Video · 35 min

On Starting and Scaling Indian Shopping Site Meesho

Vidit Aatrey (Meesho co-founder and CEO) · Y Combinator Free Intermediate India

The cleanest India pivot story told by the founder himself: Meesho began as Fashnear, a hyperlocal fashion app, and became a reseller commerce giant only after the market showed them where the real pull was. Aatrey narrates the turn as a data-led decision, which is the exact tone you want when an Indian investor can look up your old cap table and previous product in five minutes.

  • Meesho survived multiple pivots (Fashnear to store-onboarding to WhatsApp resellers); the founder frames each turn as following demand, a model for your own narrative
  • The pull came from watching small resellers actually use the product, proof that the sharper bet should be evidence you saw something others missed
  • Told plainly by the founder in a canonical YC session, so it doubles as a script for how to say the old thing did not work without flinching
Open on ycombinator.com ↗

The question it answers

  1. How do I handle a pivot in my pitch, when the deck has to explain why the old thing did not work?

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