With about 850 million cell phone users in the country, the mobile wallet segment is starting to catch the eye of entrepreneurs. MobiKwik, a mobile and Web wallet allows users to make payments for products and services via a mobile app, Web site, SMS or by dialling a number.
The company is founded by Bipin Preet Singh, who has been a platform architect at Intel, Nvidia and Freescale Semiconductors. His professional experience ranges from coding to business development. His rationale behind the company is the fact that recharging mobile phones and paying bills is a huge business opportunity that is in a nascent stage.
Whether it is a monthly bill payment on the move, booking movie tickets on a smartphone or ordering a pizza online - MobiKwik wallet enables you to make payments anywhere, anytime and to anyone. “We want to be the PayPal of India,” he asserts.
MobiKwik today allows an Indian user to make online purchases though the MobiKwik Web site, mobile site, mobile applications, SMS and Interactive Voice Response (IVR).
“Soon users will be able to pay via MobiKwik wallet on frequently visited merchants – both online and offline,” he says. This has resulted in MobiKwik currently having 1.2 million customers. By the end of 2013, the company targets about 5 million MobiKwik wallet users.
Need for the business
Singh outlines three reasons for the kind of business he is in; the first being convenience. “MobiKwik Wallet gives a user an option to use Internet banking (by 54 banks), all debit cards, credit cards or even cash to pay for recharge and bill payments,” he says.
Further, the payment experience is optimised for the mobile phone and one can pay through mobile site m.MobiKwik.com or choose to pay through Android app.
But don’t the banks and other financial institutions offer these services? “The interface of most banks and billing companies does not work very well on internet, and even less so on mobile. Also, as users evolve they want to pay all their bills at the same location, and not 10 different Web sites, each with their own passwords and username,” he says. Besides, the wallet also allows payments through SMS and IVR, something which might be missing in the case of banks and billing companies, he adds.
This brings up the issue of competitors such as Freecharge who are already active in this segment. “We are not a recharge company but a consumer wallet company,” he says.
The second factor is trust. “Most banks and billing companies do not have a great customer interface backed by technology. If your recharge fails, you can contact our customer support and your problem is resolved within 24 hours,” he asserts.
All MobiKwik transactions undergo a real-time check to detect fraud and identify and block such users on a daily basis, according to Singh. Then there is the time and tested strategy of offers. For MobiKwik users, they can get exclusive offers from travel, shopping, food and beverages merchants. To cite an example, a customer on MobiKwik can get 20 per cent off on Jabong.com or 15 per cent off on Dominos Pizza or Rs 150 off on Yebhi.com.
Initial Challenges
As with other start-ups, Singh’s biggest challenge was getting a star team together. “I spoke to a lot of folks, and most of them were smarter than me one way or the other but many did not have the courage to take a risk with their careers. Then, I tried to form a team with some of my friends but they also abandoned ship after a few months of effort. Thereafter, I was on my own for a long time, learning coding and selling at the same time,” he reminisces.
Fortunately, in 2010, he found a partner in Upasana Taku, whose experience and motivation helped him tide over tough times. Together, they hired a young but ambitious team, he says. Capital has also been a challenge since the very first day and he and his partner Upasana had to dig into their personal savings. “Despite this, we are proud to be profitable in a very competitive market,” he says.
Funding plans
The company has not raised any finds but it is looking at investors to fund the company. “We plan to allocate it to team building, innovation in product development, marketing and scaling up the operations,” he reasons.
Learnings
As with other companies, the biggest learning was the need to form a team immediately after starting up. “I thought I could outsource product development but I realised that for real innovation, you need to have passion. This can come only if you make others invest into your idea and take risk along with you,” he says.
Future Plans
MobiKwik aims to extend the scale of this wallet across various channels – whether apps, SMS, IVR or the Web itself. The start-up also plans to launch India’s first P2P transfer service on mobile phone.