Any seller would like to promote his products to increase his sales. However, the seller/manufacturer will have to establish and contact his network of people to sell the product to increase sales. What if you can sell his products to your friends, family or social groups and charge a certain mark-up over and above the selling price stated by the seller? Meesho is one such platform where the sellers display their products, and individuals can post these products on social media platforms to sell them to their known people. Once the order is confirmed, the logistics are managed by Meesho. This way, the seller earns his share of money and saves money on logistics, the reseller or the middleman earns his mark-up on the product, and Meesho earns a commission from the seller, creating a win-win situation for everyone.
Every business strategy starts with an idea. Similarly, Meesho was started with the idea that revolutionized the buying and selling on social media platforms, paving its way for social commerce in India. The founders of Meesho- Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal came across a local shopkeeper in Koramangala, Karnataka, who frequently uploaded pictures of his products on WhatsApp and Facebook and customers placed orders through these platforms that contributed to the revenue for that local shopkeeper. Vidit and Sanjeev were intrigued with this unique and simple idea that is now ruling the online reselling business with its robust business model. Meesho is gaining more popularity in Tier 2,3&4 cities, with more women using this app to generate revenue. Meesho also successfully took steps to empower women to build their own identity and use Meesho as a source of income. It is apparent that data and the internet are a constraint in rural areas and people in these areas use older versions of android mobile phones. After understanding the problems local shopkeepers and shoppers face, the Meesho app is built at a mere 14.5MB, making it the lightest e-commerce app in India on Google Play Store. This helped optimize the e-commerce experience in Tier 2 and 3 cities by giving unparalleled user experience to its app users and is available in 7 different languages.
You must have understood from the Meesho story that every business is only an idea away. Moreover, in my opinion, it is easy to grow a business if it is for the benefit of society as no business can exist in silos. So, let us all get started with building our empire of dreams which is only an idea away.
In the era of startups where most startups are at a loss and are a billion-dollar company, Mensa brands are one startup that is not only a billion-dollar company in less than six months but also profitable in the market. So, you all will be thinking about what such Mensa brands have done such that they have become the fastest-growing startup in Indian history. So, .it all started when the founder of Mensa brands, Ananth Narayanan, saw an opportunity in the small and medium scale business where they had good products but did not have enough capital, good technology, and supply chain management.
Mensa brands strategy:
So basically, Mensa brands follow the Thrasio model. This name became famous because of the meteoric rise of an American startup called Thrasio. Thrasio is a company founded in 2018, and within just two years, it hit a billion dollars valuation to become one of the fastest-growing unicorns in the world. So, you all will be thinking about how the Thrasio business model works? Thrasio looks for a small-scale entrepreneur who manages everything from marketing, listing, manufacturing, packaging, and even shipping. This is both highly tedious and costly, and especially when they are selling online on a platform like Amazon where there is cutthroat competition, it becomes challenging for small-scale brands to bring new products and scale their brands, therefore despite having a great product, these small-scale entrepreneurs reach a saturation point. And if they want to grow any further, they either must take hefty loans or, worst-case, they must take personal debt. This saturation of growth is where Thrasio comes in, where they bring both credibility and insight on how to grow these small skill brands, and using their credibility, they raised a million dollars in funding and started offering an exit strategy to these great entrepreneurs.
Once this business is acquired by Thrasio, the company uses its scale capital and expertise to grow the operations further. The same approach has been applied by Mensa brands where they offer a good brand story to the existing product, better copywriting to the product, taking good pictures of the product by hiring high skilled photographers and videographers, better digital marketing strategy to a product where they would not only be selling on a particular platform like amazon and Flipkart but also increasing its reach by promoting on Facebook, Instagram and other social media applications. Because of having good funding from the investors, the Mensa brands can do celebrity endorsement also, which again leads to more brand value and increase its visibility in the market. Lastly, the Mensa brands built an extensive supply chain to get the product into retail shelves like Dmart, jiomart, and other super Mart. We can see the result of Mensa brands expertise where they have acquired twelve consumer brands like VILLAIN and Karigari, and in October 2021, these brands seem to have hit a growth of 250 percent and 140 percent, respectively. But there's a slight difference between how Thrasio and Mensa work while Thrasio gives a founder 100 percent exit; Mensa brands keep the founders in the business but with just a significant stake in the company and intend to acquire these brands gradually in the next five years fully. After that, just like Thrasio, Mensa brands use their digital marketing specialisation, sales channel, and supply chain management expertise to scale these brands both domestically and internationally. This is how in the past six months, through technology and digital marketing, Mensa has been able to grow their brands at a staggering rate of 100 percent. In my opinion Considering the rise of Mensa brands has increased the opportunity for small-scale business entrepreneurs, and they are not making brands just for India but for the whole world.
A keen observer, love to read geopolitics and investment strategies.
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