India’s Youngest Billionaire Reveals his Secrets to Entrepreneurship | Ep 36

I think we processing about $150 billion of money every year every year so if I assume that you guys make a 1% cut M that's $ 1. 5 billion in Revenue so had a sports car you'd go on a lot of trips a lot of vacations on the professional front I wasn't satisfied I think they were very worried because my father explicitly asked me how much will you earn and I said so he was very concerned he said you know a typical father I have a goal that I want to create thousand millionaires from Razer pay so there was this one time where we went to Europe to Prague and Budapest and we did bunch of activities there we rode in a tank we flew in a fighter jet and we experienced 4G 5G in the jet you can pay for all these things you yeah as a entrepreneur who is running a $7. 5 billion company what is the hardest part of being you in today's episode of the 1% Club show we have Shashank Kumar MD and co-founder of Razer pay one of the leading payment gateways in India we'll be taking a closer look at why he left a 1 CR salary job in us to start razor P his mission of making 10,000 employees into cores via his IPO and the unique skills you need to become a successful entrepreneur I'm curious to know what is uh what does a day in your life look like so usually my days start at about 10:00 a.

m. okay and then you just have meetings throughout the day or do you still code like how do you look at your day so I usually split it into I would say like three different parts uh as I said like one is talking to customers right so just to you know talking to people outside the company in some sense right second is uh talking to everyone internally so all kind of reviews or kind of strategy meetings or kind of execution meetings or you know all numbers meetings so all that variety and and that's uh often the bulk of the day right because at this point of the company right my main job is to ensure that all the people are are well focused like they have the right goals yeah and they are focused on their goals and that we have the right people right so that's the and the third part of the day I would say is just focusing on like you know what I like to think uh the culture of the company the people of the company uh you know whether we are doing right by our people whether we have the right people in the right place just focusing on hiring and all the other stuff all the miscellania stuff that comes with running the company a lot of administrative stuff as well manag so how how big is the like how many employees are there right now at razor pay about 3,000 and how many people do you talk to on a regular basis out of those 3,000 probably 300 to 400 talk to 300 400 people yeah yeah wow okay so for the purpose of the audience can you simplify what exactly does razor pay do like before razor pay how was payments in India and then once you guys launched your company what changes and impact did you guys create in the country so again this is this is when I was 23 years old so I thought like you know with my co-founder herel you were 23 yeah when you started the company yeah my co-founder herel was 22 so okay so and I was very naive you know but I think naivity good optimistic nity is a strength right so I thought you know you're moving money from point A to point B literally that is what you're doing you're moving it from account a to account B correct why the heck is it so complex like why can't you sign up like you sign up on a Facebook uh and start accepting payments that's how simple it should be right uh and I saw it as a technical problem that you know uh there's nothing too complex about it like it's a simple engineering problem you should be able to integrate one of code and you should be able to go live on accept payments right so that's the journey that at least Razer pay has enabled and then we created like really beautiful checkout Pages really amazing mobile payments experience and that created the standard in the industry right so can you can you talk about a little bit about the numbers like how how much of payments and transactions are happening through Razor pay today if you can disclose it I think we processing about $150 billion do of throughput of uh money every yeah every every year $150 billion $150 billion which is probably equivalent to some of the midsize banks in the country and we also power about 3 billion transactions okay and uh and you guys make how do you guys make money we the way we make money is usually that we take a cut of every transaction a small cut of every transaction right you know and all the services that we provide uh that's the main source of our income so if I assume that you guys make a 1% cut mhm that's $1. 5 billion in Revenue right uh yeah like some somewhere in the in that range right but at the same time you know we also have to pay a lot of banks and everyone who are providing that infrastructure of course of course so so there's a lot of cost also that you know comes baked in into that so you also went to I rori right and we see a lot of successful unicorn Founders belonging to these iits MH what do you think that the iits have that it's producing these kind of entrepreneurs for building unicorn companies I I would say two things what I think the the biggest thing is just the entrance exam what was your rank uh 686 686 yeah and were you happy or sad about it I was extremely happy um because I've not been great at academics in that sense it's very surprising to hear when you get a 686 rank on all India 686 rank so that's number one the entrance exam is very hard in I what happens after that yeah and then I think when you go to I and the great thing is that you get a very good set of people around you we started a campus group called SDS Labs so me and you know my co-founder and and my senior Singh so we started this you met your co-founder in I only yeah yeah and he was one year Junior to me so we started this group called SDS Labs uh mostly to encourage you know programming and doing some good technical work because you know the academics is fairly outdated and also not like as industry friendly at the start you're saying even the academics at IIT is little outdated not as per industry standards yeah like there's definitely scope for improvement so that environment of being with smart people and doing really good work you know I think that uh has a very positive impact on a lot of people and I think that's what is lock lacking probably lacking you know in quite a few colleges so immediately after IAT you went to us right to Microsoft Microsoft like what was your pay over there what was your salary at Microsoft I think close to