit products widespread in local retail.

Shajgoj built its business around verified authenticity, sourcing directly from brands and distributors rather than relying on the informal supply chains many local beauty retailers depended on, a distinction that became the company's core selling point.

Winning Investor Confidence

Under Nazmul Sheikh's leadership, Shajgoj became one of only two Bangladeshi startups to secure backing from Sequoia Capital India, raising roughly 21 crore taka. That investment marked a significant vote of confidence in a niche e-commerce category, beauty and cosmetics, that had drawn less venture attention in Bangladesh than sectors like grocery or ride-sharing.

The company backed up that investor interest with recognition at home, winning The Daily Star's ICT Startup of the Year award in 2021, a combination of international capital and domestic recognition uncommon among Bangladeshi e-commerce companies of a similar size.

That dual validation, foreign venture capital and a domestic industry award arriving within a similar window, gave Shajgoj a credibility profile that most single-category e-commerce platforms in Bangladesh had not managed to build by that stage of their growth.

A Multi-Storefront Approach

Beyond its core marketplace at shop.shajgoj.com, Shajgoj also operates a separate storefront at shajgojstore.com, giving the company more than one digital touchpoint for reaching beauty shoppers. That structure reflects a broader content-and-commerce strategy, since Shajgoj built its early audience through beauty editorial and reviews before layering direct e-commerce on top.

Running content and commerce side by side has let Shajgoj build trust with shoppers before asking them to buy, an approach less common among Bangladeshi e-commerce platforms that lead with product listings alone.

Running Growth, Not Just Operations

At Shajgoj, Nazmul Sheikh oversees marketing, business development, human resources, and shopping experience design, a scope that goes beyond typical CEO responsibilities at a company this size. That hands-on involvement across customer-facing functions reflects how closely he has stayed tied to the day-to-day experience Shajgoj delivers to shoppers, rather than stepping back into a purely strategic role as the company scaled to roughly 150 employees.

Products

Shajgoj's platform combines beauty commerce with editorial content rather than a single product line.

Shajgoj Beauty Marketplace is the company's core e-commerce platform, offering verified authentic international cosmetics and beauty products.

Shajgoj Store operates as a separate storefront alongside the main marketplace, extending the company's retail footprint.

Shajgoj Beauty Content and Reviews built the company's early audience and trust with shoppers, forming the foundation the e-commerce business was later layered onto.

Across its marketplace, secondary storefront, and beauty content, Shajgoj's platform reflects the authenticity-first strategy that has defined the company since its 2013 founding, backed by Sequoia Capital India and run by a team of roughly 150 people in Dhaka.