Assignment 2: Sustainable Entrepreneurship

Assignment 2
Entrepreneurial skills and their Journey

Sustainable Entrepreneurship
Submitted by:
Hetvi Parekh | MFM/21/401

Master of Fashion Management - Batch of 2021-2023

Date - 20th October 2021

WHAT IS MEESHO?
Meesho is an Indian social commerce platform that allows users to
resell products using their social networks, WHATSAPP, FACEBOOK,
INSTAGRAM.
It is essentially a way for anyone to join and grow their businesses
on a global platform.
Meesho is headquartered in Bangalore.
It was a startup by IIT Delhi graduates Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev
Barnwal.
The name of the app, MEESHO means "MERI SHOP” or "APNI
DUKAAN"
It enables small businesses to start their online stores via this
platform.
Meesho has more than half a million active store owners or small
business owners.
JOURNEY OF THE FOUNDERS OF
MEESHO
The founders, Vidit Atrey and Sanjeev Barnwal are both

IIT DELHI graduates in Electrical engineering. Both of
them worked for different corporations. While Mr.Vidit
worked for InMobi, Sanjeev worked as a developer for
Sony.
Both the founders decided to quit their respective well-
paying reputed jobs to start something of their own.

They initially started developing a model called

FashNear which was like Swiggy for fashion. They tried
to deliver clothes sold by local store owners to the
buyers nearby. After working on it for several months
they realized that this kind of business model does not
fit in the Indian retail market.
Though the FashNear model did not work as expected,

they surely got something good out of it. They spent
alot of time among the local shopkeepers and noticed
the purchasing behavior of the customers as well as
the selling methods of the sellers.
On doing a lot of research they updated and made

changes to their existing model where they got buyers,
sellers, resellers everyone under one roof, MEESHO.
CREATIVE CONCEPT
ONLY LOCAL SHOPS

SELLERS
BUYERS+ RESELLERS
NEW
ENTREPRENEURS
BUYERS AND SELLERS

UNDER ONE ROOF
From 2016 and 2018, the founders raised around $65
million from multiple investors including China’s
Shunwei Capital and Indian venture capital firms SAIF
Partners, DST Partners, RPS Ventures, Sequoia India,
SAIF Partners, and Venture Highway.
In 2019, for the first time, Facebook invested in an

Indian startup, meesho. Meesho also received $125
million in a Series D funding round led by Naspers.
In 2021, Meesho became India’s latest unicorn after it

received a $300 million dollar funding from the Soft
bank group corp, Japan.
This just depicts the outstanding skills of the founders

to expand their existing model, transforming it into a
completely new application and a platform that can be
accepted by a larger share of the audience.
ENTREPRENEURIAL QUALITIES
RISK TAKING
Both the founders had well-paying jobs before even
launching Meesho. Mr. Vidit always wanted to launch his
.own company and around the same time Mr Sanjeev was
looking for the same. In today’s world, where making sure
you are financially stable for survival is important both
the founders decided to do something which could make
a difference.
TRIAL AND ERROR
The founders initially came up with a business model
called FashNear, which was like Swiggy but for fashion.
The idea was to bring a lot of offline stores together
on an online platform. They worked on it rigorously for
four-five months and realized that people don’t shop
for clothes in the same way that they shop for food.
While purchasing clothes people look for a lot of
options and are attracted to discounts. Soon they
realized that this kind of a business model will not
have a larger consumer base so they tried to reinvent
it.
FIELD RESEARCH/ PRACTICAL LEARNING
While working on FashNear, they spent a lot of time with
local shopkeepers. They observed the methods used by the
shopkeepers to sell a product at the same time, they also
.noticed the buying behavior of the customers. They would
spend hours at the local shop to learn about the problems
they were facing. They started their research from the
grassroot level and eventually came across some common
issues faced by consumers and shopkeepers. That’s when
they started to work on MEESHO.
PROBLEM SOLVING
Just like we saw how the founders came up with a
business model, FashNear, they came across so many
gaps in our retail system. While talking to the local
shopkeepers they realized that around 30-40% of
their sales come from Whatsapp. Shopkeepers often
complained of the extra expenses spent behind
selling a product and how there was barely any profit
margin left for them. The founders took a note of this
and looked for appropriate solutions to tackle the
issue.
SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE
The founders wanted to come up with an idea that could

be used and benefit a larger audience. While conducting
research, they observed that a lot of housewives are
.struggling to start a business. This happened because
starting a business required a large capital, a team of

employees, and many more things that are very difficult
for a housewife to manage. The founders saw the urge in
them and decided to come up with a solution where
women could start their own stores online without huge
capital. This idea provides women with two very
important things- the first is a professional identity. The
second is financial independence.
This application was founded in order to encourage
people to start their own businesses and to provide the
existing entrepreneurs to carry their work in a much
better form.
INNOVATION
The founders were convinced about the fact that they
wanted meesho to be accessible to everyone. Be it a local
shop owner or a housewife. They came across the issue of
.no proper platform for owners to showcase their products.
This is the reason they created this extensive platform which
not only helped the existing entrepreneurs to boost their
businesses but also encouraged a large number of people
to become entrepreneurs.
CONSUMER-CENTRIC
One of the most important qualities in a successful
entrepreneur is being consumer-centric. At every step
of developing meesho, the founders kept the interests
of the users in mind. They made sure they took
feedback from the users and took the feedbacks and
queries into consideration. The founders of meesho
wanted to build a community of entrepreneurs where
they do not have to invest a large capital into starting
a business.
REFERENCES
https://successstory.com/companies/meesho
https://successko.com/how-meesho-started-idea-behind-the-starting-
of-meesho/
https://yourstory.com/companies/meesho/amp
https://www.fortuneindia.com/enterprise/social-commerce-the-
meesho-way/105563

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Assignment 2

Entrepreneurial skills and their Journey

Master of Fashion Management - Batch of 2021-2023

The founders, Vidit Atrey and Sanjeev Barnwal are both

They initially started developing a model called

Though the FashNear model did not work as expected,

On doing a lot of research they updated and made

ONLY LOCAL SHOPS

BUYERS AND SELLERS

In 2019, for the first time, Facebook invested in an

In 2021, Meesho became India’s latest unicorn after it

This just depicts the outstanding skills of the founders

The founders wanted to come up with an idea that could

starting a business required a large capital, a team of

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