Exclusive: Punit Soni tells Business Insider the real reason why he quit. Flipkart’s Ex CPO spills the beans

Punit Soni has been Flipkart’s biggest hire from the Silicon Valley. However, a couple of months into his tenure, the media has been buzzing with gossip about his exit. Putting speculation to rest, Punit Soni put in his papers a couple of days ago, kicking up a new storm of speculations about why he might have quit (Read more here, here, here and here). Interestingly, his quote appeared nowhere.

I decided to call Punit on a hot Saturday afternoon to get the real picture of why the Bay Area veteran quit, and what’s next for him. Thus began an hour long chat of cleaning the muck.

“My plan is to take a few months off, move my family to the US, and start something of my own”, he says.

Speculation Spree:

You’re abandoning ship because Indian e-commerce is doomed.
I haven’t lost hope. Indian e-commerce continues to be one of the biggest opportunities ever.

The one who’ll win at the end will be really big, and have a big advantage.

You lost faith in Flipkart
Flipkart was, and is still in an exceptional position to win.

It’s the segment leader, and I’m hopeful that under Binny it’ll have the rigor to go ahead and win a bigger piece of the market.

Did you get bored, given Flipkart isn’t an R&D organization (as read here)
*Laughs* this is funny. I’m not leaving because I’m bored.

In e-commerce, the innovation is behind the scenes. It’s about grinding around the supply chain, and doing justice to the low margin business you’re in. You’re not going to build AI, deep-mind or drones overnight.

It’s more about looking into price algorithms, automated ways of returns and ensuring customer satisfaction. All Indian e-commerce companies have a lot of sophistication to do, and so there’s a lot of potential for that kind of innovation.

The App only strategy was your baby. It failed, and you left (as read here)
Flipkart's App only ambitions were around before I joined the company. I have always held the view that Mobile is a mindset and not a channel strategy.

We have been responsible for ensuring that both the Mobile Website (Flipkart Lite) and Desktop site was re-launched. I am happy this is doing very well for Flipkart.

Sachin and you fell apart, and he fired you in the name of restructuring.
Sachin and I are good friends. He came to Mountain View and convinced me of the power of the company he’s building.

To be fair to them, they’ve spent time trying to figure out if there’s an alternate role for me. There’s reorganization, and we’ve shifted to a different setup.

Nobody has left anybody. It’s very amicable. We’ve just decided I want to do something else, and they want to do something else.

This restructuring is about cost-cutting, and Flipkart couldn’t afford you.
I can’t comment on the restructuring as it’s an internal strategic matter.

What I can say is core e-commerce is a difficult business to make money on. It takes time to put together a startup that lets you even break even. Amazon and Alibaba have been at it for decades.

There are changes that happen in the company in the meanwhile, but you don’t fix your cost structure overnight by moving people around.
It’s a natural evolution in the company to get to where it needs to be.

So why did you leave?
The last year has been a bit of a journey for me on a personal and professional level.

There are a couple of areas that I’m interested in that are not in the space Flipkart operates in. I feel it’s more useful for me to explore that.
As Flipkart evolved, and got where it is, I think it was a natural inflection point.

You’re censoring bits. What’s your passion? What did you want that you didn’t get that you left?
I know where you’re going with this. It’s got nothing to do with Flipkart.

The areas, I’m not ready to talk about yet. I’ll talk about it in a couple of months when I’m ready to announce what I’m doing.

So Punit Soni’s launching a startup sometime soon. Hmmmmmm….

Punit Soni and his Startup:

Is this an India-based product/service?
I’ll give you a basic outline. There’ll be a lot more to talk about in the coming months.

Whatever I do will have influence and impact in both countries. Whether I tackle both markets, and start simultaneously in both I don’t know yet.

It’s pretty clear to me it’s going to be a Silicon Valley-based startup and will have some connection with India.

You’ve been a product guy all your life. Is this a product or service?
I don’t want to talk about that, seriously.

The way you build a company is that you identify a problem, and spend a lot of time asking people what kind of solutions they want.

Consumers will define what it’s going to be.

Do you have a launch deadline in mind?
There’s no deadline, but in the next six months things will be pretty clear.

I’ll be shuttling between the US and India during this time.

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