How Mensa built a ₹8000 Crore Ecommerce Empire in 6 months | GrowthX Wireframe
Summary
TLDRMena Brands, India's first e-commerce rollup company, has rapidly become a unicorn in just six months, making over 500 crores in revenue. Founded by Anan Narayanan, the company acquires promising DTC brands and scales them using a unique rollup model. Mena focuses on Indian brands, leveraging the country's growing consumption and internet penetration. It also targets offline channels and global markets, aiming to create household names. With a strategic approach to branding and expansion, Mena is poised to disrupt India's e-commerce landscape.
Takeaways
- 🔥 Mena Brands became India's fastest unicorn in just six months, achieving a billion-dollar valuation and profitability within its first half-year.
- 🌟 Mena Brands is India's first e-commerce rollup company, acquiring and scaling DTC brands in categories like apparel, home, personal care, beauty, and content.
- 🚀 The company's founder, Anan Narayanan, has a strong background in e-commerce, with previous roles at Medlife and Myntra, providing him with valuable industry insights.
- 🛍️ Mena Brands follows a 'rollup' business model, similar to US-based THG, acquiring promising e-commerce brands and taking them from one to ten on their growth journey.
- 📈 Mena Brands aims to acquire 40 to 50 brands, with a goal of scaling 20% of them to over 1,000 crores in revenue, leveraging their expertise in product, marketing, and supply chain.
- 🌐 The company sees potential in the growing Indian consumption market and the increasing internet penetration, which are key drivers for the success of online-first brands.
- 👕 Mena Brands targets larger product categories like Fashion, Beauty, FMCG, and home, focusing on creating brands that can become household names in India.
- 🌍 Mena Brands has a unique global strategy, with 30% of its revenue coming from international markets, capitalizing on India's strength as a manufacturing hub for apparel.
- 📚 The company's approach includes an offline and content play, understanding the importance of physical presence and content platforms for brand discovery and trust-building in the Indian market.
- 💡 Mena Brands' success is built on a combination of strategic acquisitions, a deep understanding of the Indian market, and a global outlook, positioning it as a disruptor in India's e-commerce space.
Q & A
How long did it take for Zomato and Zerodha to become unicorns?
-It took Zomato and Zerodha 10 years to become unicorns.
What is the significance of Mena Brands becoming a unicorn in just six months?
-Mena Brands is India's fastest ever company to reach a billion-dollar valuation in just six months, highlighting its rapid growth and scalability.
What is unique about Mena Brands' business model?
-Mena Brands is India's first e-commerce rollup company, acquiring promising DTC brands and scaling them, rather than building each brand from scratch.
Who started Mena Brands and what is his background?
-Mena Brands was started by Anan Narayanan, who has a background as a former McKinsey consultant, ex-co-founder and CEO of Medlife, and ex-CEO of Myntra.
What is the rollup model in e-commerce?
-The rollup model involves acquiring and consolidating multiple brands under one company to leverage economies of scale and expertise across the portfolio.
How does Mena Brands differ from the rollup model popularized by THG (The Hut Group)?
-While THG focused on acquiring hot-selling products, Mena Brands focuses on acquiring brands, particularly in larger categories like Fashion, Beauty, FMCG, and Home.
What are the two main reasons behind the growth of Indian brands according to the script?
-The two main reasons are the growing Indian consumption and higher internet penetration, which have created a favorable environment for brand growth.
Why is the offline channel important for Mena Brands?
-The offline channel is important because it helps build trust and allows customers to experience products, which is crucial for value-conscious markets like India.
How does Mena Brands leverage content companies in its strategy?
-Mena Brands acquires content companies with large audiences to facilitate product discovery and promotion, leveraging lifestyle-focused platforms for effective marketing.
What is Mena Brands' approach to international markets?
-Mena Brands has a global outlook, with 30% of its revenue coming from international markets. It leverages India's manufacturing strength to sell products at higher rates in foreign currencies.
How does Mena Brands benefit from economies of scale?
-Mena Brands benefits from economies of scale by having multiple brands share resources, such as suppliers and talent, which allows for better price negotiation and optimization of scaling strategies.
Outlines
🚀 Mena Brands: India's Fastest Unicorn
Mena Brands, India's first e-commerce rollup company, became a unicorn in just six months, making over 500 crores in revenue in FY23. Founded by Anan Narayanan, an ex-McKinsey consultant and ex-CEO of Medlife and Myntra, Mena focuses on acquiring promising DTC brands and scaling them up. The company has adopted a unique business model inspired by US-based THG, but with a distinct approach tailored to India's e-commerce market. Mena has successfully scaled over 20 DTC brands, including Myntra, Willen, Dennis, and many more, aiming to acquire 40 to 50 brands and scale 20% of them to over 1,000 crores in revenue.
