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Coining the Switch to Crypto | Ashish Singhal @ CoinSwitch Kuber
146 Plays4 years ago
‘To crypto or not to crypto?’ remains a burning topic for the regulators in the country, but for start-ups and investors, it is definitely a hot currency.
Founder Thesis brings you the journey of one such founder, who is riding high on this crypto wave. In this edition, Akshay Datt speaks with Ashish Singhal, Founder and CEO, CoinSwitch Kuber, one of India’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges and the second venture to attain unicorn status in the cryptocurrency sector.
A techie at heart, Ashish tried his hands at different innovations and participated and won various hackathons with his now co-founders Govind and Vimal. The idea of building an aggregator of crypto exchanges came from one such hackathon and it came when the RBI imposed a two-year ban on cryptocurrency. But this did not stop Ashish and he took this product to the global market as a B2B product.
However, to educate and make cryptocurrency accessible to Indian users, CoinSwitch Kuber was started in 2020 and is currently valued at USD 1.9 billion and has over 11 million registered users.
Tune in to this episode to hear Ashish speak about how CoinSwitch Kuber is making cryptocurrency investing as effortless as ordering food online.
What you must not miss!
- What is a crypto aggregator?
- Benefits of participating in hackathons organized by VC firms.
- Building a user-friendly buying experience.
- Future bets.
- Optimise for success, be ready for failure.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Founder Thesis Podcast
00:00:10
Speaker
Hi, I'm Akshay Hi, this is Aurob and you are listening to the founder thesis podcast We meet some of the most celebrated sort of founders in the country and we want to learn how to build a unicorn
00:00:31
Speaker
There is a well-known storytelling tool called The Hero's Journey and pretty much all great superhero stories follow this format.
Ashish Singhal's Personal and Professional Journey
00:00:40
Speaker
Ashish Singhal, the founder of CoinSwitch has gone through the same journey multiple times in his life.
00:00:46
Speaker
be it while he was still in school and got into an accident so bad that he was bedridden for six months or while navigating Coinswitch through the two-year ban on cryptocurrency in India. Coinswitch started life as a cryptocurrency platform that scoured multiple crypto exchanges to offer the customer the best prices out there. This eventually became a B2B product that worked with companies like Microsoft, helping them accept cryptocurrency as a form of payment.
00:01:12
Speaker
Once the crypto trading ban was lifted, CoinSwitch gambled the company on retail trading, shutting down its B2B division to focus on building a crypto exchange for millions of retail investors. Today, it's among the largest crypto exchanges in India, and it's reportedly worth $2 billion in its latest fund-race.
Early Life and Education Choices
00:01:31
Speaker
Here's Ashish telling Akshay Dutt about CoinSwitch. What was it like for you to grow up in Merritt?
00:01:37
Speaker
It was good. As a kid, I never felt that the security or anything was an issue. We always lived in places because it's a more populated area, right? And it's more close-knit. You know everyone everywhere, right? So even if I'm walking down, people know that, oh, Dr. Safqabita. Your dad was a doctor, okay? Yeah.
00:02:00
Speaker
Yeah, so everyone knew him well and it's a well connected society and all those rights. So it's not like so nuclear it is today. But so but when I go back now, I feel a little insecure because I don't recognize a lot of people. And you know, when you go to the streets, the
00:02:16
Speaker
population because the infrastructure hasn't moved much, but the population has grown significantly. So everything is lack of resources and too much noise, too much crowd. And after Bangalore, it feels a little weird, but security-wise, I've never felt anything bad and weird. Who influenced you to try for engineering? I mean, your dad is a doctor, so the most obvious influence would have been to become a doctor only. So what made you go towards engineering side?
00:02:46
Speaker
So in 11th when we have to choose maths versus bio, right? So I had both because I loved math, but I wanted to be like my father, a doctor, right? So I couldn't leave math out of the picture and I kept bio as well. But when I did an introspection, I realized this is not what I enjoy. Math is something that I love, right? And my father was very open in the sense that, you know,
00:03:12
Speaker
do whatever you want to do. Within two or three months of struggling with bio plus math, I left bio.
Overcoming a Life-Threatening Accident
00:03:20
Speaker
Next subject was computer science. I went into computer science with math from there.
00:03:27
Speaker
So did you join classes for engineering entrance? I mean, you got into NSIT, which is again one of the top-notch engineering colleges. So you prepared a lot for it? Yes. So there is a sad story and a good story. The good is toward the end. So in 11th, obviously, like any other kid, I wanted to be in IITs and so on.
00:03:52
Speaker
I joined coaching as well in Meerut. There are some amazing, amazing tutors out there. But in 11th, I met within the first few months of the 11th class, I met with an accident and I was bedridden for six months. I had like 150 stitches. Road accident? Yeah, road accident. Like a car just ran over. I was on a scooter and a car hit me from behind. I fell on the right side of the road. There was a scooter coming towards me, which hit my stomach.
00:04:24
Speaker
I would have been almost dead but the school was in the military area where there was some major going through that road. He took me up, went to the military hospital, got the bleeding stopped and got the initial bandages done so I could survive actually because of him.
Work Ethic and College Experience
00:04:48
Speaker
otherwise I wouldn't be here but you know after that for the six months I was just bedridden couldn't do anything couldn't study and after that obviously I almost 11th was over right so I had to cover two years of learning to get into any entrance but as a kid I never thought about failure and that is something that
00:05:09
Speaker
I know it was natural at that point in time that, okay, this is a hurdle, we have to just cross it. I studied day and night, very crazy schedule, but making sure that I succeed and get into IITs. Ultimately got some 4,000 rank in IIT, but I wanted computer science, obviously couldn't get it. Next best option was NSIT because I got 1,000 in IEEE, so NSIT was much easier to get into.
00:05:37
Speaker
you know, that's where my my engineering journey started. Where did you get this kind of work ethics from that never give up and like, you know, Baragante, Paraikarna and stuff like that? Baragante is small, I used to study 16.
00:05:53
Speaker
So, but you know, coming to the main point that I think it was just growing up, right? And not hardships per se, but I've seen my parents struggle and that's where I wanted to help. Your dad was in a job or he had his own? He was a doctor, his own practice, but like he used to work in
00:06:14
Speaker
in a place where there weren't too many, you know, he was a doctor for, I don't want to say the needy, but you know, he still was in a not so
00:06:26
Speaker
educated or not so moved upon in the society kind of a world, right? So where a lot of people from different villages would come and get treated and all that. They would not have paying power. Yes. And he would, he would never say that, you know, let me increase my fee because he knew when I, one day I told him that you charge five bucks to treat a patient. Why don't you charge 10? They can't afford it.