about a CR a CR yeah you did that just for 2 years about two years yeah and then somebody making a crow living in the US in Microsoft yeah like very few people would be like you know what let's stop this and go back to India and build something else what what was what was going through your mind at that point of time like why did you do that like did some of your friends or parents are like what are you doing why are you coming back you're making a crow over there what's wrong with you did you hear these kind of comments yeah absolutely all of that stuff man I think they were very worried because my father explicitly asked me how much will you earn right and I said zero so he was very concerned he said you know a typical father voice you know you worked so hard to get there and then you are throwing all of it away from 1 CR perom to zero zero of course the dad will be like what the hell man what the so see the good thing about my father is that he trust he trust me and I'll tell you I think in there right I actually had an amazing life for the first time I was earning like really decent money right fantastic fantastic money and and I'm someone who has worked hard throughout uh my life so I I actually started enjoying my life I uh you know someone convinced me to buy a Ford Mustang for the first time so I had a sports car we'd go on a lot of trips a lot of vacations the reason that it happened right is that on the professional front the work that I was doing I think it was good like Microsoft you know is a great company but I wasn't satisfied I think that's the core reason that you know I wasn't satisfied you know I felt like the work that I'm doing this this can be done by most people most Engineers can do this it doesn't like if I think I in the top 1% or.

1% Engineers of India who was I educated and everything right I mean then it doesn't justify my potential correct and if I'm not doing really good work which is challenging to me you know then then I don't feel happy fantastic so now let's fast forward to today uh razor pay is valued at $7 billion 7. 5 $7. 5 billion yeah so and you guys are about to go IPO as well right very soon not very soon still like 2 3 years away 2 3 years away yeah like I would love to know how have the other employees in your company gained from the growth of Razor pay because we all know that one of the best ways to grow wealth is through esops in today's world like if you don't want to take the risk of starting your own company fair enough find other startups where there is a fantastic founder fantastic entrepreneur start them in the early start get start join their journey in the early stage yes and get good esops so can you share some uh you know stories about how your early employees have made wealth at razor yeah I think U you know all the early folks who joined us uh and and they took really took a bet on us right because they left their jobs to join us at lesser salaries sacrificed their career growth for 2 three years and and that was a blind trust correct you know because they thought like we are doing something good uh and this is 2014 right so it's not like startups were like extremely popular yeah that time uh so so they obviously they got well rewarded with esops and we have had four BuyBacks till now so basically let's say I'm an employee in your company let's say I have um some esops MH now typically in most startups I would have to wait till you become IPO to liquidate but you have gotten other investors who are willing to buy those stocks from me and I'm getting the liquidity yes exactly and we have done that four times okay so like can you give an example of how much money would some of your early employees would have made uh they would have made tens of crores tens of grows yeah employees yeah got it and that probably of course makes you feel happy seeing them also become millionaires absolutely I think that's the bigger Joy right then that's the bigger joy and I'll tell you what I have a goal that I want to create thousand millionaires from Razer pay probably 10,000 people uh you know who are corais uh in the lifetime of the company that's my go wow you know for our people like how big do you think razor pay can get because right now you're not just clearly operating in India or also going outside India so this has a potential of becoming a global company as well so how big do you think it can get in terms of market cap I think I want to aim for creating a100 billion company1 billion company yeah and I don't want to think in Generations like obviously you know you want to create a company which is longlasting yeah but I worry about the here and now right and the next 10 years that we do something that puts India on the map right that puts India's entrepreneurs India's people on the map so if we are able to do that you know in India and other emerging economies around the world I think we can be a100 billion plus and to reach that kind of a mark like how big should the revenue become of the company to reach a100 billion valuation like I'm trying to understand how valuation works you know probably uh probably 10 $10 million plus Revenue at some point of time so today if I had to look at your sources of income can you give me a breakdown of what your sources of income look like uh I think there were majorly two sources of income uh one is through the salary that I make and second is through all the passive Investments that I have made right that's it like what what do you mean by passive Investments I'm really passionate about startups yeah so I invest in a lot of startups I haven't talked about it a lot but I've invested in about 100 plus startups wow uh what is your asset allocation like how much percent of the money is in startups I would say probably 30 to 40% W that's a lot yeah like what can somebody like for people who are watching what can someone expect when you start investing in startups in terms of the cagr returns I would say don't invest in startups unless you unless you know what you are doing uh because you can expect anywhere from 0% to like 25 30% cagr uh right any kind of you know if you add at 25 30% then it's extremely healthy over a 5 to 10 year period but can very well be like 5 6% as well uh so that is why you should only invest in startups if you if you're willing to lose your Capital so so can you walk me through your journey of raising money so see the most important funding rounds for companies are I think CED and series a and probably series B like because if you reach there then you already like in top 10% of the startups uh if you get CA across the country yeah okay so how much do you raise in C and series a I think in seed we raised about $2.

