Opinion
Indian VCs struggle with novel models due to reliance on pattern-matching
“A lot of people in India take time to understand a new model because they're not a lot of new models in India anyways. A lot of large companies have been inspired by the West. A lot of fundraising has happened because of pattern matching, et cetera.”
Disclosure
Meesho deliberately hides its brand to let resellers build their own identities
“We do not put Misho's name in front of the end consumer, right? We want this lady to create a home brand, because with that brand comes our identity, with that identity comes respect and confidence, which is a very core part of the gratification that you get f…”
Insight
Founders building novel models should never treat investor rejection as validation
“Should not ever take an investors know as validation. That's the worst thing that you can ever do to a business because most investors look retrospectively. So they are looking at businesses that have been already proven. If you take validation from investors,…”
Insight
Hyperlocal fashion fails because consumers demand vast selection and discounts
“People do not buy fashion the same way they buy food. People are looking for a lot of selection, which is not available with few shops around you. When people in India buying online, especially fashion, they're looking for discounts, which are not available un…”
Insight
Many women join Meesho for respect and identity, not just income
“There are a lot of women who come here not to make money. Their families are earning enough, but they're coming here because they want respect.”
Assertion Supported
Over 80% of women in large Indian cities stop working after marriage
“Even among developing peers, participation of women workforce in India is the lowest across the world. 70% of women in India don't work after marriage. And that number is above 80% for large cities.”
Assertion Contradicted
Meesho initially thrived as the only tool for WhatsApp and Facebook sales
“They were using our app because we were the only tool to manage sales on WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram.”
What-if
Managing reseller logistics and payments was crucial to Meesho's early survival
“Especially for this user base, if we had not done this would have never taken off.”
Insight
Flipkart and Amazon primed Meesho's initial 1,000 suppliers to sell online
“In the beginning getting suppliers, manufacturers or traders on the platform now in 20 twenties, even in 2016 was not that hard because Flipkart and Amazon had done so much work in terms of getting these small or large businesses to learn how to put products o…”
Disclosure
Meesho reached 3 million women entrepreneurs across 4,000 to 5,000 towns
“In terms of scale, now we have very close to three million women entrepreneurs across about four to 5000 cities and towns.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Meesho's top 10% of resellers average ₹15,000 in monthly sales
“So my top 10% of the user base now does about Close to 15,000 rupees worth of sales per month average. And this is across the country.”
Disclosure
Meesho's app struggled in North and West India due to lower literacy
“So we are very good, and East and South part of the country because more and more women are literate and educated, but we still struggle a lot in North and West part of the country because the same product doesn't work.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Meesho achieved in two months in Indonesia what took 18 in India
“Now we just recently even launched in Indonesia, right? Because we realized this problem is not just in India, but in a lot of other developing markets. And Indonesia is one of the larger ones out there. And in the last two months, we have the same kind of sch…”
Disclosure
Meesho replaces traditional functional heads with outcome-oriented general managers
“So for example, we don't have functional, functional structure in the company. We don't have a head of product, head of business, head of XYZ. We rather have general managers who own outcomes in the company.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Small Indian retailers drove repeat sales through WhatsApp groups before Meesho
“One thing which was very common across all of these guys was they were using social channels and mostly WhatsApp to reconnect with their existing customer base.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Home-based women entrepreneurs made up 40% of Meesho's early users
“Among our user base, a good 30, 40% of our user base was not what our target user was. This user was not an offline mom and pop store shop. This user was essentially a lady who's running a home based business, right?”
Disclosure
No single Indian city accounts for more than 4% of Meesho's volume
“The largest city for India does not do more than three, four percent, right? Which means we are there Across the country”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Meesho's growth stalled within months of raising its Series A funding
“So as soon as we raised money in our series A from Saif three, four months later, our growth slowed down, right?”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Meesho quickly saturated its initial market of 100,000 boutique owners
“There were about 50 to one lakh women boutique owners before we came into the picture. We acquired most of them, and then we did not know what to do.”
Disclosure
Meesho mandates a 'Listen or Die' program for monthly user interviews
“So for example, we have a program that is called listen or die in the company. Everyone in the company has to speak to users within 30 days every month. And then you have to submit a report of what kind of feedback you got and what we can do to solve some of o…”