00:06:47
Speaker
So he's that kind of a guy and you know, and it's not that we were poor or anything. It was like a typical middle-class family, right? So I've always seen them struggle for things and I always wanted to contribute to it. So how was the NSIT experience for you like, you know, from Meerat into Delhi? Yeah, so obviously adjusting took some time, but a lot of so in NSIT, the
00:07:13
Speaker
problem or the, I don't know how to describe it, whether it's a problem or a good thing, but 85% of the people who are reserved for deliites and 15% is the only seat that from outside people can come in, right? So it was a good part as well that those 15% of the people was very close-knit.
00:07:30
Speaker
set of people right because they are struggling the same things. Delhi is more people speak in proper English and they're much more refined than people coming from different areas and we were more like normal, I don't know how to describe that.
00:07:50
Speaker
coming together and hostels were only given to these 15% of the people unless you live very far in Delhi. So it was a quite tight-knit of people, even Govind who is my friend from first day of college as the co-founder of Poinsett. So that's tight-knit we are. Since we were 18 years old, we've been friends. So that was actually good and the bad part that we were not able to fit in, but we found a place for ourselves because every one of us was struggling with the same problems and it was easy to connect.
00:08:19
Speaker
and do well in college. How did your personality change in those four years?
00:08:30
Speaker
I think I've always been a very competitive guy, right? So I always have to be first in class. When I'm first in class, I have to be first overall in all the sections, right? So I've always done that till 12th. But when I came to college, I realized that's not going to happen. And I didn't find the study material to be that innovative or
00:08:54
Speaker
that engaging at that point. But I found practical knowledge very well. And it was very empowering. It was doing projects and creating something new. And that was the way that I took. That in theory, I might score 80, 90. I'm OK with it. But in practicals, I have to score 95.
00:09:14
Speaker
And because that would give me power to learn and to actually do something about it. And I think I moved into that in college also, the goal become job.
Entrepreneurial Drive and First Venture Challenges
00:09:27
Speaker
In NSID, obviously, you get some amazing, amazing companies, but in second year, it was about internship. There was only one company who gave internship to second years in college, which was InfoEdgeNokri.com. There were just two people selected, and I was one of them.
00:09:45
Speaker
In the third year, there were two companies, Microsoft and Deloitte, and I got into Microsoft for internship. I got pretty good opportunities within the ecosystem. My friends were amazing, supporting me always. And Amazon must have been among the top paying companies on campus.
00:10:03
Speaker
Yes, so we didn't know what Amazon actually does, but it was a talk of the town that Amazon pays the highest, so you have to get there, right? So everyone fought there and all three of us, so me, Govind, Rajesh, were the best friends and all three ended up in Amazon, right? So that was like a dream come true for all three of us. So yeah, so that's how the journey started from there. And that's when you went to Bangalore, like your Bangalore journey started with Amazon. Yes, yes. Okay.
00:10:31
Speaker
So like, you know, when did that move towards quitting Amazon and becoming an entrepreneur happen? Like, you know, what was the impetus? Sure. So I wanted to do something of my own from from very start right since class 11. That is where I got my first computer.
00:10:50
Speaker
And Google is something that always enamored me. So how can you make something so simple and so amazing? And that is why I came into computer science as well. And that was always there that I want to create something of my own, not that I don't like working in Amazon. I'm here today because of Amazon. The kind of principles, the kind of values that they imbued in me is the reason that I'm here.
00:11:15
Speaker
maybe a success or a failure, I do not know at this point, but whatever I am is because of Amazon. So I think that was a very important journey, but I always wanted to do.
00:11:25
Speaker
something bigger, right? And so that's where the entrepreneur journey started first, taking a sabbatical from Amazon, trying out few things on my own, couldn't find it, couldn't understand much because obviously not connected, didn't know how startups work. And that's where I got connected to a few friends who were trying to do a startup and then joined them as a CTO and thought that, okay, let's figure out how this work works because from outside, you can never learn what happens inside.
00:11:55
Speaker
I know that, you know, leaving Amazon was at a point that, you know, you were growing, you were getting promotions and earning enough. But the idea was that until I take that leap of faith, I'll never be able to do it on my own. Right. So I think as a person, I like creating backups.
00:12:13
Speaker
So I had enough money. I had enough shares. I sold everything. It is a bad call if you retrospectively, but I sold everything, making sure that my parents have enough. So no matter what happens in the journey, I have enough money for every possible scenario that can happen from there. So I think that gave me enough comfort to move out and do something of my own.
00:12:36
Speaker
How does Amazon Zsoft work? Because you get shares in the US entity, so you sell it and then those dollars are transferred to India. So you get a Morgan Stanley account and your shares get deposited there. When they get vested, they're actually allocated to you. They sell some part of it, pay tax in India, and the rest lies in that account. You sell it.
00:12:59
Speaker
get the remaining amount in india and if there is a difference in which you got it versus you paid the tax act you pay the difference in the tax and that's it it's a pretty streamlined process but it was much easier right so we just have to place a bed it's like selling on zero itself right now he's a self bed and your money is in your back right yeah.
00:13:23
Speaker
Okay. So like 15 is when you quit Amazon and you know, so what did you quit for? So I started with Vasu and Lavanya, urban dealer, which was about aggregating. So that was a time where Uber for X was the critical point, right?
00:13:41
Speaker
We started Uber for Tailoring, which basically wanted to solve custom fit and size problem for a lot of people. A lot of people are okay buying ready-made clothes because they are faster. But obviously, if given a chance, they would want to go to a custom fit. So that was our problem statement, and we wanted to make custom fit as easily accessible as ready-made. So that was the journey that we took. A short journey, learned a lot.
00:14:10
Speaker
I think there are a lot of lessons. Did you like raise funds for that? Yes, we raised from, you know, we had an angel round before because Vasu comes from Mitra, a lot of Mitra co-founder invested in us, a lot of Mitra folks invested in us and that was our seed round and we raised our pre-series A as well from United's fund.
00:14:32
Speaker
But we had a lot of money
CoinSwitch Creation and Evolution
00:14:34
Speaker
in the bank as well before we called it quits. So we returned that money to the industry. Why did you call it quits? So we realized that the problem statement that we started with wasn't solvable in the current scheme of things that we were trying to solve. We were trying to scale it up. But when we started doing 200 to 300 orders a day, the logistics started to fall apart.
00:14:58
Speaker
What was the offering? Like you get a tailor who visits your home and takes a measurement and all that? Yeah, so basically you give a garment which fits you perfectly and we replicate that in any material that you want.
