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The ’Seoul’ful lending app for Bharat | Charlie Lee @ BalanceHero
165 Plays1 year ago
Balance Hero is one of India’s largest lending apps for the underbanked. They are among the top market leaders in the small ticket loan providers.
And the most amazing thing about Balance Hero is that the founder (Charlie Lee) is a Korean who came to India to sell VAS services to telecom companies, and never left.
If you want to hear about the evolution of tech businesses and how to adapt to changing external circumstances, then this episode with @Charlie Lee of @BalanceHero is a must-listen.
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Read more about Balance Hero
Meet the entrepreneur from Gangnam whose True Balance …
Balance Hero banks on India's 1.3B with fintech
Balancehero India appoints ex-Hero FinCorp exec Jayesh Jain as Group CFO
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Transcript
Introduction to Charlie Lee and Balance Bureau
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi, guys. Hi, how are you? This is Charlie Lee. I'm the CEO and then co-founder of the Balance Bureau. We are providing true balance application.
00:00:22
Speaker
Have you seen the 2006 Hollywood movie called Outsourced? It is a movie about an American company that outsources its call center to India and an American manager is sent to India to set up the call center and get it running. The movie shows India from the eyes of an outsider and makes up rethink our assumptions.
Evolution of Balance Hero
00:00:40
Speaker
You might end up with a similar feeling by the end of this episode of the founder thesis podcast as your host Akshay Dutt interviews Charlie Lee, the Korean-born founder of India's leading bottom of the pyramid lending app, Balance Hero. Balance Hero specialises in low ticket-sized loans starting from as low as Rs 5,000 and it gives out and collects these loans in a purely digital manner. And this journey has been fascinating with many parallels to PTM.
00:01:05
Speaker
Like Paytm, Balance Hero also started in the mobile recharge space before moving to a payment wallet product and then finally finding its mojo as a lending-focused product. Stay tuned for some amazing insights from a veteran founder with decades of entrepreneurial experience!
Mission and Target Audience of Balance Hero
00:01:29
Speaker
Okay, so Charlie, could you start by giving like a one minute overview of what is True Balance or Balance Hero? Yes, you know, Balance Hero, the company, which we founded in 2014, July. And then we are like, you know, our company's vision, vision mission is a finance for all. So we are targeting like Indian middle class or next billion people.
00:01:58
Speaker
who don't have enough access to the various finance services, especially the credit related services. The true balance is Android application, which provides payment and then digital loan service. Our major target customers are like, as I mentioned, like Indian middle class. One billion people who have the major population, who are the major population of India and then
00:02:26
Speaker
who don't have enough access to various financial services, especially credit related services.
Charlie's Journey from Korea to India
00:02:32
Speaker
So you said payments and credit both. Is it like a UPI payments app? Yeah, we have a UPI feature as well. We have a PPI license, which we got from RBI in 2014. Actually, we started our business from payment first, which is like
00:02:54
Speaker
players. We got the MBA license in 2019. So we started our service from payment. And then from 2019, we tab up the digital loan service. So payment means like you started like an app like Paytm. That was how you started? Not exactly. Actually, now it should be support API as well. But we started, we have the PPR license is prepaid instrument. So we have like a wallet.
00:03:23
Speaker
And then the people can top up the wallet and then easily actually spend the money from the wallet without getting OTP and without any other hazards. Okay. So let's cover the journey of how you got to where you are today. What's a Korean guy doing in India? Let me start with that first. Tell me about that journey from Korea. What did you study in Korea? And after that, a little bit of your career in Korea.
00:03:53
Speaker
Yeah, actually, it's kind of the first natural question from everybody. You know, actually, you know, I actually studied in Korea, like college, and then I studied in the States, like I mastered in the University of Chicago. And then after I
00:04:12
Speaker
came back to Korea, I actually started my business focused on the Asian business. So what business did you start? Asian Pacific business, global business. So that's how actually I got connected with India in 2002.
