We’re comfortable to announce that Emel Meteoglu, Vice President of Product at B-Inventory, has been named one of many High 50 Ladies Leaders of San Francisco for 2023 by Ladies We Admire!
Emel is an achieved govt and product chief with a ardour for constructing easy-to-use, helpful, and modern merchandise from the bottom up at a world scale, from defining the technical structure to making ready to go to market technique. At B-Inventory, she leads a crew accountable for product improvement, income development, person expertise, analytics, and company and product technique.
Study extra about Emel’s background and imaginative and prescient for B-Inventory beneath.
Q: Are you able to inform us somewhat bit about your background?
“I went to high school in Turkey for Product Administration Engineering. I do know it’s a cliché, however I knew from a younger age that I needed to turn into a product supervisor to bridge the hole between enterprise (gross sales, advertising and marketing, assist) and engineering.”
Q: What introduced you to B-Inventory?
“A few issues had been happening in my life. One, I used to be prepared for a brand new journey, however I needed to do one thing significant. I needed to make use of my expertise to assist individuals. The second factor happening was, we’d simply gotten a home and I used to be buying loads, and shopping for furnishings—and sadly, I used to be returning a few of it. Because of the excessive value, in the event you pay full worth and assume the merchandise could also be broken, as an finish person, you need to return it. You need to be certain that in case you are paying full worth, you’re getting the very best high quality attainable.
As she went via the method of returning a desk she’d ordered that arrived with a dent on it, her dad and mom—who had been visiting—had been amazed by the versatile return insurance policies, which aren’t outstanding in Emel’s native Turkey: “If you wish to return one thing there, you actually should struggle. Even when it’s faulty, you might not get your a refund. The client is just not all the time proper.”
This acquired Emel pondering: within the midst of seemingly limitless returns, the place does the merchandise find yourself, and the way a lot waste is being generated? Is there a option to go these returned objects on to secondary finish customers and generate financial savings? The reply she got here up with was: via “second life givers;” Emel’s time period for patrons. And simply as she contemplated these potentialities, B-Inventory reached out, as if via serendipity.
“I do know there are numerous conventional liquidation channels, however this trade is so fragmented and open to disruption. We will positively construct one thing helpful for everyone—retailers, resellers, and finish customers! Furthermore, this additionally acquired me pondering that I can really not solely assist individuals, however assist Earth by giving these merchandise a second, third, fourth life. That actually drew me in. I’m lastly going to do one thing significant, so 10 years from now I can inform my youngsters the platform we constructed helped carry billions of returned merchandise again to life. I’m very enthusiastic about what we will construct. The alternatives that we will create for resellers and for fixing inefficiencies, and the ache factors that we will clear up for retailers is limitless. As I inform my very own crew, sky’s the restrict. We simply must focus and construct it proper.”
Emel’s imaginative and prescient for B-Inventory goes past promoting overstock to vetted patrons—it means that we will turn into a significant participant within the gig financial system, fostering the way forward for patrons and serving to them not solely develop, however be taught alongside the way in which:
Q: How do you envision B-Inventory enabling individuals to develop into elite patrons?
“Uber has 900,000 drivers within the U.S. It’s not unrealistic to think about having a million second life givers assist us discover returned merchandise second houses.
The variety of second life givers is barely restricted by the variety of adults within the inhabitants, and also you don’t even should personal a automotive to begin your facet hustle! Because of this I consider the sky’s the restrict: we will lengthen our platform in a approach that we might help second life givers begin their enterprise in the event that they don’t know begin; assist them create their very own web site, receive a enterprise license, or present schooling: Enterprise 101. We’ll stroll with them, facet by facet from the start. We’ll assist them construct, handle, and develop their enterprise in order that increasingly individuals can do that job and assist us carry extra merchandise into life.
Q: What’s your imaginative and prescient for sellers?
On the vendor facet, we want to consider how we will onboard extra merchandise onto our platform. How can we make sellers’ lives simpler? How can we combine extra into the vendor so it’s much less cumbersome for them and it’s straightforward to add the stock in our system? How will we clear up different issues for them via scanning, lotting, and sorting?”
Q: Sooner or later, what do you hope you’ll be able to say you probably did with B-Inventory?
“I’m envisioning that there will likely be state legal guidelines that say no reusable product goes to landfill; it have to be resold. I would additionally wish to see B-Inventory because the ecosystem of giving merchandise a second life, in order that it connects all of the gamers, corresponding to returns and stock administration companies, logistics, warehouses and success facilities, and even different liquidators!
Once I see these two issues occurring, I’ll say we made it: we created a platform to save lots of Earth. And that’s what I’ll strive so long as I’m right here.”
Requested what her necessities are for working with a product or firm, Emel had this to say:
“As a product supervisor and chief, serving to others is what motivates me. I need to construct helpful merchandise which are straightforward to make use of and modern. These are my three standards:
It ought to disrupt the prevailing trade and the methods wherein we function.
It ought to be helpful to others by addressing their ache factors and offering worth.
It ought to be intuitive and easy.”