00:15:12
Speaker
Okay. And you choose the design on our website. So you design your own clothes, give a measurement garment and we stitch it for you, right? So, but you know, there are a lot of movements, a lot of moving parts in the ecosystem, a lot of clothes to handle, a lot of logistics.
00:15:28
Speaker
Fit is always about a feel, right? Today, something fits you perfectly, but the new government, it may be the exact fit, but you might still feel like that, oh, it doesn't fit that well, right? So it's more. And so like that problem, we couldn't solve it entirely. And the quality for the tailoring units that we had, we didn't have tailors in house, we were aggregating a lot of tailors in the Bangalore.
00:15:52
Speaker
the quality keeps on shifting because the people at their place would keep on quitting and they would get new folks. So there was never a quality control that we could build through software that we always thought of building. So we wanted to be a software driven thing, but it became a lot of manual processes. And ultimately we decided that it's not scalable at what we thought it could be. And that's where we decided to leave.
00:16:18
Speaker
Plus, I don't think single-fit customer would be happy. So there was a lot of back-and-forth alterations and also the cost was just ballooning up, right? And you're not able to compete with obviously the direct, your local dealer. Just visit and get it done right in front of you. There's not much value-add happening here. So then what did you do?
00:16:46
Speaker
So then once we shut down the company, obviously it was very hard, and then we moved on to, I moved on to Liftspace, founded by Anojinder Makan, who was trying to solve the
00:17:02
Speaker
custom home design problem for the masses, right? And a lot of my friends go and actually work there. One of my mentors from Amazon was part of their team as well. So it felt like a good set of people to work with.
00:17:19
Speaker
to learn from and I went there, Ramakand who was the CTO at that time was amazing. He's still the co-founder and he's now a CEO, but he's still an investor in our company at Coin Search, but he's an amazing guy and learned a lot from him, from others there, but always that
00:17:38
Speaker
point was there, creating something on my own. So I was doing crypto trading way before, was very excited about crypto ever since 2013. I read the white paper and within left space, I got enough time to explore new things, new areas. We built something for three of us and made it public and saw that... What did you build?
00:18:01
Speaker
The problem in crypto is that, especially in 2017 when the concept was already new and crypto is a traded entity. So the price of a crypto depends on the demand and supply on any given platform. So price varies across exchanges. Even stocks vary between NSC and BSC, but the price equates very quickly because they're just two exchanges out there.
00:18:19
Speaker
But in crypto, there were tens of exchanges, user experience was so complicated of every one of them, and price was varying. So we wanted to build something like a Make My Trip to help the user discover the best price and also convert right on our platform. And that's how the CoinSwitch story originated, right? Like a crypto exchange aggregator. Yes, yes, yes. How Xico started. Yes, exactly, exactly.
00:18:44
Speaker
Within a month, we were doing million dollars GMV a day, although we were still employed at Love Space. What does this mean, million dollars GMV? You were just directing people ahead. They wouldn't get redirected to the exchange, so we built a very custom experience. You go to Make My Trip. You don't go to Indigo website to book a flight. Make My Trip integrates and give you a consistent experience on booking a flight. That's what we did. You had API integration with all these exchanges.
00:19:13
Speaker
So the experience for the user become consistent. He knows how to use coin switch. He doesn't need to know how different exchanges work. And that kind of gave us a view into the crypto industry and we actually built it for ourselves. Because we were trading, we were not getting the best price. We thought of building it for ourselves and then made it public and realize the potential of it.
00:19:34
Speaker
And were you monetizing this? Yes. So these exchanges to bring volume to them, they pay you affiliate fee, right? And that is how we were earning our money. So for a user, it's a win-win situation for both of us, right? That user, how the Make My Trip or the Execos of the world works. So when was this, when you did this experiment?
00:19:56
Speaker
So, we started in June 2017, is when the company went live with our website and started creating in crypto. Within a month, we started a million dollars GMV a day. Then we got into Y Combinator, we applied for Y Combinator, got into the interview round and that's where we decided to quit LiftSpace as well.
00:20:21
Speaker
to form it as a formal company. We couldn't make it into YC, but within the next 10 days, we got into Sequoia. So after leaving our job, we left, I think, in the second week of December. By the fourth week of December, we had a term sheet signed and everything from Sequoia. How much did you raise from Sequoia? So that would have been like a seed round. Yeah, so that was about 1.2 to one and a half million. A lot of angel investors got in, Sequoia got in and helped us
00:20:52
Speaker
you know, do the initial validations of our ideas and make sure that we had enough money to build something concrete. So what did Sequoia see in you? Was it the space that they were bullish about? Was it you guys? What was it? So I think it was the team. And, you know, obviously the space was booming. There were not a lot of entrepreneurs in crypto at that point in time.
00:21:17
Speaker
And I'm biased here, but we were one of the best teams out there. Technically smart, have shown our abilities and a lot of hackathons, right? So we have even, like we've won every single hackathon in India, including Sequoia hack, which is Asia's largest hack. So Sequoia knew us that, you know, if something interesting or something innovative needs to be done, then these are the guys that they can take a bet on, right? What happened in a hackathon?
00:21:44
Speaker
Like you're given a problem statement for which you have to build a software. What is it like? They kind of give you a track. Sometimes it's very open. Do whatever you want to do. Build something amazing. So you have 36 hours or 24 hours. Stay up all night. Build something amazing. Showcase it to the judges. And if they like it, they rank you on that.
00:22:05
Speaker
Initially, we were losing a lot of hackathons because we were always trying to build the best product. We realized that hackathons are not about products. They are about ideas. If you want to build a base on Mars as a hackathon project, you don't build a base on Mars.
00:22:25
Speaker
you build a rocket to show to the judges that I can reach Mars and build it. So that was the trick that then we started using and started winning hackathon. So we would sell an idea of setting up a base on Mars. And we tell them that, oh, obviously, we can't reach Mars in 36 hours. This is what the major critical problem is, that the spaceship does not exist, which can take you to Mars. Building is relatively easy, would have its problems, but it's relatively easy.
00:22:54
Speaker
But we have built the spaceship for you. Who could help us settle on Mars? So that was the kind of a moment for us to understand what hackathons are about. And after that, we never lost a hackathon.
CoinSwitch Kuber's Market Strategy and User Focus
00:23:08
Speaker
So January 18, you now are funded by Sequoia. What kind of daily GMV were you doing that time?
00:23:15
Speaker
At one point we were doing almost a billion dollars a month in gmv even at one point microsoft was using our services to convert you know to accept cryptocurrencies for their xbox payments so we build a very amazing set of api's which help you convert crypto at a fixed price no matter how the market is moving.
