Razorpay – Episode 2

Hey there,

Hope you all had a great Christmas!

As we bid adieu to this year with a lot of complaints, rants, let’s not forget that we’ll certainly cherish a few 2020 moments as well. Quality time with families, hours of binge-watching series, the yum home-cooked food, and of course, dozens of VC screenshots filled in our galleries.

A Little Nostalgic

For us, today’s piece is a special one, the last piece of 2020, and with that, we’ll be concluding our third startup.  

What makes it even more remarkable is the message we derive out of it. That no matter what, humanity finds its own ways to survive and thrive!

Amidst all the chaos and hours of screen timing, we all find opportunities to create something valuable, keep uplifting ourselves and the people we are surrounded with.

Razorpay – Episode 2

Razorpay is no different. The founders seized every possible opportunity that came across and did what was needed to make Razorpay a disruptor.

Demonetization – Make hay while the sun shines

Razorpay converted their offices into war rooms when the government of India announced demonetization on November 8. They knew that the next few weeks would witness spikes in digital transactions and POS will be out of stock within a matter of days. The founders capitalized on this opportunity and launched E-POS for SMEs and E-COD payments for e-commerce companies, enabling e-commerce and SMEs to accept payments digitally.

The Journey Roadmap

I believe the need for speed has been part of my growth story. Having high speed and traction is one requirement to come out at the top – Harshil Mathur, Co-founder Razorpay

Following this philosophy, the co-founders make sure to keep innovating and disrupting the Fintech Industry. They keep launching products, and each product helps them to upsell and cross-sell the other products – an inherent advantage of building an ecosystem rather than a product.

Covid 19 – In the middle of difficulty lies an opportunity

RazorpayX, the neo banking arm of Razorpay, is now a 2-year-old product.

But before that, what is Neo banks?

Neobanks are financial technology firms that offer internet-only financial services and lack physical branches.

The co-founders knew that the boundary between neobanks and traditional banks will get blurred as India gradually moves to digital. The pandemic accelerated the process and escorted traditional banking and neo banking at the same front faster than expected. Amidst mobility constraints, users had not many options but to avail most of their money management services online.

In the last 6 months, neobanks has grown by 20x, no wonder RazorpayX has also followed an upward trajectory and is projected to rise to 30% by 2021, accounting for over 15% of the company’s revenue.

The Culture

One thing we keep emphasizing in all our articles is culture. The company’s culture started right from the group of 11 IITians, who were trying out to build a customer-centric fintech product. The founders believe in transparency, freedom, humility, and coaching others.

What comes to your mind when you think of senior management perks and status?

– Separate cabins, Business class tickets, etc?

But Razorpay tried to subvert the norm. After realizing the need for senior management in their company, the founders hired an HR (People Ops team) to ensure that the team is diverse in terms of ethnicity and backgrounds. During the hiring process of senior management, they were asked, what if there is no cabin for you, what if you are required to travel in economy class for business purposes?

The reaction of interviewees was their criteria to observe people. Also, there is a ‘No Cabin’ policy – they are looking for learners who have a hunger to grow and mentor others.

Patience is a virtue

Last time, we left you all by asking one question: when the product vision of Razorpay was to build a payment gateway for SMEs and Startups, how and why Airtel, Swiggy are their clients?

Capital Budgeting Decisions

Why do you prefer buying clothes from Myntra, not from some random website?

Because you trust Myntra more than others, you know they will process the refunds and accept the returns as and when you want.

Similarly, when a business looks for investing in software or any other product, they prefer purchasing it from someone who is trusted in the market. Having Airtel and Swiggy as clients helped Razorpay gain the trust of SMEs and startups. The founders built an enterprise resource team to acquire big clients, which ultimately helped them to onboard more and more small players in the market. Associating big brands with Razorpay helped them to bring not only business but also trust.

Vision Statement – RazorpayWe are here to power the financial ecosystem for disruptors – from payments and disbursements to banking and lending.

The pandemic forced many start-ups to kneel down and give up, but then some managed to rise. Some of which we covered in the series of decoding startups are: A story of B2B E-commerce Aggregator – Udaan; The Fantasy Sports Platform – Dream11; and The SMEs and Start-up Savior – Razorpay.

Why don’t you give it a read and wonder why?

And, let us know your thoughts on it.

Heartfelt thanks,

Writer: Komal Kumari, Nikita Aggarwal

See you all next year.

Until then, keep smiling and stay healthy! 😀

You can write to us at decodingsuccessfulstartups@gmail.com.