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Going and growing online

By practicing the right market-role strategies and establishing key partnerships, M N Srinivasu, Director and Co-founder of BillDesk, created his success story in the dotcom world, reports Nikita Upadhyay

MN Srinivasu

Taking a cue from the popularity of online payment of bills, Srinivasu set up BillDesk in the year 2000. At that time the online payment service was in its nascent stages in India. Since then the scenario has changed drastically. Electronic payments industry now dominates the wide section of the market.

The commencement

The IIM-A graduate was interested in computer science, media and arts. Prior to his entrepreneurial venture, Srinivasu worked with the business consulting unit of Arthur Andersen in India. He worked there as a senior manager after which, he with two other colleagues in Andersen came up with the idea of online payments and laid the foundation of BillDesk.

“Retail business and financial services always fascinated me. Having worked together, the three of us had the same thought process, which proved to be helpful during the initial phase of our business,” recollected Srinivasu. As a pioneer player in this segment, his service focused on building a platform and providing services that provided credible value to customers to shift from physical payments to the electronic payment mode.

Talking about his college life, beaming he mentioned that the IIM-A was his first hostel life and was full of unintended learning. He describes it as two years of great fun. He cherished the “no e-mails, no cell phones, and pen and paper classrooms” of that time.

Overcoming apprehensions

The most intricate move was to give up a secure and well paying job and start with something, which was really new and uncertain to the Indian market. Srinivasu was unperturbed by such thoughts as he could clearly see the growing opportunity.

“None of us were from a business family and our jobs were financially secure. We were doing extremely well. Keeping all the initial apprehensions aside, we resigned and initiated with the task at hand,” stated Srinivasu. His vision of implementing innovative solutions for simplifying payments and collections started flourishing. Translating the opportunities offered by the Internet into actual customer delight through efficient payment and collection services started taking a positive shape.

BillDesk was created to simplify this very process. “We wanted to create a one-stop destination through which we could make all our payments, at one time, from one location or anytime from any location. A single destination that keeps track of our bills, informs us of due dates, eliminates the hassle of writing out cheques and standing in queues and gives us the freedom and the ability to pay with just one instruction to our bank,” he echoed.

Initial hiccups

Being comfortable with technology came handy at the primary phase of business. For about four to six months he tossed ideas trying to figure out what exactly he wanted. Srinivasu approached banks with the idea and noticed how they reacted. It all started with the introspection of the market and its reaction to such service.

“Me and my partners thought on the same lines, we had different functional expertise but belonged to the same domain, which made the task easier,” stated Srinivasu. Retail business venture was profitable at that time. He took the institutional way and emphasized on building credibility as trust was the major factor involved in online payment services.

To start with, he approached institutions not individuals. Security and safety was the main issue confronting people. Slowly but steadily he has created a place and demand for his offerings. Initial investment was incurred equally by the three of them. Other friends at Andersen came ahead to sponsor due to the limited resources.

A giant leap

For bill payment to become a convenient online experience, he realized that customers must be motivated to make the transition to an online relationship on the strength of an inspiring experience. At that time banks were laying their infrastructure, and once they approached they got a positive reaction. Bank of Baroda bought their idea. In July 2001, BillDesk went commercially live in the market.

His first office was in his bungalow. With the advent and virtue of the new business, his dinning table was transformed into the office table. He worked initially for a year with 15 people. “The biggest challenge was to make people understand how safe and convenient the technology was. It was not a product but a service initiated with the idea of making people understand it. We were doing the right thing and knew it will have a huge demand. We were a little ahead of time and used the silver lining to our advantage,” expressed Srinivasu.

He perceived the Internet as a powerful medium, which was soon to graduate from an engaging pastime to an indispensable and ubiquitous home tool, bringing with it for consumers enormous benefits and convenience.

The inner-self

Srinivasu felt that he is blessed with a family which has an independent thinking stream. His family always stood by him even in the most testing times, when he had no income for the two years of starting the business. He believes in the value system that success comes only through true and diligent work.

He enjoys playing chess and loves reading books. He reads everything and devours at least four to five books a week. His work is his hobby. Simple, humble, practical and realistic, Srinivasu mentioned that the key to entrepreneurship is one’s vision about what life can be all about.

nikita.upadhyay@expressindia.com