00:23:36
Speaker
If once you book an order with us, the price is fixed. Now, how do you achieve that? So we built algorithms which basically trade on the market, on the aggregated liquidity market. And based on a lot of different factors, those algorithms determine what could be the price in the next five minutes, right? Or what the direction of the prices.
00:23:56
Speaker
and putting a volatility fee on top of it, ensuring that no matter what happens, you don't lose the money. That's not true. We do lose money in a lot of trades as well. But on aggregate, you always do better in the market. So building those algorithms actually helped us build Coin Search Kubera as well. But that was the start of the journey. So it's similar to how Goldman Sachs do block order trading.
00:24:21
Speaker
As a consumer, they always quote you a single price for say a million shares. Then they go back, talk to exchanges and figure out how do I get a million shares at a better price, which I give to the user and earn money from that. So user get the amazing rate, but as a company, you make money as well. Okay. So your product version one, which you launched with was essentially
00:24:45
Speaker
like a global, it was called coin switch only, like you had the name. Okay. And this was like a global product. Like what percentage was outside India and what? Everything was outside India. So we have everything in India because of the RBI ban.
00:25:01
Speaker
Okay, and this then from being b2c then eventually you started building in like API integration products which businesses like the Microsoft Xbox and these kind of products to build up more business related services. Yes. Yes. Okay.
00:25:16
Speaker
And that's how we grew. We've always been a profitable company, so we never relied on investor money, although had amazing investors. But we always wanted to be self-sufficient. And that's where we grew. At one point of time, through this business, we were earning almost $10 million in profits a year. And then came 2020, when the RBI ban got reverted. And what we always dreamt to do
00:25:45
Speaker
build in India to deliver for India. That kind of opportunity opened up and that's where Kansaj Kubeir was conceptualized and launched in India.
00:25:54
Speaker
No, okay. Okay. So coin switch is like the global brand and product and coin switch Kuber is a crypto exchange. Yes. So coin switch Kuber now is the only product today for the company and is the main focus of the company. So because of the opportunities in India, we decided to shut down our global operations or put them on hold for the time being and focus all our energies on coin switch Kuber itself.
00:26:20
Speaker
But when you have great customers like Microsoft using your product, then why would you want to shut that down? And also because it was profitable. So it's counterintuitive, but a lot of our investors also were not in agreement, but they trusted us enough that they said, okay, do whatever you want, we trust you.
00:26:41
Speaker
We always believe that the opportunity in India is so large that our focus cannot be diverted, right? So we wanted to be a single focus company and that's where we took this call. So Coisis Kuber is now like an exchange of its own. You're no longer doing that aggregation of exchanges. We still do aggregation.
00:26:59
Speaker
So for a user, we are the front end, you know, unlike Exegor, MicMyTribe, they don't get options to choose from and things like that. They are interfacing with us, but in the backend, we still aggregate because aggregation gives us the best liquidity on the planet, right? So, and with best liquidity, we can give the best price to our users.
00:27:18
Speaker
Okay okay okay so essentially for crypto the volatility is so high that if you're able to do a good job at executing that is how you make money that just like yes okay and essentially like if you're able to hedge against volatility like that is the core service of the valued.
00:27:38
Speaker
Yeah, it's a little hedge and it's also because we work with a lot of exchanges, right? And we bring volume. A lot of our exchanges that we work with, we are the biggest clients of theirs, right? So they treat us preferentially as well. They don't charge us the fee that they would charge a normal user. They would give us make-up fees and things like that. So through all this business relationship plus algorithms on top of it can give us the earning that we need to survive and thrive in this business.
00:28:05
Speaker
Yeah. How is this different from, say, Vazilix? So they're an exchange. So that's a typical exchange where people go buy, sell, trade with each other. But we aggregate similar to Vazilix. There are not 100. Tens of exchanges out there. So we aggregate all of them together. So Vazilix would have their own liquidity. But every exchange would have their own liquidity. And aggregating every one of them would give us the highest liquidity possible. Whoever has the highest liquidity can execute the order the best way possible.
00:28:35
Speaker
To give you an example, if say one exchange is selling one Bitcoin at 50 bucks, second Bitcoin is at 60 bucks. The other exchange is selling one Bitcoin as 55 and second is 65. Then I can get at an average price of 52.5 to bitcoins, right? While on a single exchange, either one of them cannot offer that.
00:28:53
Speaker
OK. OK. OK. Got it. OK. And you are like this is a global thing. Like you can work with any exchange across the world. There are no borders as far as crypto is concerned because Bitcoin is a Bitcoin anywhere in the world.
00:29:08
Speaker
Yes. And that's the nature of the business itself, right? That cryptocurrencies are global in nature. Their price are not only locally dependent, but it's globally dependent based on the liquidity across the market, right? So that's where we excel as well. So we aggregate all local players in India plus all global players outside.
Understanding Crypto Security and Decentralization
00:29:30
Speaker
Do you get customers from outside India like people who are... So now we have stopped our global operations and we only focus on India. In the sense that anyone who wants to use
00:29:45
Speaker
will first need to do some sort of KYC and prove that he's an Indian citizen like some Adhar or something. So he has to link his PAN, verify his PAN through a government DB check, upload Adhar passport or voter ID to prove his identity and give his address.
00:30:01
Speaker
then you know provide a selfie or a video for a liveliness check of that user and then also we link your bank account so you can only deposit and withdraw to the bank account that belongs to you right to make sure that the money coming in going out all belongs to you and there are no legal issues around the money movement within crypto which is you know the biggest concern of the government so we make sure that we are the most regulated exchange
00:30:27
Speaker
in India, self-regulated at this point, but hoping that the regulations we follow becomes the norm in the crypto industry in India itself. So, I'm not an expert in crypto, but my understanding is that the weak link in the chain is the wallet, you know, where people can lose money. Can you help me understand how this works? How does the wallet work? Why is it a weak link?
00:30:53
Speaker
So think of it this way. So when you keep money in the bank, bank is responsible for the security of that fund. You can also take out cash, put it in a locker which is in your house, have multiple locks in it, secure the key in a safe place. So now you are responsible for that money, not the bank.
00:31:15
Speaker
So crypto exchanges are like that itself. So as an exchange, we are like a bank. We are responsible for your cryptocurrencies that we hold on behalf of you. So if, say, anything goes wrong at a crypto exchange, not just the exchange loses its money, it loses money which it kept from the user, which it tries to secure on behalf of the user.
00:31:39
Speaker
But as a wallet, now you can take out and put it in a wallet which is owned by you. Now you are in charge of that security. Now you have the key which you need to secure now. So earlier it was in hands of the exchange who would obviously have a great cybersecurity process in place, making sure it's secure and protected. But you can also take charge of that process and make sure that you are the
00:32:09
Speaker
owner of that crypto and you are the one who is responsible for the security of that cryptocurrencies so there are pros and cons and both approaches for some people one works better for others the other work better right. Help me understand what is the difference when you are responsible for your wallet versus when the exchange is responsible. Exchange responsible means you probably put your username and password on the website and then you access your wallet and do the transfer.
