While Neha had a PPO from Edelweiss in Mumbai, Satvik was offered a job with Tata Administrative Services. "It's not ethical on our part to tell you about the money they offered because we did not take up the offers," says Neha who is also an engineering graduate from the Delhi College of Engineering.
Ankit Mathur, yet another graduate from IIM-A, and Himanshu Agrawal with a BTech Hons from the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad, complete the four member core team at aisapaisa.com Interestingly, all four of them have an engineering background -- Ankit has a BE in mechanical engineering from DCE and Satvik has done his BTech in computer science from IIIT, Hyderabad.
Neha, Ankit and Satvik were once discussing stock market derivatives (futures and options) -- Neha used to dabble in shares during her engineering days -- when the idea to start a Web site struck them. They were still studying and decided on the spur of the moment that they would rather be entrepreneurs than join a company after completing their business management courses.
"The idea of aisapaisa.com was conceived accidentally," asserts Neha when asked if it was a well-thought-out plan. By the time they finished graduation all three had collected a neat sum by participating in competitions. They earned between Rs 300,000 to Rs 400,000 by winning competitions organised by the Wharton Business School, Nirma Labs and IIT-B during the two years at their respective management colleges. The money was later pooled to start their business venture.
The rest -- they needed Rs 10 lakhs as seed capital to start the venture -- was collected by convincing their parents who always wondered how a click-and-mouse business would help them make money.
aisapaisa.com currently employs 9 people excluding the four partners whose average age is 23. The founders believe they will be able to be 'in the money' (make profits, that is) in the next 14 months.
In an e-mail interview with rediff.com's Prasanna D Zore, Neha Juneja discusses the company's vision and how they want to blaze a new path in the choc-a-bloc-with-competition world of Web sites.
Was it really easy to chuck those offers?
Since all of us were very clear about our start up idea we had informed our placement committees well in advance about our decision.
How did your parents react to your decision?
Our parents have always been supportive on the subject of starting out on our own, but were somewhat sceptical about the outcome as visualising the scope and potential of Internet-based businesses has been difficult for them. Not that they are old-fashioned but they always wonder how a click-and-mouse enterprise can make profits.
How did the idea happen and how do you think you will run the business in the absence of advertising support?
The concept was something we saw comfort and potential in. To counter the need for big ticket advertising, we have decided to engage in viral marketing in out of home media like billboards, alumni fora etc to promote the site (their annual advertising budget is Rs 400,000). The communities feature of the Web site is also expected to create a buzz.
What kind of revenues will you generate two years down the line? What kind of revenue model are you looking at?
What are your key responsibilities?
At the moment, the development of the site is being taken care of by Satvik and Himanshu who are being helped by two bright juniors from IIIT, Hyderabad, Kapil Bajaj and Deepak Vig. Ankit and I are busy with content development and business development.
Your advice to young entrepreneurs.
We are not the brightest kids around creating a huge buzz. By what little experience we have of starting a business venture we can say that getting along with each of the team members is very important for a venture's success. It is more important that what capabilities they have, their credentials and talents.
Argue and brainstorm a lot about how a particular concept/idea could be executed in the best possible way but don't let animosity overtake you. It's like how we do things. We ideate, argue a lot but at the end of the day only an idea wins, not an individual.
What will be your USP?
We intend offering a clean usage experience to the users. We will give the user information that can be intelligently used to make better investment decisions in the market without bombarding him/her with irrelevant advertisements.
Most sites underestimate the intelligence of the regular retail investor and do not provide him/her with requisite tools of analysis and comparison. Further, the established sites do not give due importance to all market segments, and we are going to target large, untapped segments of the markets.
Photograph: From left, Satvik Upadhyaya, Neha Juneja, Ankit Mathur