How IIT graduate's venture MobiKwik created a niche in the online mobile recharge space in three years
For most people, starting a new venture is usually about shaking up their professional lives or scaling upwards. It hasn't been any different for me, but besides these triggers, there was one other crucial factor at play: monetary consideration. In 2008, when I thought of upgrading my skills by acquiring an MBA degree from one of the top universities in the US, I was in for a rude shock. The fee was too high and I was in a quandary. Was it worth spending nearly Rs 20 lakh for a degree? I ruled out an education loan because it would have prevented me from starting a venture for a long time. Taking the entrepreneurial plunge with the same amount seemed like a better idea. This is howMobiKwik.com, an online mobile recharge services provider, was born.
I had the necessary skills and technical knowhow for such a venture. After graduating from IIT Delhi in 2002 in chemical engineering, I worked with Intel, Bangalore, as a hardware engineer. In 2005, I moved to Nvidia as a platform architect, working on designing hardware components. Two years later, I shifted to Delhi and joined Freescale Semiconductor, where I was involved with the making of chips for a range of Motorola phones. It was here that I toyed with the idea of further studies. I had knowledge about the IT industry, but had absolutely no clue about the financial aspects of running a business; the natural solution was B-school education. However, after my plans were scuppered by the astronomical fee, I began looking for start-up ideas.
I knew it would have to be in the tech field, but by the end of 2008, I was still weighing my options. This, when the answer had been staring me in the face all the time. Like most Indians, I had a prepaid connection for my mobile phone and would often have to rush to recharge it. At the time, there were very few online options addressing this need. While some banks, like Citibank, offered the service to its debit card users, it was typically for a high, fixed amount and was not accessible to everyone.
Basic research, including going through reports released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, revealed that 90% of all the mobile users inIndia were prepaid users. Given the rising penetration of the Internet in urban India at the time, it was logical that the convergence of Internet and prepaid recharge would emerge as a business opportunity. So, in June 2009, though I was still neck deep in research, I quit my job and started working full-time on setting up MobiKwik.
The ace up my sleeve was my to-be wife, Upasana Taku. She had worked with Paypal in the US till 2008, returning to India to work with various start-ups. She helped me finetune the payment options, and eventually joined the company in 2010.
To get started, I put together a seed capital of around Rs 8 lakh from my own pocket. Most of it went into setting up the infrastructure, including the website, payment options, and renting of the office space at Dwarka, Delhi. Finally, in August 2009, we launched the company. Despite a sizeable Web presence by this time, the progress in the initial days was slow. A majority of the Indians were yet to get used to the idea of online recharging of their phones. Moreover, I had never handled the finance aspect of a business. From getting the website running to finalising deals with various telecom companies for recharge availability, I had to learn everything on the ground since I had no managerial experience. So, in the first year of operations, I focused more on the overall running of the business.
The learnings were many. For example, the SBIBSE -0.23 % debit cards were, and continue to be, the most popular in the country, but we found out that most of the users would go for the slightly older versions of Web browsers. So we ensured that our payment options were compatible even with the Internet Explorer 5.0 or 6.0 versions. By the beginning of the second year of operations, we were registering 500-600 recharges a day, on an average. For every recharge of Rs 100, we would get a commission of Rs 3-4, depending on the operator. The numbers may not seem impressive, but these helped us gain a foothold. As expected, things began improving in 2010, when awareness grew and more people started using the Internet for recharging. By the end of 2010, we also hired our first employee, a developer, to handle the website.
The growth has been encouraging and we managed to break even in June this year. We now have 22 employees and 15 service providers on our list, and offer much more than the recharge facility. In February 2012, we launched an e-wallet system, which enables users to deposit money online for facilities like bill payment. So customers can not only recharge their phones but also pay their bills through our website, or even via their phones. The mobile website, launched in October 2012, has got a good response. We are averaging about 15,000 recharges a day and expect a revenue of Rs 100 crore by the end of this fiscal year.
Source : ET BUREAU
We are averaging about 15,000 recharges a day and expect a revenue of Rs 100 crore by the end of this fiscal year.
For most people, starting a new venture is usually about shaking up their professional lives or scaling upwards. It hasn't been any different for me, but besides these triggers, there was one other crucial factor at play: monetary consideration. In 2008, when I thought of upgrading my skills by acquiring an MBA degree from one of the top universities in the US, I was in for a rude shock. The fee was too high and I was in a quandary. Was it worth spending nearly Rs 20 lakh for a degree? I ruled out an education loan because it would have prevented me from starting a venture for a long time. Taking the entrepreneurial plunge with the same amount seemed like a better idea. This is howMobiKwik.com, an online mobile recharge services provider, was born.
I had the necessary skills and technical knowhow for such a venture. After graduating from IIT Delhi in 2002 in chemical engineering, I worked with Intel, Bangalore, as a hardware engineer. In 2005, I moved to Nvidia as a platform architect, working on designing hardware components. Two years later, I shifted to Delhi and joined Freescale Semiconductor, where I was involved with the making of chips for a range of Motorola phones. It was here that I toyed with the idea of further studies. I had knowledge about the IT industry, but had absolutely no clue about the financial aspects of running a business; the natural solution was B-school education. However, after my plans were scuppered by the astronomical fee, I began looking for start-up ideas.
 |
Basic research, including going through reports released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, revealed that 90% of all the mobile users inIndia were prepaid users. Given the rising penetration of the Internet in urban India at the time, it was logical that the convergence of Internet and prepaid recharge would emerge as a business opportunity. So, in June 2009, though I was still neck deep in research, I quit my job and started working full-time on setting up MobiKwik.
The ace up my sleeve was my to-be wife, Upasana Taku. She had worked with Paypal in the US till 2008, returning to India to work with various start-ups. She helped me finetune the payment options, and eventually joined the company in 2010.
To get started, I put together a seed capital of around Rs 8 lakh from my own pocket. Most of it went into setting up the infrastructure, including the website, payment options, and renting of the office space at Dwarka, Delhi. Finally, in August 2009, we launched the company. Despite a sizeable Web presence by this time, the progress in the initial days was slow. A majority of the Indians were yet to get used to the idea of online recharging of their phones. Moreover, I had never handled the finance aspect of a business. From getting the website running to finalising deals with various telecom companies for recharge availability, I had to learn everything on the ground since I had no managerial experience. So, in the first year of operations, I focused more on the overall running of the business.
The learnings were many. For example, the SBIBSE -0.23 % debit cards were, and continue to be, the most popular in the country, but we found out that most of the users would go for the slightly older versions of Web browsers. So we ensured that our payment options were compatible even with the Internet Explorer 5.0 or 6.0 versions. By the beginning of the second year of operations, we were registering 500-600 recharges a day, on an average. For every recharge of Rs 100, we would get a commission of Rs 3-4, depending on the operator. The numbers may not seem impressive, but these helped us gain a foothold. As expected, things began improving in 2010, when awareness grew and more people started using the Internet for recharging. By the end of 2010, we also hired our first employee, a developer, to handle the website.
The growth has been encouraging and we managed to break even in June this year. We now have 22 employees and 15 service providers on our list, and offer much more than the recharge facility. In February 2012, we launched an e-wallet system, which enables users to deposit money online for facilities like bill payment. So customers can not only recharge their phones but also pay their bills through our website, or even via their phones. The mobile website, launched in October 2012, has got a good response. We are averaging about 15,000 recharges a day and expect a revenue of Rs 100 crore by the end of this fiscal year.
Source : ET BUREAU
