Most of you have used Flipkart.com to buy products online. But most of you may not be aware of the below stories of Flipkart, which was founded by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal in 2007.
Unknown stories of Flipkart’s first full-time employee
The first full-time employee of Flipkart, who joined for Rs 8000 per month in 2009, owns million dollars worth share in Flipkart. His name is Ambur Iyyappa.
Ambur Iyyappa lost his job in 2009 when he was in three months leave for pursuing higher studies. He was working with First Fight Couriers as a Key account Relationship manager when he lost his job. First Fight Couriers was the partner of Flipkart to deliver orders during 2009. After Iyyappa had lost his job, the delivery boy of First Fight Couriers referred him to Sachin and Binny.
The Bansal duo recruited him for full-time and offered Rs 8000 per month as salary. They also paid Rs 5000 to the delivery boy as a referral bonus.
His work is to manage the orders of the customers placed. As there was no software available with Flipkart, Iyyappa used to manage the orders manually. He also remembered the status of each order along with the name of the customer and title of the book.
As per Binny Bansal, he was Human ERP until they reached a thousand orders a day.
As FlipKart business was doubling every quarter Iyyappa’s salary was also increased every quarter during 2010-11. In one year his salary almost grew to 10 times.
Today, the Flipkart stock that Iyyappa owns is valued at millions of dollars.
Do you know how Flipkart got their first customer?
A freelance web consultant, VVK Chandra from Mahabubnagar, Telangana, India, runs a blog. For one of his post, Sachin Bansal made a comment and left his e-commerce site link i.e. filipkart.com. This incident has happened on late October 2007
21-year-old VVK Chandra clicked on that link and found something interesting. Flipkart is selling books online, and he saw a book “Leaving Microsoft to Change The World.” Chandra searched many bookstores in Hyderabad to buy that book. But he didn’t get it in Hyderabad. Fortunately, the book was available in flipkart.com, and the price of the book was Rs 500/-. He decided to buy that book. He thought he may lose Rs 500/- if it is a fake website. He paid the money online.
The first order a tough delivery to Flipkart
Unfortunately, the order placed by Flipkart’s first customer was not available with any of their vendors. The Bansal duo, searched 50 bookstores in Bangalore and finally found one copy in which the pages were yellowish.
Binny called the customer and informed about the condition of the book. As the customer is fine with it, they delivered the first order.
The first order was delayed by two days. As there is a delay in order, they offered 10% discount on the order to the first customer.
On October 31, 2007, Binny Bansal shipped the order to the first client, Chandra. The book reached the customer in Mahabubnagar on November 2, 2007.
Binny Bansal’s effort to deliver first customer order
The book was available in Sapna Book Store in Indiranagar, Bangalore. It was a rainy day. Binny went to store to buy the book. He was completely wet. By the time he arrived bookstore, he had realised that he has forgotten wallet. He came back and borrowed Rs 500 from his friend to buy the book.
The first customer testimonial
Satisfied with the order, Chander had left a customer testimonial on the site “The best Indian online bookstore I have ever seen. Fast and free shipping, discounts and a large number of titles. I could not have expected more. You guys really rock. Good luck.”
FlipKart founders first interview to Flipkart First customer
Two months later, the first customer of Flipkart interviewed Sachin and Binny. The first customer VVK Chandra published the interview on his personal blog.
Flipkart founders still remember the name of the first customer
Flipkart founders still remember the name of the first customer the book he ordered and the book stall which they got the book of first order.
Here is the response from Sachin Bansal to a question by a viewer in Quora.
Previous work experience is with their immediate competitor!
When Flipkart was started Sachin Bansal was 26-year-old and Binny Bansal was 25-year-old. Both of them are computer engineers from IIT-Delhi 2005 batch. Both of them had one year six months of work experience before starting FlipKart. Amazon was their second employer. Both of them worked there around one year. They quit their jobs in September 2007 to begin Flipkart.
As there is very less work for them at Amazon, they used to work for 2 to 3 hours a day and rest of the time they used to play Table Tenis.
Initial responsibility of Bansal’s during startup
Binny Bansal has designed the first Flipkart website. He had coded the website completely. Sachin Bansal used to take care of business operations.
Is Flipkart not Indian based company?
Despite the fact Flipkart was founded by Indians, Flipkart is not registered in India. Flipkart was registered in Singapore due to Taxation purpose and benefits. But the headquarters are located in Bangalore.
Do you know how did Flipkart got their first major investor?
Tiger Global, which is one of the Flipkart’s major investor made a phone call to Flipkart customer support and reached Binny Bansal. Tiger Global then proposed their interest to invest in Flipkart.This incident happened in 2010.
6 logos in 8 years
The current logo of Flipkart is the 6th version. Flipkart has changed 5 logos from 2007 to 2015.
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