🌟 Insights Behind Mena's Success
Mena Brands' success is driven by several key insights. The first is the potential for creating Indian brands, fueled by growing consumption and higher internet penetration. India's private consumption makes up 60% of its GDP, and with the internet penetration rising from 41% to 55% in just four years, the e-commerce market has accelerated, allowing online-first brands to emerge. Mena targets larger categories like Fashion, Beauty, FMCG, and Home, focusing on both online and offline channels. They also leverage content platforms to enhance product discovery and conversion. The company's strategy includes going global, with 30% of revenue coming from international markets, capitalizing on India's strength as a manufacturing hub to sell products at higher rates in foreign currencies.
🌐 Mena's Global Expansion and Market Strategy
Mena Brands is not just focused on the Indian market but has a global outlook. They list their products on e-commerce platforms in countries like the US, UAE, and Canada, leveraging the positive reviews and ratings from Indian platforms to boost their international presence. This global expansion is a strategic move, considering India's position as a significant apparel manufacturer. Mena's scale allows them to negotiate better prices with suppliers and reduce the cost of goods, which is a significant advantage. Additionally, their expertise in performance marketing across multiple brands enables them to optimize strategies effectively. Mena's unique approach to building a house of brands with a focus on both domestic and international markets positions them to disrupt India's e-commerce space.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Unicorn
💡DTC Brands
💡E-commerce Rollup
💡THIO
💡Indian Consumption
💡Internet Penetration
💡Organized vs Unorganized Market
💡Offline Channel
💡Content Companies
💡Going Global
Highlights
Mena Brands became a unicorn in just six months, making over 500 crores in revenue and reaching a billion-dollar valuation faster than any other Indian company.
Mena Brands is profitable from the first six months of its journey, showcasing exceptional financial management.
Mena Brands scales over 20 Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) brands, including MyFitness, Willen, Dennis, Lingo, and more.
As India's first e-commerce rollup company, Mena Brands has a unique approach to the e-commerce market.
Founded by Anan Narayanan, Mena Brands leverages Narayanan's extensive experience in the Indian e-commerce sector.
Mena Brands follows a 'rollup' business model, acquiring promising brands and scaling them up, rather than building from scratch.
The company acquires a majority stake in e-commerce companies with revenues between 25 to 35 crores, aiming for long-term collaboration.
Mena Brands' strategy includes acquiring and scaling brands in various categories such as apparel, home, personal care, beauty, and content.
The company has a goal to acquire 40 to 50 brands and scale 20% of them to over 1,000 crores in revenue.
Mena Brands capitalizes on the growing Indian consumption market, which is set to become the third-largest consumer market by 2026.
India's internet penetration has risen significantly, enabling the e-commerce market and online-first brands to flourish.
Mena Brands focuses on creating brands with high potential for brand value and household recognition.
The company's strategy includes an offline channel, understanding the importance of physical presence in a value-conscious market like India.
Mena Brands also focuses on content companies, leveraging platforms with large audiences for better product marketing and discovery.
The company has a global outlook, with 30% of its revenue coming from international markets, showcasing its 'Going Global' strategy.
Mena Brands benefits from economies of scale, allowing for better supplier negotiations and cost reduction in the long run.
The company's unique strategies and insights position it as a strong house of brands with the potential to disrupt India's e-commerce space.
