Meesho: A No-Frills Approach to Democratising E-Commerce in India

Millions of people across India buy and sell goods on e-commerce platform Meesho every month. The platform fulfils an average of three million orders a day. Meesho, which started off as a social commerce platform helping millions of women and homemakers run businesses from their home, is now on a mission to democratise e-commerce in India for millions more. Launched in 2017 by Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal, the platform is bringing down costs and lowering barriers to entry for many merchants – while helping them digitise, list their goods, process orders, track payments and manage inventory. On this episode of Moonshot, Meesho Co-Founder and CEO Vidit Aatrey chats with Sequoia India Managing Director Mohit Bhatnagar, about how bucking tradition led to the genesis of Meesho, why startup founders need to regularly talk to their users, and how taking a no-frills approach to pricing can lead to higher retention rates.

Show Notes:

• Bucking tradition: How college changed Vidit’s world-view (5:30)
• Affordable fashion, cheap t-shirts, and the ‘aha!’ moment (12:33)
• Talking to your users gives you a competitive edge (18:33)
• The path to PMF is non-binary  – prepare to change your approach (20:48)
• Don’t do 10 things  (21:41)
• Less is more: A no-frills approach to pricing and strategy  (27:53)
• Design your organisation around problems  (35:50)
• Start your year with ‘BHAGs’ (Big Hairy Audacious Goals) (32:01)
• Optimising for speed: An organisational design choice (33:35)
• Evaluate team members against values and celebrate them  (39:46)