00:04:31
Speaker
You know, actually, I believe, you know, at the time I was working for real networks, which is the American company. I was the head of AC and Pacific business. So when I. Real network had the I think they had a sound card and they had a. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's all time business. But after that, actually, they merged one Korean company.
00:04:51
Speaker
And then I was the head of Asian business, which is specialized for value-added services for mobile operators, telecom companies.
00:05:04
Speaker
So we have provided various value-added services, but one of the most representative and successful value-added services is Hello Tunes. In Korea, we call Coloring. And then we are the first company to invent that service in Korea, and then we try to explore other markets. And definitely, India was one of them. And then actually, we approached Aotel. I led the team.
00:05:33
Speaker
and then we actually got the deal. So in 2002 I came to India first and then I joined the like you know the RFP process, bidding process and we finally got the deal and then actually you know the service is more like you know ASP model which means like you know we don't sell our system, we invest and then we
00:05:57
Speaker
you know, install every server and software and then we maintain, not just system, but also service operation. In return for that, we share the revenue from the L-TEL. So that was a very, very successful. So this, as you know, Hello Tunes was very, very popular. After that, actually we managed to provide to IDEA, BSNL, L-CEL, all other telcos.
00:06:24
Speaker
So that's how actually my India journey began. You said ASP is what, like application service provider? Yeah, application service provider model. So we install everything, we operate, and then we get the revenue share from the templates. That's the kind of model.
Early Ventures and Telecom Innovations
00:06:43
Speaker
Did you have any competitors who were offering these HelloTunes or you were the only player? Yeah, actually, you know, at the time there were some of the Indian companies invited, Chinese companies invited, but, you know, we managed to get a deal. Yes. Okay, okay, okay. So that started your Indian journey. 2002 you came here. How long were you with Real Networks? Actually, I started my first venture in 2006.
00:07:11
Speaker
So until 2006, I have led the Asian Pacific business. India is of course one of that. But in 2006, together with my co-founders, they are also from their networks. And then we made the decision to start our own venture. So we have provided similar value services to various telecom companies in India, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand,
00:07:39
Speaker
So that's the first thing actually I found it in 2006. And the same HelloTunes or other products also? HelloTunes is also, we managed to provide to some of them, but the major product is not HelloTunes, like there were many value added services. So we managed to provide those to various... What types? Like, I don't know if you know, if you heard about the like, you know, emoticon, the sticker, SMS, when you send SMS, we convert into the sticker, style SMS,
00:08:07
Speaker
Also, like a caller tagging service, when you make a call, we send like, you know, some user-defined greeting message to the users, the colleague. There are some, like, you know, as you know, before smartphone, there are so many kinds of, you know, feature phone-based value-added services. So we have managed to provide those services to Asian attackers.
00:08:30
Speaker
Okay, okay, okay. And this business was making good money? Like, what kind of? Yeah, actually, you know, we made quite, you know, good business. So we made, you know, some good, you know, amount of money. But as you know, from 2011, 12, you know, after the iPhone, and then all this smartphone came out, you know, telecom guys are not the king of kings anymore, hold the ecosystem, change it,
00:08:58
Speaker
Apple, Google, they become the major player. So actually in 2014,
00:09:04
Speaker
you know, our business didn't grow that much compared to previous, you know, days. So we made a decision to start a smartphone based in new services. And then we actually made five task force teams under access mobile umbrella. So we made a task force. So all these five companies later one day, we actually split out. And then the five companies actually we made.
00:09:32
Speaker
One of those five companies is Balanciero. So we made an e-commerce company, we made a gaming company, we made an advertisement company. But actually, you know, two of those five companies are still active and they're very good. And then one of these five is Balanciero, and then I made a decision to lead this business by myself.
00:09:56
Speaker
Okay, very interesting. What kind of revenue did you do at your peak? Like 2011, 12, you said was the peak year. What kind of like million dollar...
Strategic Pivot and B2C Diversification
00:10:04
Speaker
You mean the excess mobile? Yes, yes, for the value added service. We made almost like, you know...
