Worker Highlight: Emel Meteoglu – Vice President of Product

We’re glad to announce that Emel Meteoglu, Vice President of Product at B-Inventory, has been named one of many  Top 50 Women 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 global scale, from defining the technical structure to making ready to go to market technique. At B-Inventory, she leads a workforce chargeable for product improvement, income development, consumer expertise, analytics, and company and product technique.

Study extra about Emel’s background and imaginative and prescient for B-Inventory under.  

Q: Are you able to inform us a bit 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 change into a product supervisor to bridge the hole between enterprise (gross sales, advertising and marketing, help) and engineering.”

Q: What introduced you to B-Inventory?

“A few issues have been occurring 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 occurring was, we’d simply gotten a home and I used to be buying lots, and shopping for furnishings—and sadly, I used to be returning a few of it. As a result of excessive price, if you happen to pay full worth and suppose the merchandise could also be broken, as an finish consumer, you need to return it. You need to be sure that if you’re paying full worth, you’re getting the very best high quality attainable. 

As she went by way of the method of returning a desk she’d ordered that arrived with a dent on it, her dad and mom—who have been visiting—have been amazed by the versatile return insurance policies, which aren’t distinguished in Emel’s native Turkey: “If you wish to return one thing there, you actually need to struggle. Even when it’s faulty, it’s possible you’ll not get your a reimbursement. The client will not be at all times proper.” 

This obtained Emel considering: 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 technique to cross these returned objects on to secondary finish customers and generate financial savings? The reply she got here up with was: by way of “second life givers;” Emel’s time period for patrons. And simply as she contemplated these potentialities, B-Inventory reached out, as if by way of serendipity.

“I do know there are numerous conventional  liquidation channels, however this business is so fragmented and open to disruption. We will positively construct one thing helpful for everyone—retailers, resellers, and finish customers! Furthermore, this additionally obtained me considering that I can really not solely assist individuals, however assist Earth by giving these merchandise a second, third, fourth life. That basically 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 convey billions of returned merchandise again to life. I’m very enthusiastic about what we are able to construct. The alternatives that we are able to create for resellers and for fixing inefficiencies, and the ache factors that we are able to remedy for retailers is limitless. As I inform my very own workforce, sky’s the restrict. We simply have to focus and construct it proper.”

Emel’s imaginative and prescient for B-Inventory goes past promoting overstock to vetted patrons—it means that we are able to change into a significant participant within the gig economic 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 need to personal a automobile to begin your aspect hustle! That is why I imagine the sky’s the restrict: we are able to prolong our platform in a method that we will help second life givers begin their enterprise in the event that they don’t know tips on how to begin; assist them create their very own web site, get hold of a enterprise license, or present training: Enterprise 101. We are going to stroll with them, aspect by aspect from the start. We are going to assist them construct, handle, and develop their enterprise in order that increasingly more individuals can do that job and assist us convey extra merchandise into life.

Q: What’s your imaginative and prescient for sellers?

On the vendor aspect, we’d like to consider how we are able to 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 simple to add the stock in our system? How can we remedy different issues for them by way of scanning, lotting, and sorting?”

Q: Sooner or later, what do you hope you may say you probably did with B-Inventory?

“I’m envisioning that there shall be state legal guidelines that say no reusable product goes to landfill; it should be resold. I  would additionally prefer to see B-Inventory because the ecosystem of giving merchandise a second life, in order that it connects all of the gamers, resembling returns and stock administration companies, logistics, warehouses and achievement facilities, and even different liquidators!

Once I see these two issues occurring, I’ll say we made it: we created a platform to avoid wasting 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 might be simple to make use of and modern. These are my three standards:

It ought to disrupt the prevailing business and the methods during which we function.
It ought to be helpful to others by addressing their ache factors and offering worth.
It ought to be intuitive and easy.”