How Meesho Became India’s Biggest Shopping App

Vidit Aatrey is the co-founder and CEO of Meesho (S16), an e-commerce platform built for mass-market India that has grown to about 1 millions sellers and 2.5 billion annual orders. Since launching in July 2021, It has become the largest shopping app on Android in India. In this fireside chat at Startup School India, Vidit sat down with YC General Partner Ankit Gupta to go over how he and his co-founder went from studying small business WhatsApp groups in Bangalore to building a full out social commerce platform. https://meesho.com Apply to Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/apply Work at a startup: https://www.ycombinator.com/jobs 00:00 - Intro 00:33 - What is Meesho? 01:56 - 250 Million Buyers a Year 02:33 - Why They Started in 2015 04:28 - Leaving Jobs to Build Something 06:19 - Talking to Small Businesses 07:42 - Version 1: Fashion Nearby (and Why It Failed) 09:00 - Getting Into YC 09:20 - The WhatsApp Discovery 11:00 - When Sellers Won't Pay You 12:20 - Finding the Power Users 13:25 - The Dropshipper Insight 14:11 - What Real PMF Feels Like 15:32 - 10 Million WhatsApp Groups 17:38 - Jio Kills Their Business Model 18:36 - The Hardest Pivot 20:35 - Number One in Five Months 21:37 - 10M to 100M Users in Five Months 22:28 - Be Rigid on Problem, Flexible on Solution 24:23 - AI as the Next Paradigm Shift 26:16 - From 250M to a Billion with Voice AI 29:17 - Advice for Founders Today

Vidit AatreyguestAnkit Guptahost

Jun 11, 202630mWatch on YouTube ↗

EPISODE INFO

Released: June 11, 2026
Duration: 30m
Channel: Y Combinator
Watch on YouTube: ▶ Open ↗

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Vidit Aatrey is the co-founder and CEO of Meesho (S16), an e-commerce platform built for mass-market India that has grown to about 1 millions sellers and 2.5 billion annual orders. Since launching in July 2021, It has become the largest shopping app on Android in India. In this fireside chat at Startup School India, Vidit sat down with YC General Partner Ankit Gupta to go over how he and his co-founder went from studying small business WhatsApp groups in Bangalore to building a full out social commerce platform. https://meesho.com Apply to Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/apply Work at a startup: https://www.ycombinator.com/jobs 00:00 - Intro 00:33 - What is Meesho? 01:56 - 250 Million Buyers a Year 02:33 - Why They Started in 2015 04:28 - Leaving Jobs to Build Something 06:19 - Talking to Small Businesses 07:42 - Version 1: Fashion Nearby (and Why It Failed) 09:00 - Getting Into YC 09:20 - The WhatsApp Discovery 11:00 - When Sellers Won't Pay You 12:20 - Finding the Power Users 13:25 - The Dropshipper Insight 14:11 - What Real PMF Feels Like 15:32 - 10 Million WhatsApp Groups 17:38 - Jio Kills Their Business Model 18:36 - The Hardest Pivot 20:35 - Number One in Five Months 21:37 - 10M to 100M Users in Five Months 22:28 - Be Rigid on Problem, Flexible on Solution 24:23 - AI as the Next Paradigm Shift 26:16 - From 250M to a Billion with Voice AI 29:17 - Advice for Founders Today

SPEAKERS

Vidit Aatrey
guest
Co-founder and CEO of Meesho, an Indian e-commerce and shopping platform.
Ankit Gupta
host
Y Combinator partner and interviewer/host.

EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of Y Combinator, featuring Vidit Aatrey and Ankit Gupta, How Meesho Became India’s Biggest Shopping App explores meesho’s pivots: WhatsApp commerce to India’s #1 shopping app Meesho began by targeting “mass India” after noticing e-commerce adoption was strong in big cities but weak in small towns and among families outside tech hubs.

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