# Operator

> Operator was a San Francisco conversational shopping company that paired a phone message with a human product expert, then handled the purchase and delivery. Built by Robin Chan, Garrett Camp and colleagues at Expa, it raised $25 million by 2016 and pursued a US-to-China shopping service.

- **Founded:** 2014
- **Headquarters:** San Francisco, United States
- **Founders:** Robin Chan (Co-founder and CEO), Garrett Camp (Co-founder and board member), Philip Fung (Co-founder and CTO)
- **Products:** Operator personal-shopping app, Discover, Messenger shopping bot, China shopping service
- **Notable:** Launched a public beta in April 2015 and an iOS app later that year., Raised $25 million across Series A and B rounds by September 2016., By September 2016, CEO Robin Chan said bots handled about half of activity on the service.

## Products & services

- **Operator personal-shopping app** — A mobile request, recommendation and checkout service connecting shoppers with human experts and retailers.
- **Discover** — In-app browsing of curated products, brands, stores and expert picks.
- **Messenger shopping bot** — A Facebook Messenger interface that used automation and passed shopping questions to human experts.
- **China shopping service** — A proposed Chinese-language route to US products with WeChat and iOS interfaces, a Shanghai office and local leadership.

## Achievements

- Launched a public beta in April 2015 and an iOS app later that year.
- Raised $25 million across Series A and B rounds by September 2016.
- By September 2016, CEO Robin Chan said bots handled about half of activity on the service.
- Announced a Shanghai office and a China expansion led by Yolanda Xue in 2016.

## Latest updates

- **2017-05** — TechCrunch published a video featuring Operator's shopping app and its staff.
- **2026-09** — The current operator.com homepage says 'Your Personal Super Agent'; it does not describe the 2015-16 personal-shopping service. The current LinkedIn page describes an ecommerce protocol founded in 2021. Public sources do not establish how those newer descriptions relate to the historical shopping product.

## Links

- Website: https://www.operator.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/operator
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/operator
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/operatorapp

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/operator
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-09-29