00:10:11
Speaker
$1 million of profit every month. So like, you know, more than $10 million yearly profit. Amazing. So very, very, very cash rich kind of. Yeah, actually at the time, but you know, our business didn't grow. So we had a big bold decision that we are going to start the value service and then we are going to start the application based B2C kind of services. And what was your headcount like?
00:10:41
Speaker
The max is like, you know, we have more than 300 people. Okay. And Korea-based? No, it's all over the place. Korea, India, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, you know, all of those places. Okay. Got it. Okay. So this task force that you set up,
00:11:02
Speaker
is a slightly unusual approach. Most founders I speak to when they face this kind of a challenge, like you faced a challenge where the industry changed from the platform being the telephone operator, like earlier if you wanted content, like say if you wanted to know real-time cricket scores,
00:11:21
Speaker
you would subscribe to some value added service with Airtel and Airtel would send you cricket scores real time. And then that got replaced with apps and those apps were through Apple and Google. So Apple and Google became the platforms. So your business obviously got hit. In such scenarios, most founders would typically do experiments of their own, very hands-on. What made you decide that, okay, let's set up five different task forces and you would probably have had
00:11:52
Speaker
empowered and independent teams for each of those task forces who would be doing it on their own. What made you go that route? It's very interesting question. You know, actually there are several reasons. You know, first one is actually, you know, we were kind of people team our business, right? This access mobile was purely B2B business. Our clients are the telecom guys.
00:12:18
Speaker
But you know what we tried to do at the time is B2C, application business. It's a totally new kind of approach. So we were, we think, we were, we were like, you know, we believe this is a new type of new DNA kind of service. So we believe that it's going to be totally out of existing, you know, structure and then DNA.
00:12:43
Speaker
So TF is just over the beginning. Later on, all those five TF became a separate entity. So that's the first one. So totally new business. The second one is like, you know, I believe because we had money, you know, we had a quite good amount of money. So I made a decision instead of sharing this property, the cash, you know, things,
00:13:08
Speaker
because our vision mission was bigger than actually at the time where we were. So I made a decision to reinvest all those money.
00:13:19
Speaker
And then I had a very good co-founders at that time as well. And then I wanted to give them the motivation and incentive to fully commit to those new business. So of course, you know, major shares like XS Mobile invested, but actually I wanted to give all these co-founders to lead each one of these five, you know, taskforce business and then they get motivated.
00:13:45
Speaker
OK, so you wanted new DNA, young blood, which also had skin in the game, because they would have equity in the company, which you had spun out of it. Exactly. Exactly. Interesting. So what happened to the four that the other four? One, we will talk about in detail, but the other four just very quickly, like, what happened to them? It's kind of a, I'm very happy to see this kind of question coming up, because you are kind of the first one to ask these details.
00:14:14
Speaker
Yeah, actually, you know, out of five, one is Balazio, and another one is still very active, and then their company is over $100 million valid company. So that's like, you know, gift icon, like, you know, it's kind of e-commerce, but their major market is Philippine. They are doing also business in Indonesia as well. But that company is also quite active and then, you know, growing very fast.
00:14:37
Speaker
There's like a standard e-commerce like Amazon Flipkart. No, no, no, no. It's not like that. It's like a gift icon. Gift icon means like, you know, you send us some kind of emoticon, but actually that emoticon includes some code and then that's actually the, like, you know, voucher. So you can actually use that voucher to buy anything. So that's very popular service, you know, more than like, you know, decade ago in Korea. So we just did a copy and paste.
00:15:05
Speaker
This would be like on festivals you give some money. Yeah, it's like Amazon gift card kind of things, but this is a very similar to Amazon gift card, but this is over telecom users and then the recharge amount, actually they can use it as well.
00:15:28
Speaker
In India, it's not allowed yet, but in other markets, it's allowed. So actually, with like, for example, 500 rupees prepared balance, I can use this 500 rupees to buy something. And then we give this gift card, we call it gift card plus emoticon. So it's gifticon. So they can gift those giftcon to each other and then they can use it.