00:32:35
Speaker
How is it different? You become responsible. So when you become responsible, you get a passphrase, which is unique in the world for you, which you can write it on a paper, but say if somebody clicks a photo of that paper, you can replicate your vault and steal your money. As an exchange, we are now a single point of failure because a lot of hackers can simply attack us to take our users' funds. So there are pros and cons in both.
00:33:00
Speaker
as securing yourself, you have to take all those precautions. You have to make sure that your key is not lost. Your key is secured. That key will only work on coin switch. What I was saying was that coin switch is a wallet, which is a custodian wallet, which is one part, which is like a bank. And the other part is where you buy a safe and put it in your house. So when I talk about the wallet, it is that wallet, which is the safe, which is outside of the coin switch ecosystem.
00:33:28
Speaker
So you have created a new wallet. Well, how do you access it? You know, I have never used crypto. So I'm asking questions which sound like you should create an account on coin search. So if you've never used a crypto, right? So how crypto works is you can go to an exchange and buy and sell crypto.
00:33:46
Speaker
And now the security is with the exchange, because the money is lying with the exchange itself. You can decide to take it out. Take it out means transferring into a new wallet, which you created. You only know the key to that wallet. It could be a hardware wallet, like a ledger, treasure, or it could be a software wallet, like Exodus, Jax, right? So these are separate software which you run on your laptop now.
00:34:11
Speaker
Oh, nobody else is running on behalf of you, right? So now you run the software, it'll give you a password, which you have to write it down or secure it in a perfect way, right? And then transfer money from coin switch to this wallet and keep this, you know, under your security. But if you lose the password, if somebody stores your password, then it is gone.
00:34:30
Speaker
Secondly, on CoinSwitch, they can only steal your password and PIN. They have to steal multiple things from you to be able to access your account. But even if they do it for a single user, only that user's account gets hacked. Not all the users of CoinSwitch. For that to happen, CoinSwitch needs to get hacked.
00:34:52
Speaker
As a company, we would take much larger precautions on securing your funds, engaging cybersecurity firms from best in class around the world, making sure that your funds are protected the best way possible. What is your level of confidence that you will not get hacked? My level of confidence is above 90%, but this level of confidence can never be 100 because you don't know what you don't know.
00:35:18
Speaker
And that's why you employ the people whose job is to figure out what is wrong with the system. So we employ one of the firms, I cannot name them, but it is formed by the ex CSO of Facebook. So a lot of national security level, he has worked in helping governments secure their systems. And now he helps us in building our cybersecurity engines.
00:35:46
Speaker
You have to continue. So it's a continuous process. There isn't a set steps that you do these five steps and you're done. It's a continuous evolving process. It's a cat and mouse game, right? Hackers are trying to always evolve their techniques and you as a company is always trying to be ahead of them. Making sure that your users funds are secure.
00:36:06
Speaker
So it's always a continuous process, it's just that some exchanges work harder at this, some do not. And you rightly said 56% of exchanges have shut down, big exchanges have shut down in the last 10 years because of these hacks. So this is one of the biggest threat to a cryptocurrency exchange and making ensuring that you are always ahead is a constant battle that we fight.
00:36:31
Speaker
Can you help me understand use cases? What is the use case of Bitcoin? What is it for Ethereum and some other interesting use cases according to you? Sure. Bitcoin was created as a replacement for a currency. How you transact
00:36:49
Speaker
your internet banking, moving money from one place to another, Bitcoin was an easier store of value to be able to transfer similar to gold, how gold used to be bartered back in the days. So, Ethereum is more like an AWS, which allows you to host decentralized applications onto its platform and run decentralized applications.
00:37:11
Speaker
Any application can solve any set of problem, but where do you run it? You run it on the Ethereum blockchain. You write your code on the Ethereum blockchain, which makes sure that
00:37:22
Speaker
any code that is run is run in a decentralized fashion. There's no central entity controlling the functions of, I'll give you an example to make it easier. Let's say you're running Uber. What Uber does is connecting a driver
00:37:44
Speaker
to a rider. That's all it does. But Uber is a central entity. Tomorrow, it can say, oh, I will charge 25% to the user, 25% of the driver, and nobody can do anything about it. What a decentralized system means is that I created an algorithm to match a driver and a rider. Now, no matter who the rider is, no matter who the driver is, there always follow a certain set of rules to get connected.
00:38:09
Speaker
So, I cannot change the logic at any given point. So, think of search pricing when you think of it. So, say something bad happens. There's a lot of clubs close at 11 and there would be a lot of demand there. So, the price goes up. But nobody knows how the price is going up. Who is determining these price? Are Uber charging just for the sake of it or is actually the demand and supply ratio that they are maintaining?
00:38:39
Speaker
Now you put that out in a set of piece of rules, which are public for anyone to see and validate. And once that is public, now anyone driver and rider that comes on that platform, it becomes clear to them on why they are getting charged so much or why they are getting paid so less. And now these set of rules are hosted globally, validated globally. And the demand and supply now can work across without worrying about that a single entity
00:39:08
Speaker
can tomorrow change anything in this and you know it will fail right so this is a decentralized system where you know it's a written set of rules which are not dictated by a central entity what is some real world application of this like uber of course was a hypothetical example you gave me but loan what is it loan
00:39:28
Speaker
A lot of companies are working on solving this use
Insights on NFTs and Crypto Trends
00:39:30
Speaker
case. How do you get a loan? How do you get a micro loan at an interest rate which is driven by market, not by your history? Not on subjective terms, not on bureaucratic terms. So there are other insurances, another example. So when you take insurance, your insurance claims again go through that bureaucratic channel. So wherever in the world you can think that
00:39:55
Speaker
standardizing a process and eliminating the element of humans from it. Humans are still required to build and process these. What I'm trying to say, removing the human element is removing the biases of a human in that. Cryptocurrencies or blockchain can help you solve that use case, right? And these are called smart contracts, right? Yes, these are called smart contracts. So when you write a code, you put it in as a contract. So that's a contract that you and I are signing if we are engaging on that contract, right?
