Vidit Aatrey is the co-founder and CEO of Meesho (S16), an e-commerce platform built for mass-market India that has grown to about 1 millions sellers and 2.5 billion annual orders. Since launching in July 2021, It has become the largest shopping app on Android in India. In this fireside chat at Startup School India, Vidit sat down with YC General Partner Ankit Gupta to go over how he and his co-founder went from studying small business WhatsApp groups in Bangalore to building a full out social commerce platform. https://meesho.com Apply to Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/apply Work at a startup: https://www.ycombinator.com/jobs 00:00 - Intro 00:33 - What is Meesho? 01:56 - 250 Million Buyers a Year 02:33 - Why They Started in 2015 04:28 - Leaving Jobs to Build Something 06:19 - Talking to Small Businesses 07:42 - Version 1: Fashion Nearby (and Why It Failed) 09:00 - Getting Into YC 09:20 - The WhatsApp Discovery 11:00 - When Sellers Won't Pay You 12:20 - Finding the Power Users 13:25 - The Dropshipper Insight 14:11 - What Real PMF Feels Like 15:32 - 10 Million WhatsApp Groups 17:38 - Jio Kills Their Business Model 18:36 - The Hardest Pivot 20:35 - Number One in Five Months 21:37 - 10M to 100M Users in Five Months 22:28 - Be Rigid on Problem, Flexible on Solution 24:23 - AI as the Next Paradigm Shift 26:16 - From 250M to a Billion with Voice AI 29:17 - Advice for Founders Today
Vidit Aatrey is cofounder and CEO of Meesho. Meesho is a platform in India that allows people to resell products using their social networks. They were in the Summer 2016 batch of YC and you can check them out at Meesho.com. https://twitter.com/viditaatrey https://meesho.com/ Adora Cheung is a Partner at YC. Before working at YC she cofounded Homejoy. https://twitter.com/nolimits Y Combinator invests a small amount of money ($150k) in a large number of startups (recently 200), twice a year. Learn more about YC and apply for funding here: https://www.ycombinator.com/apply/ *** Topics 00:00 - Intro 00:45 - What is Meesho? 2:45 - Why not just sell directly to consumers? 4:30 - What are the macro trends in Meesho's favor in India? 6:55 - A trust deficit market 8:20 - How does Meesho help users get online and start selling? 11:10 - Most impactful user stories 13:15 - Growth drivers 15:15 - Balancing growth and quality 16:50 - What if Facebook copies Meesho? 18:15 - When did Vidit and his cofounder know they wanted to start a startup? 20:45 - Their first startup idea and the inspiration for Meesho 25:05 - When did they know Meesho was working? 26:45 - How hard was it to pivot the business and how did they manage it? 29:30 - As a CEO how does he stay in touch with users? 34:15 - How has Vidit's role changed over time? 36:20 - How has he learned to be a CEO? 37:55 - What mistakes have they made? 39:00 - What was his best decision? 39:40 - What's a strong opinion he had about running a startup that he's changed since running Meesho? 41:10 - How has the Indian startup ecosystem evolved? 42:45 - Big problems worth solving in India 42:30 - Can foreigners come to India and start a startup? 44:35 - Best advice for aspiring Indian founders 45:45 - After Meesho, what's the most exciting startup in India? 46:45 - Why is Delhi the best IIT? 47:40 - What's a must read book and why? 48:35 - What's a startup idea he'd be working on if Meesho didn't happen? 48:50 - In 100 years, what does he hope Meesho is?