Transcripts
10 years the time that zomato and zeroa
took to become a unicorn 6 years the
time that Mama or took to become a
unicorn 6 months that's all it took Mena
Brands to become a unicorn a company
that made more than 500 crores in
Revenue in fi23 and is India's fastest
ever company to reach a billion dollar
valuation in just six freaking months
and they were even profitable in the
first 6 months of their Journey but you
might not even have heard of them a
company that is scaling more than 20 DTC
brands at once which includes Brands
like my fitness Willen Dennis lingo and
many more it's India's first e-commerce
rollup company and have cracked
something super unique in India's
e-commerce Market that you must know of
so what is the secret Source here and
what has Mena Brands cracked we'll get
into that but if you're new to the
channel and wondering what growthx is we
are an invite only community of over
3,000 Founders and product and marketing
leaders from Top product companies you
can check more about us from the link in
the description coming back to the first
inside that they cracked which is the
thasu Insight see Mena was started by
Anan Narayanan who has literally
witnessed the Eco wave firsthand in
India he's an ex- meening consultant ex
co-founder and CEO of medlife and ex CEO
of mintra so the question is what does
the company do see Mena is a company
which is a house of Brands but they
don't build each brand from 0 to one
instead they're acquiring promising
Brands and take them from one to 10
Journey the company has followed a thio
business model but what is that see thio
is a US company started by these two
guys in 2018 who noticed a stockling
trend on Amazon the rise of third party
sellers look Amazon has primary two type
of sellers one is the first party
sellers or vendors and second is the
third party sellers in the case of first
party relationship Amazon acts is a
wholesaler for you and it's an invite
only program and Amazon only invites few
big Sellers as they are sure of the
frequency and reputation of these
sellers for these sellers Amazon takes
care of everything beat shipping
products details listing figuring out
the pricing and even returns so the role
of the vendor in this relationship is
just to fulfill the purchase order sent
by Amazon and ship the product to Amazon
the next one which is the third party
relationships are what most of the small
businesses get when they enroll as an
Amazon Seller here Amazon becomes only
the marketplace for you in this you sell
your product directly to customers on
Amazon being the marketplace but the
catch here is that you have to take care
of everything starting from pricing
product listing optimization advertising
and even Logistics and returns but now
Amazon has made the logistic part easier
through their service of fulfillment by
Amazon which takes care of the
deliveries tasio which is the US company
that we talking about notice the rise in
third party sellers on Amazon this
number went from 26% 2007 to 61% 2024
the space for third party sellers was
getting really competitive and many good
brands would reach a threshold of $3 to5
million in revenue and would get stuck
there and wouldn't scale post that and
to expand they would either take debt or
raise funds so thaso would come in here
and acquire these Brands to give
Founders a good lucrative exit and then
they would fix everything for the brand
be product portfolio packaging online
strategy Performance Marketing and even
supply chain with the strategies they
increased sales by 30% within 2 months
from many of these Brands and got over
200 Brands under the folio in fact they
even reached a p valuation of $10
billion and raise funds from Big
investors like these but today things
are not going super great for them
because of their bankruptcy situation
but that's for some other day what's
really important here is that this model
of acquiring and bringing multiple
brands or acquiring companies under one
company is known as the rollup model and
thasu made it popular in the e-commerce
space this became the Genesis for Mena
Brands by the way Mena is still very
different from thio and we'll cover this
in detail in the video but what's
similar though is that Mena also
acquires a majority stake of minimum 51%
in fast growing e-commerce companies in
various categories like apparel home
Personal Care Beauty and even content
these companies would idly have a
revenue of 25 to 35 crores and founder
would work with Mena for 5 years at
least so all these 20 plus companies
that you see here are nothing but the
acquired companies of Mena by the way
this model has obviously been replicated
by other players in the country as well
like Global bees UPS scalo code brand
labels and even flow you can check the
investors backing each of them in this
graph by pausing the video but Mena's
goal is to acquire 40 to 50 Brands over
time and scale 20% of them to a revenue
of more than 1,000 crores and just see
what Anand feels about this we have 20
brands that we bought I would say seven
of those brands are now 80% of our
revenue and they are the breakout breads
right there is another seven that I
think have the potential to be a
breakout and then there are others that
we will consolidate into these 14 now
let's talk about the second Insight the
Indian brand Insight but before we get
into that I'm super excited to tell you
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to the Insight see what made Anan super
bullish was the possibility of creating
Indian Brands and this one because of
two reasons one was the the growing
Indian consumption and the second was
the higher internet penetration and
we'll discuss both if you look at the
consumption side we are the fifth
biggest consumer Market in the world and
we are supposed to get to the third spot
by 2026 in fact India's private
consumption is so big that it makes
massive 60% of our entire GDP which is
almost twice of what it does for a
similar big country like China so we are
a country where private consumption
basically drives our economy but what is
private consumption it is basically the
expenses consumer make for basic stuff
like food housing clothing health and
even Leisure communication and education
and this data is as for the Blue menes
Valley report it's a great report by the
way and if you want to access this we
have shared the link in the description
by the way interestingly if you go deep
you would see that 10% of India
contributes to 50% of consumption as
India has three different economies