00:40:26
Speaker
That is how it works. So there are hundreds and hundreds of use cases where it can be solved. OK. And how does Ethereum host these smart contracts? How does that happen? So I'm not smart enough to be able to explain this entire process, but think of it this way. So think of how a validation happens. So when this code is getting deployed across
00:40:50
Speaker
across, you know, geography. So there are set of people who says that, oh, I will host your code and anything that happens on your code, I will charge you a fee for it, right? Or you can pay a fee to me and to make this transaction happen. And if that transaction happens successfully, I will get that fee from you, right? So it's create an incentive mechanism on blockchain, which helps you, which helps the other side, who's helping you run this code decently. And it gives an incentive to the user,
00:41:20
Speaker
paying a fee to the miner who ultimately helps you bring that transaction onto the blockchain, complete a process and then earn money through that.
00:41:32
Speaker
Okay. So essentially you pay in Ethereum and the miner is the one who is validating the infrastructure. Okay. Infrastructure as well as validation. So say if I'm paying you five bucks, right? And somebody needs to validate whether Ashish has five bucks and has it reached action, right? So somebody needs to validate. So if there are a hundred people on the blockchain, then 51 of them has to say that, oh, this transaction is valid.
00:42:01
Speaker
Right? And doing that work, we have to pay them something and that payment either comes from the blockchain itself or comes as a fee or both. Right? On Bitcoin blockchain, it comes as both. So whenever a transaction gets added to the ecosystem, to the blockchain, a blockchain itself gives a reward to the miner who helped
00:42:22
Speaker
did this task and he also get the fee which Ashish agreed to pay while he was transferring five bucks to Akshay. So maybe not your personal opinion but the ones which are getting accepted like interesting use case, crypto currency. Sure. So Uniswap is one example where they built an exchange, a decentralized exchange
00:42:46
Speaker
with a very unique market-making model. For an exchange to happen, there has to be a buyer and a seller. Now, a decentralized exchange where user experience used to be a bigger problem, a lot of sellers didn't use to come. A lot of buyers didn't use to come. So they always had a problem of liquidity on their platform.
00:43:03
Speaker
So now they did something amazing, building a mathematical model on determining price based on liquidity pools that they were creating, right? Again, not move in depth there, but this model. In a way, it's like bringing in such pressing light.
00:43:25
Speaker
Making a mathematical model on how the price to be determined of any asset and if the price is too high compared to the market gives people incentive to sell their asset at a higher cost, which then equates the price back to normal.
00:43:41
Speaker
If it goes too down, it gives the people opportunity to buy. And when they buy, the price again goes up. So they created a mathematical model to equate the price at any given time and eliminating the dependencies from buyers and sellers aggregating together. So that is one amazing use case and how they have solved it. And AMMs are like a mathematical problem have never been solved at the scale which cryptocurrency industry is trying to solve.
Funding Success and Company Growth
00:44:07
Speaker
So second is compound, which
00:44:09
Speaker
Uniswap is doing this for what commodities or what is the- Cryptocurrencies itself. So, on Uniswap is a decentralized exchange where you can exchange one currency to another. So, they are trying to create without the need of actual order books, they are trying to now create a model where the price of a crypto can be determined or exchanged from one crypto to another.
00:44:31
Speaker
Right. And Uniswap is a coin also. It is an exchange also and a coin also, like you can also. Yeah. So, the coin comes from their, you know, innovation. So, basically, whatever volume that they drive through that ecosystem, they link it to their token. So, the more people find their use case worthy, the more, you know, the price variation happens in their currency, right? So, yeah.
00:44:56
Speaker
Similarly, there are many, right? Like compound and compound is again, I find this very, very fascinating because I'm not from this world. So I am getting to learn a lot. I mean, if you have the patience, I would love to hear about it. There are many, right? So and I'm not the expert in all of them, but I'll explain you compound. So compound is exactly doing what we talked about landing and boring.
00:45:18
Speaker
The use case on how to bring equality into the system. The interest rates are dependent on the demand and supply rather than who you are as a person. And then how do I treat you? So there are a set of rules which you can now data mine and see where you can get the best benefit out. And those rules are applied equally to everyone. So it enables microlending, even staking as
00:45:45
Speaker
If somebody is lending some money, then somebody must be borrowing some money. So a borrower pays that amount in interest, a lender gets that amount. So you get opportunities on both ends. As a retail user, I can invest there for people to borrow, and it ensures that you will always get your money back through the ecosystem that they are creating, and a lender can lend
00:46:10
Speaker
anything to the platform, earn interest, a borrower can borrow at a certain interest rate, which is now mathematically determined. How does it ensure that you get your money back? Basically, you give your house as a collateral to a bank and it says, your house is at, say, $100,000, you can borrow $50,000. If your house value falls below $50,000, then I'll sell your house to recover my money.
00:46:38
Speaker
So these are the basic methods that they apply on the assets that people borrow and lend on the platform. So basically, collateral lending is something where you don't need humans, obviously, because the collateral asset is there. So there's no need for a human being. So that can be totally automated through an algorithm. Yes.
00:47:00
Speaker
Okay. And what are NFTs? Like, you know, that's like the flavor of the season. Do you think it's here to stay or is just flavor of the season? So NFT in general is a very amazing concept, which is non-fungible token. It's like, you know, we used to collect ticket cards, right? So which would be limited in number would
00:47:20
Speaker
exchange with each other based on Sachin Tendulkar's card and things like that. So these are non-fungible tokens, which are basically one thing is different from the other. So if you have a 100 rupee note, which would be exactly same as I have 100 bucks as well. The two notes are interchangeable.
00:47:36
Speaker
These NFTs are basically non-interchangeable assets, right? So think of us like if you're buying a house, that could be an NFT, ultimately, right? Which is tracked on blockchain, ownership can be moved from one person to another, and it is linked to a physical asset outside, right? So as a concept, it has amazing value. I personally disagree with what is happening in the industry at this point in time, which is more in terms of
00:48:05
Speaker
NFT is currently used for digital assets, like an image or a tweet. Is NFT working on that greater fool theory? You buy a tweet thinking that there will be a greater fool who will buy it from me at a higher price. I wouldn't say that. I wouldn't go that far. I think people are smart. They understand what they're getting into.
00:48:28
Speaker
They understand the limitations as well and they are working to improve upon it. So they are the initial adopters. They are not just acting as a greater fool, but I feel that you should understand that risk before you get into it. And that's where I'm seeing that as a retail user.
00:48:45
Speaker
Sometimes, it becomes glamour to think of these things as something amazing happening without looking under the hood what actually is happening. I'm not saying that these are wrong or right, but I'm just saying that people have to do their research before they get into NFTs.
00:49:03
Speaker
What do you want and if these could could change the way things work right when you say i love the concept of linking offline to online ecosystem right so i even your insurances your property buying your car buying your anything that you're buying right as a serial number which is getting track now it is on blockchain.
