Binny and I were very clear our job is to define boundaries: Sachin Bansal

Hiring right talent the Flipkart founders prioritised right from the start

E-commerce major Flipkart’s captive logistics unit, EKart, in which it plans to invest $2.5 billion (Rs 17,200 crore) over the next few years, was initially started by an intern at the company. The experiment he ran in the Koramangala locality of this city, with a few delivery agents poached from Domino’s, was quickly expanded across 20 cities in three months.

Sachin Bansal, chairman and former chief executive of Flipkart, revealed the development in a talk about the building Flipkart and what he'd learnt from this, at an event here on Tuesday. Asked about his role as a founder, he said that right from the beginning, Binny Bansal and he took on the role of setting broad boundaries, with one of the success stories from that being EKart.  “At the scale we are at right now, and even in the early days, both Binny and I were very clear that we have great leaders and our job is largely to define boundaries, broad boundaries for frameworks of decision making, and give direction,” said Sachin Bansal, at a chat with Shradha Sharma of YourStory.

Bansal, who stepped down from the position of CEO of Flipkart after nearly eight years, said he did not anticipate the company would get as big as it is today. He time and again reiterated how important his team was in building Flipkart, adding one thing Binny and he got right from the start was hiring the right talent.

“Getting this big, this fast was something I had never imagined. I remember my first business plan that we presented to Accel Partners said maybe in five to 10 years we might become a $100-million company.”

Flipkart is currently the largest in the e-commerce market in India but is being pursued by Snapdeal and Amazon.

E-commerce in India is still a minuscule percentage of overall retailing but as smartphone penetration and improvements in connectivity arrive, that ratio will keep increasing. “As we started executing, it was like we were digging gold out of the ground. As we kept digging, we kept realising the mine is bigger and bigger. Then we said, okay, we need to set up an organisation, infrastructure and investments to mine this,” recalled Bansal.