within itself which is Poland Singapore
and Mexico where each is significantly
different from each other and this is
from the theory of Kishore bani who is
an Indian retail Legend and the guy
behind big Bazar but yeah let's keep
that for some other day when we'll only
talk about India's economy in detail so
what's important to understand is that
while one major Tailwind for the
business was growing consumption the
next one was India's internet boom see
our internet penetration has risen from
41% to 55% in just last 4 years in fact
we have now more internet users in rural
India than we have in urban India a
situation which took some time to happen
and this has just accelerated the
e-commerce market and made it possible
for online first Brands to exist and
there are many big examples like Mama
Earth boat lens card and many more but
what un unnoticed here is that this is
just the tip of the ice work because
some of the biggest categories like
clothing Personal Care food are highly
unbranded if you look at Food 50% of the
market is unorganized if you look at
apparel 65% of the market is unorganized
but as these sectors get more and more
organized and as people spend more on
these sectors with increasing per capita
incomes India would see more people
spending more on the basis of brand
value and this pattern is something that
all of us have observed around us we are
happy to pay a premium if we like a
brand and these brands are what Mena is
aiming to go for the company wants to
create a few brands that became
household names in 10 years because they
know that this is not a single winner
takes all Market but a market where many
winners can coexist now the third
Insight offline and content play look
the thasu model and Mena model might
look similar from hindsight but they're
different how is that see even the
category of products both brand Target
are very different thio was more focused
on acquiring hot selling products than
acquiring brands for example one of the
companies that they acquired is a
company called this works this company
only makes one product which is vacuum
cleaners and there's another one called
chalk tastic again this company makes
paints and sketch pens that's all Mena
on the other hand is going for Brands
rather than going for hard selling
products Brands which can be thousand CR
brands in India they're focusing on
bigger categories like Fashion Beauty
fmcg home and even content they're also
different from thasu and the sense that
they're going also for the offline
Channel because as for them every brand
requires different levers to be pulled
as per different stages for example from
0 to 20 crores the company should focus
obsessively on product and get good
reviews and good repeat rates from 20 to
100 crores the company should get
effective with Performance Marketing and
expand its skus from 100 to 500 crores
the company should start opening offline
stores and build effective campaigns and
do effective community building and
offline makes a lot of sense in India
because we are a very value conscious
market and to build the trust we need to
see the product in our hands the more we
see a product offline the more we think
of trying it out and it is even more
important in categories like food and
touch and field categories like clothing
that's why they even got on board nanjan
tandul varer who had great experience of
taking care of the offline operations at
adya builda Fashion the giant that owns
some of the biggest lify brands in India
including saari van Hussein and Forever
21 another Super unique thing they have
done is going for Content companies like
men XP and Ida at the time of the
acquisition both of these companies had
roughly 35 million monthly active users
a big audience right away for them to
Market and promote their products better
this again is a very smart move because
these platforms are very lifestyle
focused platforms and the process of
discovery which is basically when you
see the product for the first time can
happen really well on these platforms
because we know that products now are
discovered online first and then the
conversion happens later in offline so
the easier the discovery becomes easier
the conversion becomes this brings me to
their fourth unique strategy which is
the Going Global Insight this again is
very different to what thio did sheim
Mena is not looking at the population of
just 1.3 billion people they're also
looking past that in fact right now they
have 30% of the revenue coming from
Global markets including us UAE and
Canada this again is a very unique
approach that they have taken in fact
50% of all their brand portfolio is
available outside now you must be
thinking how do they do that see they
list their products in the e-commerce
platforms of these companies too for
example in the case of UAE they listed
their products like willin Pebble and
for culture on Amazon of UAE and other
e-commerce platform which is nonon which
is pretty famous in UAE by the way
Amazon becomes a lot easier for them
because the the ratings and great
reviews that their products get here
also get translated and reflected in
other countries and the Going Global
Insight is a master stroke because India
is one of the biggest apparel
manufacturers in the world so making
something here and selling it at outside
at higher rates in the foreign
currencies is just a great idea by the
way this is not something that any brand
can do and Mena has an advantage of
scale here just imagine many Brands out
of them could have the same suppliers
like they might be getting the cotton
from suppliers from multiple brands at
once this just gives them the power to
negotiate better prices with their
suppliers and reduce the cost of goods
in the long run plus their optimization
for scaling becomes easy because they
now have the advantage of economies of
skill by the way this benefit of skill
also applies to talent because they have
a team of experts working on specific
function for 20 brands at once for
example a performance marketing team
that is obsessively working on
Performance Marketing of 20 Brands can
figure out what strategies works and
what does not and iterate accordingly
every little thing that we have
discussed so far combined makes Mena a
strong House of brands that can disrupt
India's e-commerce space so these were
the main insights that made Mena a very
unique startup story if you like this
video do check out the video we did on
whole truth I'll see you in the next one
ciao
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