00:49:23
Speaker
If you're selling it to someone, you pass that NFT to that guy. So you're actually passing. And now you can show the proof of ownership digitally of any physical asset that you want. It would apply to digital asset. Practical ownership. Yes, exactly. Exactly. So it has amazing, amazing use cases. I'm just saying that it's probably not at the stage and how it is coming out to be, especially in the last six to 12 months.
00:49:48
Speaker
So far, nobody is using NFTs for physical assets. Like as you said, property would be a great use case for NFT, but nobody is doing that so far. Again, so linking offline to online, I'm sure that hundreds of companies are working on this.
00:50:05
Speaker
I am probably, I do not have this much knowledge to know about it. I think, you know, Anderson Horowitz have, have invested in a couple of NFT companies which are doing amazing job in bringing NFTs to the masses and solving some amazing use cases, which probably I am not smart enough to understand at this point. Okay, got it.
00:50:27
Speaker
Okay. So, after that first funding from Sequoia, subsequently, what was your funding journey like? Sure. So, I didn't tell you about the concert Kubeid journey, right? So, why we started in India, right? So, in 2020, once the RBI ban got reverted, when we looked into the market, we realized that a lot of exchanges were already there in India.
00:50:54
Speaker
If you go to an exchange, you look at their experience, complicated graph, order books, buy, sell, and it creates an entrance for a retail user to go. First of all, crypto is so complex, now you put that experience on top of it, they will never go and buy crypto, right? People are using the experience of Swiggy, you know, add to cart, checkout food is at your home, or Uber and Ola, just a click of a button, you get the cap that you're looking for, right?
00:51:20
Speaker
That is where we realize that the kind of problems we saw in 2017 can help us build a platform, which would be very unique. It has never been done, not just in India, but around the world as well, helping users buy, sell crypto where price remains fixed. With a click of a button, now they can buy, sell any crypto that they want to, as simple as ordering food online.
00:51:43
Speaker
Why is the price remaining fixed unique? Isn't that the case with say Wazirak or somewhere else? Like if I see a price and I click buy, I don't get it at that price? It's an order book, right? So say you're buying 10 Bitcoin and you're buying it 1 lakh, but the top bit is only 0.1 Bitcoin at 1 lakh.
00:51:59
Speaker
So you have to wait in the market for rest 9.9 bitcoin to be bought which may happen, may not happen, the price may fall down but we ensure price guarantee. So when you see something on us, you buy it instantly and instantly it reflects in your wallet.
00:52:15
Speaker
no questions asked. So that is what an online shopping is. If I give you an experience where you're buying a phone of 10,000 bucks, add it to cart and it became 11,000, you will be a little taken aback and whether I want to go ahead or not. So that's where we built that experience for our users.
00:52:35
Speaker
giving them the best price and fixed price conversion with a click of a button. Our experience was one of the simplest in the world at the time that we launched. We launched in June 2020 and it just blew up. Today, after 14 months, we have set around 9.5 million users, one of the fastest fintech companies to ever reach that mark.
00:52:56
Speaker
funded by the likes of Tiger, Ribbit, Paradim, which is Coinbase Co-Founder's fund, and Sequoia, and growing the company
00:53:06
Speaker
bigger and bigger every single day. And today, the largest crypto platform in India. So that journey has been really, really remarkable. From the funding standpoint, obviously, Sequoia was our initial packer. But we realized that within the three months of Kansash Kubei launch, we had initial success and product market that we felt that we reached. That's where we reached out to
00:53:33
Speaker
who is one of the best investors in the world and have funded almost every FinTech company in India and outside, be it Coinbase, be it Robinhood. So these are the
00:53:48
Speaker
kind of marking investors that they are, and we wanted them as one of our investors. Obviously, that was a tall ask at that point, but we realized that telling them about the problem that we are solving, how we look toward the market, and they have taken risks on crypto before. They were the CDC investors of Coinbase itself.
00:54:11
Speaker
So we reached out to them and they loved our team and what we were doing. And we got a paradigm also who is again, learned a lot from them who comes from Coinbase co-founders themselves and putting it together, make the best possible CDSA for us. Okay. When did the CDSA happen? CDSA happened in December of last year.
00:54:37
Speaker
And Tiger was also part of this series. So, Tiger happened in February and it happened in a very interesting time when
00:54:49
Speaker
A week before our government announced that they might be considering a ban on crypto. And within that week, Tiger came to us and said that no matter what happens, we believe in you, we believe in your team. We love what you're doing in this market. And no matter what happens, we want to fund you. And that's how the series we happened with Tiger.
00:55:13
Speaker
Okay. So series B was not something you plan, but yes, it was like a inbound. Yes. And Tiger is known typically for being very, very fast and aggressive. Like what was that whole experience like? It was, it was, you know, one of the, one of the craziest experiences within like the 22 hours. It was signed done deal. Wow. So it was the fastest turnaround time that I particularly have ever seen. Wow. Okay.
00:55:44
Speaker
And what was the raise in December and in the Series B with Tiger? How much did you raise? So we raised about 15 million in Series A and Series B we raised about 25 million dollars. So yeah. And what valuation was in Series B? Little above half a billion dollars. Amazing, okay. So like what is your monthly volume now like GMV?
00:56:12
Speaker
We touch us somewhere around a billion, billion and a half monthly. Wow. Wow. And how much was it beginning of this year? Like Jan 21? I think we started obviously very small. I think $100,000 or something per day. So that would be, I think $3 million a month. Okay. Wow. This is Jan 21 or Jan 20? I'm talking about like June 2020. So a year back. So yeah.
00:56:40
Speaker
Okay. Wow. From 3 million to a billion and a half. Amazing. Okay. So, what next? You know, like all this, like, where do you want to spend the money that you raise? What are your future ways? So, we are obviously, you know, investing a lot in branding and creating education around crypto. We want to make sure that people
00:57:02
Speaker
understand what crypto is. The first thing that comes to your mind when you think about crypto, we want to have that very clearly defined or have a very
00:57:15
Speaker
not a positive spin, but more of right messaging to
Remote Team Challenges and Company Culture
00:57:19
Speaker
the user. So making sure that they don't think about illegal, they don't think about ban, and they think about crypto, they actually understand crypto, and then make a choice for themselves, whether it is good for them, they want to be on the sidelines, or they want to keep away from it. How much time does a crypto transaction take to complete? I believe Bitcoin is supposed to be very slow in the time it takes to complete the transaction.
00:57:43
Speaker
So, crypto buying and selling is not actually a blockchain operation. So, it happens instantly within milliseconds, right? So, when you click a button buy, you have that, right? How you order a food, once you pay and click done, that is how your order is done, right? So, that is how crypto buying and selling works on Coin Search Kuber. When you go to blockchain, when you're actually transferring, say, I'm transferring Bitcoin to you, that is where a blockchain operation is happening.
