Figuring out Meesho business model was a challenge: 40u40 2024 Sanjeev Barnwal

Sanjeev Barnwal, the founder & CTO of Meesho, opens up about his entrepreneurial journey and the challenges of building one of India's leading e-commerce platforms. He describes the turning point in his life as the moment he decided to start Meesho after quitting his job, sharing how the platform has created a significant impact and continues to have immense potential.

"We've had a lot of problems in Meesho's journey. The hardest one has been figuring out the right business model. While we have iterated multiple times, each iteration has been pretty hard, but we have come out stronger and with a much better model," he says.

Despite having 140 million monthly active users, Barnwal emphasises that there is still a long way to go to achieve their mission of democratising internet commerce in India. "We want to take Meesho to deeper parts of the country," he adds.

The Meesho founder candidly shares the challenges and mistakes they encountered along the way, acknowledging that these experiences have been crucial learning opportunities. "It was a journey for us, we made a lot of mistakes and it was difficult to get it right the first time. But there are a lot of learnings we derived from all the mistakes that we made, so I don’t think I would change anything."