MEESHO: THE SUCCESS STORY OF INDIA’S EMERGING LEADER IN RETAIL AND STARTUP WORLD

The American entrepreneur, Mark Cuban has well asserted, “Don’t start a company unless it’s an obsession and something you love. If you have an exit strategy, it’s not an obsession.” It is more than a fact that the main elements of a successful entrepreneur are passion and dedication. It is next to impossible for a person to achieve the desired results in the business realm without consistency and a mind-blowing plan with a blend of an industrial team.

There are very few entrepreneurs, who truly understand these bits and bobs of the business industry and take action accordingly. The founders of Meesho are one of them. Sanjeev Barnwal, Co-founder & CTO, and Vidit Aatrey, Co-founder & CEO are a duo that is the reason behind India’s one the successful startup Meesho.

The team of Business Connect has been a giant name in featuring numerous top-notch business ventures, including startups and MSMEs. And here again, our team is back with the success story of Meesho, which is revamping the reselling domain with a genius business model. Our entire team put their efforts to deliver every desirable information regarding the venture. And we truly hope and desire that this fascinating read will inspire all the budding entrepreneurs out there and will fill their hearts with zeal. We will be more than happy if the story will motivate young minds to do something crazy and chase their dreams.

We all know that the scenario of online shopping has been drastically developed over the past decades and so have the platforms offering such services. In the present times of business market, eCommerce companies generate millions and billions of dollars in monthly sales all around the world. Observing a massive scope in the arena and numerous opportunities shortly, many companies are entering the world of retail and shopping. But Meesho is leading all of them with great pride. The platform, since its inception, has carved a tremendous niche for itself along with gaining popularity among consumers and retailers.

THE INCEPTION STORY
In the year 2015, the founders of Meesho conceptualized a venture with the name- FASHNEAR. The company was entirely dedicated to making fashion-related goods accessible to the direct customers. It also promoted and made the process of buying clothes and fashion accessories a lot easier and more efficient for the customers. Explaining their journey through FASHNEAR, Vidit asserted, “Sanjeev and I fulfilled every role during this period. We did the inventory of every shop, spending entire days taking photos of all the products and cataloging them on our app. I also worked as the delivery person in the beginning, because I wanted to hear my customer’s feedback first hand.”

However, gradually the founders observed a few drawbacks in the business model of FASHNEAR. Some major drawbacks they noticed were less concerned consumers regarding buying clothes from local shops. And on the other side, sellers had the desire to accelerate their sales by spreading their roots across the country and refused to be limited to local areas. All these issues made the founders implement new strategies and work on a better business model. And throughout the procedure of betterment, they created India’s leading retail shop-Meesho in the year 2015.

The duo visited many resellers to identify their problems in their business and the process, they observed and found that most of the sellers were already selling their products via WhatsApp, but their reach was limited because they deliver their goods locally only. They also found out that most of the shops registered on Meesho were being operated by women, and these women sold their goods out of their homes rather than in any physical shops. Meesho’s current business model has been built considering these facts and issues, and at present, women can comfortably start a reselling business from home without owing any inventory through Meesho.

Meesho also now empowers small shops and manufacturers to deliver their goods across the country while it takes care of the delivery of the products, facilitates COD options, and ensures that consumers can seamlessly return the products if they wish to.

BRAINS BEHIND THE BRAND

Sanjeev Barnwal

Sanjeev Barnwal is the Co-founder and Chief Technological Officer (CTO) of Meesho. Sanjeev Barnwal has also worked at Sony Mobile Communications as an Android Camera Hardware Abstraction Layer Architecture Designer and Developer. He graduated from IIT Delhi with a bachelor’s degree in engineering and has also worked with Sony Corporation before that.

Vidit Aatrey

Vidit Aatrey is the Co-founder and CEO of Meesho. Before Meesho, the Meesho Co-founder worked with the mobile marketing platform InMobi, where he designed growth strategies for the company. Aatrey has also seen the Operations part of the business when he was with ITC Limited.