Why I joined Mirakl...?

In the past few weeks my friends, family members and colleagues have been asking me the question – why did I join Mirakl? Well, for the people in Europe and to some extent in Americas the question may not arise as Mirakl has become well-known in business community. However, for us in Asia Pacific region, Mirakl is still relatively an unknown entity. So, as I have completed one month in Mirakl, I thought it’s a right time and opportunity for me to reflect on why I joined Mirakl, what I've learnt and whether my assumptions before joining were correct or far from it.

Well, before I begin, I think it would be prudent to share “who or what Mirakl is”, so that it helps you to understand better. Mirakl is a French startup that’s co-founded by Adrien Nussenbaum and Philippe Corrot in 2012. It was their 3rd company together after founding Splitgames, Fnac marketplace and having sold them successfully. After creating successful marketplaces, they were confident that this is a successful business model already pioneered by Amazon. But no one had the technology and expertise to build marketplaces and run it successfully. So, they had an idea to democratise marketplace technology and provide solutions to other organisations and enabling them to innovate and launch newer business models and revenue streams. Essentially, helping organisations to facilitate trade between producers, manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors, retailers and their respective consumers – no matter which business they are in.

Today, we know that ecommerce has taken over businesses as traditionally we know, but fewer people realise that ecommerce that they see is powered by marketplaces. In fact, if you do a research most successful ecommerce companies are marketplaces, who not only sell their own branded products but have built marketplaces for complimentary products or entirely operating as a 3rd party marketplace platforms for buying/selling goods. According to research, in the year 2020 marketplaces grew more than double the growth rate of ecommerce.

So, when opportunity came to me from a fast-growing organization that is transforming the businesses, it was not very difficult to decide. However, it was still somewhat difficult for me to choose between continuing to grow in my present role, where I’ve put my heart & soul to establish the business, developed relations with client organisations and been entrusted by them and choosing a new challenge and starting from scratch again. Well, I think I've made the right choice and am very happy with it.

Within past few weeks after joining, we’ve had some great news. First came the news of US$555 Million series E funding led by Silverlake partners and backed by existing investors at a valuation of US$3.5 Billion. That shows tremendous trust our investors have on our co-founders, executive leadership team, our technology and our business model. Then came the announcement by Forrester on New Wave for marketplace development solutions, where Mirakl has been ranked as a leader and differentiated in 9 categories out of 10. Essentially, clearly differentiated in every category where Mirakl competes in.

As I reflect, there are 3 main reasons why I joined and it’s the people at Mirakl that helped me make that decision.

1.    People and Culture: Since my first interaction during interview process, having met some key people during interview and subsequently after joining, having met some more of my colleagues, it's easy to understand the quality of people and culture. At Mirakl, not only we have some of the best people around the world from Australia to Boston, but also one of the best cultures, I’ve come across. Its evident in the warm welcome I’ve received since joining, amount of support, openness and a genuine willingness to help, no matter who you are and where you are. Our investors from Silverlake clearly identified it as one of the biggest strengths during Series E funding announcement.   

So, if you want to join part of this great organization, do apply. We are hiring for various roles at our key hubs and growing. Singapore is our newest hub and we are hiring for a Senior Solution Engineer-Asia and looking to grow the team across functions. If you are self-starter, have right skills, experience and keen to join a $3.5Bn unicorn, do feel free to reach out to me or our recruitment team.

2.    Technology: I’ve talked about our technology earlier as it’s ranked by Forrester as leader but even more importantly demonstrated by success of our client organisations that include ABB, Accor, Airbus, BestBuy Canada, Carrefour, Catch Group, Darty, Debenhams, Decathlon, Fnac, Krogers, J.Crew, TradeSquare and Toyota Material Handlings to name a few. We have outstanding technology platform that enables organisations to scale quickly and securely with all enterprise grade security in place. And if you are thinking about marketplaces then you need to think and worry about scale and security. As if you are not able to scale or don’t have relevant security enabled, it is likely that your marketplace and your business is going to get into trouble soon.

3.    Customer Success and Ecosystem: I am very passionate about my customers and enabling their success. Those, with whom I’ve had opportunity to work with in the past, can vouch for me that the lengths I can go to, to help them and succeed. I see this as fundamental to Mirakl values and embedded in the DNA of every Mirakl worker. Mirakl is here to help our customers succeed in their business by partnering them for the long run. We have dedicated and experienced customer success organization, platform advisory services and we’ve built an ecosystem of partners and seller network. And this is something we are and we will continue to grow. Our customers’ success is our success.

I hope this provides you a good glimpse into Mirakl and why I joined Mirakl. As I wrote this sitting on an Airbus A350 onboard a Singapore Airlines flight to Paris to meet my new Mirakl family and colleagues, I am sure of getting entrenched deeper into our culture and return wiser and better informed to help our Asian business scale new heights.

Thank you very much for taking your time to read my story. If you found it interesting, do like and share it and leave your words of encouragement.

Sincerely,

Bhagwat Pant

PS: I work for Mirakl and look forward to partnering Asian businesses and organisations to help them drive their revenue growth in platform economy.