EP53: Pivots and the story to selling a majority stake to Reliance {Harsh Shah, Co-Founder of Fynd}
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On the episode, I speak with someone I have known a while from the early days of ecommerce. I chat with Harsh Shah, an alumnus of the IIT, Bombay, and a co-founder of FYND. Harsh is also an angel investor with over 19 investments.
In this conversation I chat about the many pivots FYND made to find their mojo, the business models in retail commerce for Indian retailers and what brought FYND to Reliance.
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FYND offers a technology solutions to retail merchants that helps them manage their inventory and sales across various demand channels. Founded by Farooq Adam, Harsh, and Sreeraman MG, Fynd had raised more than $7 million from investors including Google, Kae Capital, IIFL, Singularity Ventures, and GrowX, among others.
FYND has pivoted and made major changes since its launch in 2012. Initially, it was called Shopsense, which provided brands with different products to improve customer experience. Some of its clients included Lee, Satya Paul, Anita Dongre, Flying Machine, and Being Human (along with other 330 brands, these are still FYND’s clients).
In 2019 Reliance acquired a majority stake in the company buying out all investors.
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Timeline:
01:00 - Intro to FYND and Harsh
06:01 - Shopsense, the solution
12:30 - Why did retailers adopt Shopsense, what were they buying?
19:19 - The second pivot
23:01 - Choosing to go down a specific path vs supporting retailers with technology
30:30 - Evolution of FYND into pure tech Ominchannel stack
35:02 - Choosing the type of client to go after
38:15 - Supporting Reliance brand stores & the future with Reliance
46:20 - Explosion & democratisation of e-commerce
50:10 - Angel investor