5 million okay and in series a we raised about $9 million and uh we were able to raise from 33 Angels 33 Angels 33 Angels 33 people adding up to 2. 5 million yes yeah I think we got a really good set of people people like Kunal sha and everyone you know and and some of them have been good friends and have been good sounding boards and obviously this is the this is probably the best return that they have seen uh so so they are also really grateful so like I would like to know like your early investors Angel Investors what returns did they make they were invested anywhere between 10 to 15 million uh valuation right okay so yeah anywhere between 100 to 300X wow returns over what 5 years yeah over if they are still holding then you know they would see even higher right uh that's an anomaly right this kind of growth I think uh startup investing is anomaly your Returns come from the anomalies let's say for example I'm a 25y old person yes living in either Bangalore Mumbai or Delhi and I want to start my own company I am making let's say 15 lakhs perom I have probably 20 lakhs of savings what advice would you give me to start my own company should I just quit my job and start it or should I do it side by side like how would you go about it I would say that you should have about 2 years of savings where you can live live on a lowcost budget for 2 years right okay and you don't have like deep Financial Obligations towards your family right okay uh and don't have loans that's the financial obligation part right like you uh that you that you don't have like the educational loans or housing loans that the family has right you know you you want to ensure that your family is well taken care of at least that's my thinking correct right but that's a challenge right because most people as soon as they get married will get a house now how will I take that risk of starting my own company when I have to pay the home loan emis for the next 20 years yeah so then don't buy a house yeah if you want to start a company if you want to start a company uh I I don't think House Is Not Great from an investment perspective house is a great asset right emotionally and just security wise you know people do that and I think it's absolutely good uh because you get a a lot of mental piece right but it's not a great investment asset so have you bought a house yet I have where in Bangalore in Bangalore like can you talk about the house like when did you buy it was it recent so I bought two properties I think one was I think back in 2019 I think and the other one was I think in around 2021 so these are like apartments or Bungalows or what is it yeah I think one is a uh one is an in a flat in an apartment and the other one is like a there's a marome in real estate vment it's like a like one house which has like two three Villas one house having two three Villas yeah something like that yes okay so I bought that but tell me some lifestyle experience of yours which which which cost a lot of money which would which would have not done otherwise if you didn't have a lot of money so we have this thing that you know we we are mostly working all the time but in between like me and my co-founder we take vacations and we usually go for high adventure vacations okay so there was this one time where we went to Europe to Prague and Budapest and uh and we bunch of activities there so we rode in a tank there we flew in a fighter jet and we experienced 4G 5G in the jet in the jet you can pay for all these things you can yeah in the in Eastern Europe you can so like how much should I pay to get into a fighter jet and experience 4G 5G fors I think it was $2,000 few years ago now it might be like $7 $800 yeah so for like $1,000 I can experience a fighter jet experience yeah wow and then you also said you for diving we went for shooting range where you can you know shoot all different kinds of guns uh that are there you went for scuba diving right oh those are common skydiving SCBA diving everybody does yeah fighter jet and firing machine gun very few people do yes and riding a tank as well that was also a great experience because I think they they repurposed I think a coldw era tank and uh that tank runs at like 70 80 km per hour on very rough roads and it's a really great experience to have you know so those are good memories so that's why that brings me to my next question that um as a entrepreneur who is running a $7.