See how India’s Fintech player Instamojo is leading the market?

Instamojo was established in 2012, it is a Bangalore based Company which provides its customer a platform to sell digital goods like ebooks, music, software, photo and many more. It was started by Aditya Sengupta, Akash Gehani, Harshad Sharma and Sampad Swain.  Instamojo offers various solutions to today’s era Entrepreneurs, Solopreneurs & Freelancers. The best part of Instamojo is that it takes 5 minutes to get started and within next 5minutes you can activate your account.

Instamojo was started with the following vision.

“We believe every business idea deserves to be on the Internet to grow. But very few can. We make it possible with technology, data, design and a little bit of Mojo ( noun | mo·jo | meaning magic ).”

So the word mojo means magic. Below is the conversation with one of the co-founder and see how they are spreading the magic to be the most known company in the sector.

Give a brief info about your startup?

Instamojo is India’s fastest growing on-demand payments and e-commerce platform that enables over 3,00,000 SMEs to build, manage and grow their business online. A trusted partner for SMEs in India, Instamojo’s insightful tools are poised to enable small entrepreneurs to minimize costs and grow their business. It is a one-stop shop for entrepreneurs that cater to their diverse business needs by leveraging technology, data and design.

It’s flagship link-based payments enable anyone with a bank account and phone number to start accepting all modes of payments including credit, debit, wallets, UPI etc. within a few minutes. Entrepreneurs can provide a payment link generated by Instamojo and share it on WhatsApp, SMS, email or Facebook to collect payment from buyers. The company has introduced a suite of strategic and powerful solutions that cater to the diverse business needs of merchants which include a Connect Marketplace, an Instamojo Online Store (A customizable store where merchants can sell their own products, hosted on Instamojo for free) and an Android app. The features of the online store include shopping cart, optimized SEO links, Analytics, payment links for easy checkout, sales reports and other important apps like accounts and tax-related tools to give the merchant a complete online business experience. Entrepreneurs sell a diverse range of products ranging from home decor items, apparels, electronics, art, digital content (Ebooks, Elearning courses) and event tickets. Instamojo has over 5,000 stores, visited by over 1,00,000 people on a monthly basis. On an average, over 20,000 products are added to these online stores.

 

What made you start your startup and what problem does it solve?

Instamojo was founded in September 2012. We knew the troubles a technologically challenged person had to go through to get started with an online business. Costly integration and other technical jargon posed big barriers for anyone that wanted to adopt the internet as a basic mode of business and we essentially wanted to solve that problem.

Thus, Instamojo was born.

Over the years, we have built a simple solution which allows just about anybody to start collecting payments or open up an online store with Instamojo. One can register with us in just two minutes and start selling online.

We are looking to improve and diversify our offerings in the near future. We will be taking on a vertically integrated approach of providing various core services including logistics, compliance and even financing for small businesses to help them grow.

 

Tell us about yourself, your previous jobs/ventures? What were you doing before this startup?

Prior to launching Instamojo, I ran my first start-up, Wanamo which enabled hyperlocal SMEs in digital marketing via e-coupons, which was successfully acquired in 2010. Thereafter, I worked on a business model for small entrepreneurs in the ad-tech domain with Akash, Aditya & Harshad. Soon the idea was shelved in 2012 and together took over Instamojo, which I had been running as a personal project on the side.

 

Where is your startup based out of? Why do you think that is the best place for you?

We are based out of Bangalore currently. We did start our venture in Mumbai, but over a period of time we realized that our product is tech-heavy and the best place to attract tech talent in Bangalore. Hence, we settled down here.

 

As a startup founder, what are you paranoid about? What keeps you awake at night?

Taking bigger risks & speed of execution.

 

How hard is it to have a work life balance as a startup founder and how do you manage it?

Work-life balance is for a businessman; not for a startup entrepreneur.

 

Have you raised funding? If yes, then we would like to know the details. If no then please tell us if you are looking to raise.

So far, we have raised little over US$6 million from some of the marquee global institutional funds like Kalaari Capital, Blume Ventures, 500Startups and prolific angel investors Rajan Anandan etc.

InJuly 11, we became EBITA +ve. We have also been growing at 10-15% MoM across metrics; so there’s no hurry in fundraising right now.

However, we are in touch with both Indian & global investors whose vision matches ours. When we feel time is right, we will look to raising capital to fuel our growth.

 

What is the most important priority for this company?

Our priority is enabling the MSME’s in India to an extent where they can grow exponentially. India is at an inflection point. MSMEs contribute to about 37% of India’s GDP, totaling US$750 Bn. By 2020, MSMEs will contribute 48%. However, only 2.5 Mn (5%) are actively using computers & smartphones to trade a total annual turnover of just US$60 Billion. These numbers are going to go up. So in next 24-36 months, we are looking at next generation digital companies with potential revenue opportunity US$3-5 Billion across payments, lending, logistics, commerce enabling opportunities et al.

 

How do you think this might evolve over the coming months?

We will double down on our VAS (value added services) efforts which will help Instamojo to be true “growth enabler” to MSMEs.

 

What gets you excited about this company?

Size of the opportunity at hand here is what excites us. Let me explain you how. As small businesses get more digitized and their digital wallet share increases, we get positively impacted as our future depends on their digital wallet share growth.

Hence everything we do is to increase their digital footprint through tools & solutions which are simple, affordable & reduce risk of doing digital business. Hence we build, own & control the solutions to directly impact their business growth. Thus we grow as they grow. That’s our only business!

 

Tell us how a day in your life looks like? Your schedule for a day right from the time you get up till you hit the bed at night.

Bunch of emails, messages from both internal & external sources starting from 7AM; mixed with few internal or external meetings, starting from 11 AM. Most of these are either to decide tactical or strategic moves of the Company or help facilitate my colleagues to execute faster with clarity. That’s how my typical work-day is shaped!

 

Tell us about your team and how did you meet each other?

We are right now close to 60 members strong team, based out of Koramangala, Bangalore. Soon, we will be opening our offices across major Metros. More so, I do believe that we might open few offices in Tier II or III cities as well.

 

 

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