Marketplaces
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Episode
How Zetwerk disrupted manufacturing by using technology to cut delays
Cutting out the intermediary helps many industries. Not so in manufacturing. It needed a middle layer. Suppliers routinely failed to deliver on time, and customers failed to pay on time. To improve trust and speed, Amrit Acharya and Srinath Ramakkrushnan introduced Zetwerk as a B2B marketplace for manufacturing in 2018.
Zetwerk began as a hub for steel fabrication. Within six months, its business went from a top line of ₹1 crore a month to ₹10 crore a month. Since then, the company has expanded into more than 10 categories and is valued at $2.7 billion today.
The company has transformed the space with high-quality products, increased transparency, and fewer and shorter delays. The backbone of its operation is technology. It uses dashboards to track each order at various stages in real time so that suppliers can stay on schedule and customers can get regular updates.
Manufacturing appealed to Amrit because he had dabbled in it fresh out of college. In several ways, it prepared him for starting up – because ‘building’ things from scratch is common to both worlds.
In this part of a series of conversations sponsored by Accel, Zetwerk CEO Amrit Acharya participated along with Prayank Swaroop of Accel Partners, who has backed the company right from the early days. They discuss the brass tacks of setting up a B2B marketplace with Pankaj Mishra.
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We’re building Passionfroot 1, an operating system for creators to manage their business.
We’re based in Europe and raised our $ 3.4m pre-seed round from Creandum and US angels such as Vlad (Webflow) and creators like Ali Abdaal.As we’re creating a new category and as the creator economy is global and mostly online, we’re building from Day 1 a global company and product that helps creators monetize around the world.
This brings a lot of complexities especially in terms of payments and taxes as our early users are based both in Europe and the US and deal with cross-border transactions.What are Do’s and Dont’s for European startups who have a global ambition and build products for a global customer base from Day 1. Anything you would do differently?
Thanks @pjbouten! Love how you’ve thought about incrementally shaping a category with a focus on product and service, and only then thinking about getting the message out there vs the other way around.
And totally agree on the distinctions and overlaps both self-serve and enterprise motions share.
Thanks, PJ, for taking the time to address questions from the great vantage of shaping Showpad into a global, enterprise SaaS brand!