Product Manager Ekagar Gupta narrates the product team’s & Meesho’s impressive journey from X to 50X, thanks to hard work, & prioritising Speed Over Perfection
By: Mangala Dilip
Tags: Tech, Culture, Product, Business, Meesho

Product Manager Ekagar Gupta narrates the product team’s & Meesho’s impressive journey from X to 50X, thanks to hard work, & prioritising Speed Over Perfection Mangala Dilip Follow Oct 9, 2020 · 6 min read

This week, we bring you the story of a bright Meeshoite who is committed to the cause of Meesho — enabling [anyone] to start a business, without an investment. Ekagar Gupta, Product Manager, who knew that his ideal career would involve problem solving and user understanding, had taken his time to understand where his talents would have the most impact before landing into product management.

And so, in May 2018, he joined Meesho having decided that he wanted to be an integral part of the product team of a growth-stage startup, which was sure to have incomparable growth in the years to come.

Ekagar has seen the company scale from x to 50x (if not more) in the two and a half years of his time so far at Meesho, and he has been instrumental in the projects that made this scaling possible.

Hear all about Ekagar’s story here:

I was raised by an engineer father and a chemistry professor mother, both of whom prioritised academics above most other things in life, so I did not even have a choice of not doing the same. Growing up in Punjab’s Patiala district, I saw how my father worked hard day and night solving engineering problems and I knew that this is what I wanted out of my career as well. So, early on, engineering was a non-negotiable part of the future I envisioned for myself.

And so, I found my way to IIT Delhi after schooling and pursued a degree in Textile Technology. When I graduated, I wanted to really explore all my options and see where I would be able to dedicate my 100 per cent to, rather than making any decisions before gaining practical understanding. So, I joined Flipkart as a Business Analyst through campus recruitment and learnt all that I could about the different teams in a company and its functions.

In search of a challenging and dynamic workplace

After three years of working at Flipkart, I knew without a doubt that product is where I needed to be. I also wanted to be in a work atmosphere that was more challenging and dynamic. When I heard about Meesho and its work, I did not hesitate to reach out to Vidit Aatrey (CEO and Co-Founder, Meesho) who also happens to be an alum of my alma mater, and have a conversation with him about what I could bring to the table.

Everyone who worked at Meesho had brilliant profiles, I knew that Vidit and Sanjeev [Barnwal, CTO and Co-Founder] had a groundbreaking concept on their hands. I saw the commitment with which Meeshoites worked towards their goals, and even the overall growth of the company at that point — even though the scale of the company was still very small — excited me. I realised that this was the perfect culture for me to thrive in and so joining Meesho as an Associate Product Manager was an easy decision to make.

Back then, the product team was made up of only two-three people and the responsibilities were shared by all of us as tasks poured in based on priority. From Day 0 at Meesho, I was able to hit the ground running. I was interacting with our users and our suppliers to understand their problems and figuring out how to solve it for them. Within the first couple of days, I was handling projects.

Speed Over Perfection. Always

As one of the earliest members of the Product team, the core value that I associate with the most is Speed Over Perfection. Starting from Day 0, we have learnt to give priority to execute projects quickly so that we can see the impact of the projects more quickly and implement it to the benefit of the entrepreneurs immediately. Now Speed Over Perfection is really ingrained in me. This core value has a huge impact on my work, no matter what project I am working on.

I remember for some of the projects we took on back then, we conceptualised the whole thing in the morning, worked on the numbers by the end of the day and in the next couple of days, we would make it live. Cross-team collaboration has always been a key function at Meesho. During that period I remember how the tech team would help product with the conceptualisation, and getting the numbers before they started developing the feature. And in turn, the product team would help tech with the testing of the feature to help them make it live faster.

Over time, obviously, this has changed, and both product and tech are now much bigger teams and Meesho itself has gone from X to 50X. We spend weeks conceptualising with Kirti [Varun, Sr. VP — Product] and getting the correct numbers, speaking to users to figure out what issues they are facing exactly, and more. Then, we spend a few days discussing those findings with the tech team and come up with the best solutions. Tech team members then take their time to build those things, after which the QA team tests those features vigorously over a week or a couple of weeks before we launch. So, all of these processes have evolved a lot.

When my work makes Meesho function better

My role has obviously evolved a lot too over time. Once the tasks of each product team member started getting defined, I started working on the logistics products, and one of the first assignments took on was to build an allocation engine for logistics, which helped assign shipments to our courier partners. That project, which I completed in December 2018, saved the company a lot of logistics costs and is being used to this day. I am very proud of this, especially since this was one of my first ever projects.

More recently, I took on another major project called the Post Order Experience Revamp. We realised that our entrepreneurs are having to call our user support team to get updates on the delivery of the shipment, order status, etc. And this was leading to bad user experience. We wanted to provide all of this information on the app itself and we revamped the whole experience.

Now, after the user places an order most of the information that they need is provided to them on the orders tab. They are now able to track the shipments easily, and we have seen that this feature has been impactful in making our entrepreneurs successful and there was a significant reduction in the number of calls we received regarding these updates.

At Meesho, I have been able to make these meaningful contributions to our entrepreneurs and I am able to see the impact of my work quickly as well. I take pride in the work I get to do and also in our immense journey that the company has been on for the last two and a half years.

Meesho gave me the opportunity to work with and be inspired by leaders such as Kirti and Harshit [Madan, GM — Fulfillment & Experience], who taught me the importance of understanding the needs of our users and suppliers to build products that benefit them.

During the lockdown, I have certainly been missing going to the office and collaborating with my colleagues in person, but working from home has given me the opportunity to spend time with my family and the time saved on commute has given me some extra time to invest in reading books.

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