Kunal and Rohit of Snapdeal: From Surviving to Thriving in India's eCommerce Battleground

Today on the show, we have Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, co-founders of Snapdeal. Snapdeal is India's leading online marketplace. The company started out as a flash deal website in 2010, soon evolved into a leader of India's e-Commerce sectors. In early 2017, it was on the verge of being merged to its biggest rival Flipkart, then upgraded itself to Snapdeal 2.0, with a focus on the value-conscious buyers in India. Over the last couple of years, with this focus, the company has seen a significant and positive transformation. As of July 2019, the month this interview is conducted, the company has increased its annual revenue by 70% and cut its loss by 70% comparing to last year.

The two co-founders of Snapdeal are high school friends bonded over food and math. Kunal graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with two bachelor's degrees in Business and Engineering. While studying in the United States, he also started a detergent company and worked to sell his product at Walmart stores. Rohit graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology New Delhi with a bachelor and a master's degree in computer science, India's top engineering school.

On this episode, we covered the behind the scene story of their decision in saying No to Flipkart, focusing on the 400 million value-conscious buyers in India, navigating substantial change in high transaction velocity business, building a culture of acute intellectual honesty, and going through the best and worst of doing business alongside of your best friends in high school.

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