Choosing to become an entrepreneur and the decisions you need to take that come alongside this journey has the potential to make or break you. Some can even make you believe that you are making a grave \u201cmistake\u201d.<\/p>\n
Over the years, I have realised that there\u2019s no perfect formula to doing the \u201cright\u201d thing. There\u2019s only been lots of experimenting, risk-taking, failing but rising up every single time. In the words of Albert Einstein, \u201cAnyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new\u201d.<\/p>\n
There will never be a right time or right age; you do it because you want to and are excited enough to solve a problem. All you have to do is take the leap of faith. I look back at the days when Razorpay was just a by-product of brainstorming sessions between Harshil — who was just out of college — and I, while enjoying my high-flyer life in the US.<\/p>\n
We kept deliberating the idea for over a year. But one fine day, Harshil quit his job when he didn\u2019t have to (although he was the tougher one to convince and very skeptical initially). If he hadn\u2019t taken this drastic step, we wouldn’t have founded Razorpay in 2014; it would have dragged further. And even then, everyone told us we are late to the market!<\/p>\n
If you knew them earlier, you\u2019d start questioning your capability and wonder if you can handle those challenges. Don\u2019t know how many of you know but Harshil and I had zero background in financial services, we graduated with degrees in mechanical and computer science engineering and hardly anticipated the challenges we would face stepping into a fintech space.<\/p>\n
The only question we asked ourselves was – \u201cWhy isn\u2019t anybody solving the payment problem?\u201d It was only when we hit the ground running, the complexities of the system started to unravel. By then it was too late to pull back and we decided to move forward and give it our all, and today we\u2019re glad that we never quit!<\/p>\n
Razorpay was bootstrapped for almost a year before we raised external funds. We focused on getting our offerings and strategy right in the first few months. It\u2019s important to spend time in perfecting your offering and investors will come by.<\/p>\n