Ex-Dunzo employee. AMA.
Since I am Done-Zo with Dunzo, AMA anything. Here to spill all the scoop that’s happened.
Softybones
Stealth
a year ago
Majorly tech and product affected?
All across the board.
Engineering team was bloated and never understood why there was a need of around 300 engineers (SDE 1 to CTO level) in the first place.
On top of it, the code base is such a mess, and the speed of shipping changes is really slow. They just like to create services and name it after a beverage, add more micro services and repeat. As a result, shipping any change would take 3-4 weeks. Major releases would often take months, which would easily be done in 2 sprints otherwise.
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SunscreenLagao
Stealth
a year ago
How has the situation mentally affected the employees there?
Morale is really low. Many employees have EMIs and Bills to pay and are desperately looking for jobs in this cold market.
Plus, the employees have lost faith in the leadership, which wasn’t the case last year. In most town halls, the leadership team is diplomatic when it came to answering tough questions.
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EarthDragon
Stealth
a year ago
I heard there was 1-2 secondaries during the 200mil round. Did folks benefit decently including founders?
I don’t know about the benefits tbh as I joined during the hiring frenzy of last year after they raised the round from Reliance.
But I did see lack of financial discipline - such as paying for hotels and flight tickets of employees to work from office for few weeks in May when the company was focusing on scaling ops during IPL, and also paying for multiple parties (anywhere from 100-500 people) every other Thursday or Friday at that time, and that too at places like Gawky Goose (which isn’t the cheapest tbh), paying for a standup gig by Rahul Subramanian, and much more which I am probably not even aware of.
EarthDragon
Stealth
a year ago
Suka suka! I guess if someone dives deep into financial activities, boxes of skeletons may emerge. Sad
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From what I am hearing, only thing that can probably make this company survive is if they focus on growing the B2B business, their ONDC coverage and they stop spending any other penny extra on the B2C side of things. Otherwise, there might be a fire sale of the company.
Not related to the topic but how does these things affect your mental health. It’s like working on building a ship and watching it sink
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I think when they started focusing on the Q-Commerce businesses, and started spending aggressively on marketing, expansion and hiring. Other BUs ( PnD, Marketplace model, Dunzo 4 Business) were either profitable or nearing break even, but they didn’t give 2 fucks about allocating resources for those BUs.
I felt things got to a point of no return when the Q comm business stagnated around Sept-Oct’22, while the B2B business was growing steadily with break even cost. Yet, most of the employees and marketing budget was allocated for Dunzo Daily, which IMO was the point of no return.
There were still brands and businesses approaching us who wanted to enlist their products and store on the hyperlocal marketplace flow. But the Leadership team decided to turn a blind eye to those who weren’t willing to stock their products in the Q Commerce offering (aka Mini Warehouses which Dunzo employees refer to instead off dark stores).
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RagePank
Stealth
a year ago
I like the LinkedIn posts from Dunzo's head of product. Generally insightful. What would your take be on how she steered the product org?
RagePank
Stealth
a year ago
I guess it's time for a shakeup at the top.
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How exactly does this Form 16 fiasco work? I understand that basically Dunzo has withheld taxes from the employees, but just not paid the income tax. And apparently Dunzo put out instructions to employees on how to file ITR without Form 16. But do they not realise that the employees have to pay that tax AGAIN?
I just don't understand how a company could be so truly terrible and awful to their entire workforce. It takes a special type of sociopath to be in Dunzo's management team right now.
TDS has been deducted, but it has been not deposited for all months. Now IDK why is that the case.
Not paying income taxes withheld from an employee would be a Statutory Non Compliance. Don't think so that would have happened. But you never know...
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stupidusername
Stealth
a year ago
How was the work life balance and behavior or CXO towards the employees?
WLB depended on the team and BU you worked on. I personally liked the WLB, and met some of the nicest and smartest colleagues.
The CXOs didn’t misbehave or treat employees badly, like the way Deepinder(Zomato) or Ashneer hurl abuses.
However, they had their heads up their asses and conveniently choose to ignore the fact that the Q- commerce business won’t cut it in making Dunzo profitable. As a result, they had to resort to layoffs since this year and other financial gymnastics to keep the business afloat.
I think I might add to the behaviour of CXOs towards the employees. Maybe the OP didn't face this but in WBR's the founders would hurl every abuse known to mankind. I mean the team weren't the most brightest when it came to doing things so I guess they sorta deserved it but many other people used to get caught in the cross fire too.
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Can be wrong but isn’t it possible to build and keep running dunzo with 20 odd engineers
Cont123
Stealth
a year ago
Dont think so, you have to build this type of culture from the start with proper stabilization, trade offs etc. to achieve this
Eg, whatsapp didnt have 1000 --> 10 engineers, it had 10-20 from the start
same with zerodha etc.
There might be some exceptions, but this never works.
With the current state of code base, I doubt it. Atleast 100 would be needed, and that too they will have to slog it out
Hey @Product
Really insightful AMA
Wanted to know: did revenue for consumer pick and drop go down very significantly after quick commerce?
Also, why do you think Dunzo never cracked QComm despite having an already established fleet? Was it the lack of dark stores and business understanding?
This will be very helpful for a startup idea I am toying with
So the consumer pick and drop (the courier service) was on autopilot ever since the Q Commerce pivot and no one reviewed those metrics last year . I don’t know for sure if it went down or up.
Dunzo’s assortment of products was lower compared to other Q commerce competitors, which is one of the reason why Dunzo didn’t do well.
I hear the Engineering team was bloated and it seem like the org follows a top down structure. Was product leadership blindsided that QC was the wrong call and decided to double down instead of pivot? I’m hoping to know if Dunzo was ever Product driven and if yes, at what point did things change?
Majorcapital786
Stealth
a year ago
Founders were so toxic man, they used to hurl abuses and scream. Bull market me aiyashi karake, party deke chup Kara dete the. Ab bear market me kya karoge sir? Gaali bhi deni hai, fire bhi karna hai
I am sorry you had to go through that. Which team though? In all the meetings that I have been, I have never seen any of the founders scream or hurl abuses.
Majorcapital786
Stealth
a year ago
Good for you boss. Seen it personally happen in q-commerce and b2b meetinfs. Esp the new initiatives. Expecting results in record time without understanding ground realities.
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What will happen to your pending salary and TDS? Did the HR promise you they will take care of it? Or are you on your own?
The delay of form 16 is really frustrating and they did send a mail saying that it will be generated latest by 4th week of July.
As for the pending salary, it’s more of a pain for current employees who are working and know that their jobs will be affected sooner or later. Idk how they are still showing up to work knowing that their payments for their said work is uncertain.
Haha good one. I mean approaching the recruiters, through referrals or they poached you from competitors? And what role man!
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Firstly, hope you cope up mentally with what you are going through.
I have been a fan of the product and how the brand positioning was done by the marketing team.
What would be something that you rejoice as a take away from Dunzo as a PM?
I really liked the work culture, and remote first operating setup.
Also met some of the nicest and smartest colleagues that I have ever worked with.
Was Dunzo always a gimmick before the founders realized they had too much at stake?
It wasn’t really, given the founders had made the business a profitable one before the Q commerce fiasco.
What they probably didn’t realise was that their existing business model suited only the metro cities, and with the Q comm pivot , they aspired to expand beyond metros, which has now backfired.
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How is the head of product of dunzo - akansha like? talented? she seems to act positive on LinkedIn
everything
Stealth
a year ago
What's your TC, role and yoe ?
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