Meesho's first product, Fashnear, was a try-at-home fashion marketplace and it failed. While visiting Bangalore shopkeepers, Vidit Aatrey heard one say he sold 30 to 40 percent of his business every month through a WhatsApp group of existing customers. Digging into their own power users, the team found they were all women who called themselves WhatsApp boutique owners, so Aatrey added them on WhatsApp personally and visited their homes. The mechanic they built removed the one thing those women did not have, working capital: a reseller can list anything from the supplier marketplace and only buys the item once an order comes in. Running on WhatsApp alone they doubled every month for six months, and by May 2019 there were around 500,000 monthly active social store owners, 90 percent of them women and more than 80 percent from tier 2 cities and below.
4 resources, 4 India-specific, 4 link-checked.
The founder tells the WhatsApp discovery first hand, including the zero working capital mechanic and the six months of doubling. It is the clearest account anywhere of finding a growth loop that was already running without you.
On Y Combinator by Vidit Aatrey Interview
The readable transcript of the same conversation, with the numbers you can quote: 500,000 monthly active resellers, 90 percent women, more than 80 percent from tier 2 and below.
From Y Combinator by Vidit Aatrey 12 min read
This is the episode where the failure comes first: why Fashnear did not work, and then the step by step of power user analysis, personal WhatsApp outreach and home visits that found the real customer.
On Prime Venture Partners Podcast by Vidit Aatrey Podcast episode with full transcript
Open primevp.in →The second S-curve is the part most retellings skip. Once existing WhatsApp resellers ran out, the pitch changed to starting a business online with zero investment, and this episode covers the channel mix that followed.
On The Neon Show by Vidit Aatrey About 60 min
Open neon.fund →How gtm teardowns reads from a different seat.
