IKT INDIA
Scaled B2B handloom marketplace from 20 to 45+ vendors (2.3x in 9 months), reaching INR 15L+ monthly GMV. Owned product roadmap across seller onboarding, catalog management, and order fulfillment.
Role
Product Manager
Duration
9 mo
Type
full-time
Location
Hyderabad, India
Overview
IKT INDIA is a B2B handloom marketplace connecting traditional Indian artisans with retailers. As Product Manager, I owned the end-to-end product lifecycle — from discovery and user research through delivery and iteration. My primary focus was scaling the vendor network and improving key activation and retention metrics.
The Challenge
When I joined, the platform had ~20 vendors and was struggling with low activation rates and poor retention. Artisans found the onboarding process confusing, and the KYC-to-first-listing funnel had major drop-offs. The engineering team was small (3 people), so every feature had to be ruthlessly prioritized.
- Low vendor activation — many signed up but never completed KYC or listed products
- High churn among vendors in the first 60 days
- Complex onboarding for non-tech-savvy artisans in rural India
- Limited engineering bandwidth requiring impact/effort prioritization
- No existing analytics infrastructure for tracking user behavior
My Approach
Discovery & Research
Conducted seller interviews and mapped the end-to-end journey. Identified critical drop-off points in the onboarding funnel that informed the PRD for a redesigned flow.
Verification & Catalog
Shipped seller verification flow and bulk catalog upload with the 3-engineer team. Streamlined KYC-to-first-listing path, reducing seller setup time dramatically.
Growth & Expansion
Built seller acquisition playbook and prioritized backlog using impact/effort scoring. Launched in 2 new markets that contributed 20% of new vendor signups.
Analytics & Retention
Defined KPIs and built seller analytics dashboard using SQL and Mixpanel. Identified at-risk sellers early and implemented retention interventions.
Key Decisions
Shipped seller verification flow with bulk catalog upload
Context: Data showed most vendors dropped off between KYC and first listing. Bulk upload removed the friction of adding products one by one.
Outcome: Activation improved by 30-35%. Seller setup time reduced from 3 days to 6 hours.
Built seller analytics dashboard before adding new features
Context: Without visibility into seller health metrics, we were flying blind on retention. Needed data to identify at-risk sellers.
Outcome: 60-day retention improved by 20% (relative lift in repeat orders). Could proactively intervene with disengaged sellers.
Launched in 2 new markets using acquisition playbook
Context: Needed to prove the marketplace model could scale beyond initial geography. Used impact/effort scoring to pick markets.
Outcome: New markets contributed 20% of vendor signups. Validated the playbook for future expansion.
Results & Impact
Over 9 months, scaled the marketplace from 20 to 45+ vendors (2.3x growth), reaching INR 15L+ monthly GMV. Activation improved 30-35%, 60-day retention improved 20%, and successfully launched in 2 new markets.
Learnings
What did this teach me?
The biggest lesson was the power of talking to sellers directly. Field context changed my understanding of what "simple" means for different user segments. Data-informed decisions beat gut feelings, but you need qualitative context to interpret the numbers correctly.
What would I do differently?
I would have invested in analytics infrastructure earlier. We lost valuable data in the first months because tracking wasn't set up properly. I also would have pushed harder for a mobile-first approach from day one — many artisans primarily used low-end smartphones.