00:58:09
Speaker
where the value is getting transferred, a Bitcoin is getting transferred to you and then the miners need to approve it. On average, every block takes about 10 minutes to get the confirmation and it takes at least six confirmation is where people say that now it can never be reverted. So it would take from 10 minutes to 60 minutes to get your transaction approved on the blockchain.
00:58:34
Speaker
How are these different, like how is it that I as a retailer get incentive but the Bitcoin. So you are not transferring on blockchain. So when you're buying and selling, it's getting an exchange. So it's getting exchange between one user to another. So it's not actually reflecting on the blockchain itself.
00:58:57
Speaker
So, it's a database entry, how you do a UPI transaction. A bank doesn't actually hire a person, give him the money, who runs, goes to the... So, it's not happening. It's digital. It's money getting deducted from your bank and getting reflected on the merchant side instantly. That is how a blockchain transaction is. So, this is in a way like an inter-exchange.
00:59:18
Speaker
like one exchange and another exchange between the seven. Between them or within the exchange, since you have both the parties on there, you're just linking them rather than creating a blockchain transaction for that to happen. But if you take it out to an external wallet, that would then probably happen on the block. So let me pose this question to you. What was the failure you had in the last three months?
00:59:45
Speaker
I think one of the biggest failure is not building my team fast enough, not anticipating the growth in this journey and able to build a lot of because the work increases and people get burned out. The idea is how do we anticipate that?
01:00:06
Speaker
Start hiring those people because the process takes time, right? And the kind of requirements we have, it takes time to fill those positions and start looking for those people much earlier than where they're absolutely needed, right? Is the crucial point that
01:00:23
Speaker
I particularly learned in the last four months of our journey, and hopefully I'll try to learn from it and do better as we go. Like higher in advance before you actually need those people. So when you're doing something, it feels like, let me just complete this work.
01:00:40
Speaker
And then I will look how to solve it. But that is not the time to actually go and solve it. When you're actually doing that work, figure out what do I have to do? Who do I need? Who can do this better than I'm doing? And who can actually help me the next time the situation arises?
01:00:57
Speaker
So I think taking a step back, no matter how busy you are, no matter how at the center of the storm you are, taking a step back and looking, how do I solve it better next time? Who do I need to solve it better? And start that process from that point onwards rather than waiting for that storm to be over, and then start looking for that person.
01:01:22
Speaker
And are you a remote company now or are you welcome? So, we are all remote. So, I think Coin Search Kuber was conceptualized within this remote environment. The day we decided to do Coin Search Kuber, the next day lockdown came and we all heard.
01:01:38
Speaker
And so far, the team has done an amazing job. Obviously, communication becomes an issue sometimes, but we are figuring ways to solve that day in, day out. And we would hopefully remain a remote country till April next year, and we'll re-valid the situation whether it's time for us to come back to office.
01:01:57
Speaker
But would you like to be a remote company or an office based company in the long term? The way we are growing, right? So what happens is a lot of people can learn from each other much faster if they are working together. Because when you're working together, you're not just an individual contributor.
01:02:13
Speaker
you're learning from your outside peers and trying to grow, right? So what I feel is this environment is very good for individual contributors, but their growth is suffering. They're not learning from outside enough, right? And as a growing organization where the kind of processes are changing too frequently, it would be much easier when everyone is together and aligning together towards the same goal and trying to achieve that together, right? Learning from our mistakes,
01:02:43
Speaker
Everyone doesn't have to make the same mistake. We can just learn from each other. I think that is what is missing today.
01:02:49
Speaker
Got it. Okay. And what are your headcount split like? There's 250 people, most of them would be tech guys. So support is one of, because like customer first, so our support team is quite big. Product tech marketing is about 100, 120 people and rest 120 people is support. So like you've not automated support like chatbots and stuff like that? So crypto is a different market where you know a lot of
01:03:18
Speaker
Because it's about money, right? And it's not like a food ordering where when something happens, you say you deposited money. There might be a problem at the bank, at the PG, or in our system where the money didn't reflect back, right? So dealing with the bot at that point in time becomes
01:03:39
Speaker
So we want to give the best experience to our users, making sure that they feel that there is somebody on the other side who cares as much as they can in solving and helping them out through this problem. How many hours a day do you work?
01:03:57
Speaker
I do not, I don't know, I don't count the number of hours, I think.
Dealing with Fear of Failure
01:04:02
Speaker
Is it still like, you know, like what you did for your preparation in engineering? So I'm always constantly thinking on the problems and trying to solve those problems. I think my role is now not how many hours I spend on my laptop actually doing the work, but it's more about how am I enabling people to solve the problem that they are facing, right? And try to constantly be in a problem solving mode.
01:04:27
Speaker
so the day i wake up and the moment i wake up and till the time i go to sleep i'm always thinking whether that is work or not work i do not know but that is the habit that has been built up cool so any advice for aspiring founders you know like any last word you'd like to leave the listeners with
01:04:50
Speaker
I think a lot of people including me thinks about failure when they are in uncharted territory and I think one hack that I found to go over that is
01:05:03
Speaker
thinking that even if you fail, what is the worst thing that will happen? And once you rationalize that fear into what would actually happen rather than being afraid of it, it what gives you the confidence to go beyond. A lot of these times, our fears are only just in our heads. And actually,
01:05:23
Speaker
Logically thinking through on what if even the worst case scenario happens? What are the repercussions? How do I come out of it? And how do I create a plan to move forward in spite of the failure? Not that you're optimizing for failure, but you're rationalizing it that even if you fail,
01:05:39
Speaker
It's not the end of the world. You still have a path to go forward with. I think that particularly has helped me and my team to overcome fear. We are very innovative and a fast-moving company. I know every company says that, but we take a lot of risks and making sure that people are not just overburdened or paralyzed by this fear of doing new things, and they go beyond that.
01:06:06
Speaker
So logically rationalizing, what are the next steps? What are the fallbacks? What do you do if you fail? What do you learn from it? And optimize for success, but be ready for failure is what I'll leave. That's a nice mantra. Optimize for success, be ready for failure. Nice mantra. So I think a lot of people that I've seen
01:06:31
Speaker
Sometimes that they get stuck in the failure mode, right? And just a fear of failure itself. And this helps me particularly go beyond that point.
01:06:43
Speaker
If you want to be a part of the mission to evangelize cryptocurrencies and be a part of the cutting edge of finance, then do check out jobs with CoinSwitch at unti.in.com.
01:07:13
Speaker
Thanks.