00:15:53
Speaker
So like what M-Pesa was doing in Africa? Yeah, exactly. But more gamified because of the emoticon with it. Got it. One of the services was gaming, gaming company. And then one another is like commerce. South-East Asia, Korean products, especially cosmetics, kind of products were very popular.
00:16:21
Speaker
So they wanted to explore, to sell the Korean cosmetics to Indonesia and the Southeast Asian market. And then the third one is, you know, the advertisement network kind of, you know, platform. But, you know, all these services are all gone. So now it's only two left running.
00:16:44
Speaker
Let's talk about the True Balance
Launch and Vision of True Balance
00:16:46
Speaker
journey. So you started by applying for a PPI license, like from day one, that was the idea, to start a payments business? No, no, no, no. Actually, we started our service from mobile prepared users, balance checking service. So that was a very interesting, actually, approach. From the day one, we launched True Balance.
00:17:10
Speaker
Our goal, ultimate goal and mission was to provide the finance to underserved on the banking users. So from the day one we launched, actually, you know, it took just, you know, five minutes to choose the market between India and Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, whatever it is. We chose India within five minutes because we had a three criteria when you start a new business. First one is the size of the market.
00:17:38
Speaker
Second one is the speed of the growth. Third one is the maturity of the market. If the market is too mature, actually, there's nothing we can do. From this three point of view, 2014, when I founded Balance Hero, definitely India was the one. India was the very clear one pick. But when we
00:18:01
Speaker
study and then find out what kind of an item, what kind of business we are going to explore. It took six months. But, you know, thanks for our background of, you know, telecom business. I don't know if you are familiar with the U.S.S.D., like a star one, two, three sharp, and you make a call and then you get the U.S.S.D. pop-up message. That message was free. And then at that time, actually, we figured
00:18:26
Speaker
Over the Android phone, Android application, this USSD feature, we can enable it. And then we can get the message. And then we can actually scratch and then scrap it. And then we can make an infographic display. So we made a decision to start from this mobile balance checking because we believe
00:18:51
Speaker
Mobile balance recharge, even at the time 2014, 2013, Paytm was there, Free Charge was there, Mobigig was there. Like, you know, those services are very popular because India is a very, very unique country because out of like 1.1, 1.2 billion mobile users, 1 billion are prepaid users still. Postpaid users, 100 from the million only. So 1 billion prepaid users daily charge,
00:19:20
Speaker
At that time, it's more than five, six times a month. Now, I think it's two, three times a month. So like one billion users, five, six billion transactions per month. That's not the biggest service in India only, maybe the biggest service in the world. So most of India and actually, like including Paytm, like Pintec players, they wanted to start from mobile lead charts because users, their transactions are there.
00:19:49
Speaker
But what we figured is that before recharge, mobile prepared users, they need to check their balance. So we kind of bound out if we can notify the right time of recharge, and if we can notify recommendation right pack for our users, then the mobile recharge is going to be much, much more powerful.
00:20:14
Speaker
And then actually we can easily get into mobile recharge. And then actually, as you know, like, you know, as you see the Paytm, likely charge to build payment and all the payment and all the finance services like commerce and insurance and finally the law. So that's the kind of journey we were thinking from the day one, even though we started our service from like utility, like mobile balance checking service.
00:20:37
Speaker
We believe this service is going to be the foundation for the finance service for our target of mobile prepared users. At the time, we called them the next billion users. So we figured that they see 1 billion people that they don't fully access various finance services, especially credit services. So from the day one, we launched balance checking for prepared users. Our dream and vision is to make
00:21:06
Speaker
credit available for those underserved under credit users so that actually we can build our financial platform for these underserved under credit users. Okay, very interesting. So essentially the name True Balance comes from this only, right? Because otherwise today that name is a little bit head scratching that why is it called True Balance? But now I understand why it's called True Balance because it makes sense you're creating a
00:21:31
Speaker
sticky product with high repeat usage. So which means your active users would have been relatively high because as you said, people will be charging five, six times a month. So which means five, six times a month. And this was a full service or a push service. You know, like would they ask for what is my balance or would they automatically be notified your balances go?
00:21:57
Speaker
Both, you know, when operators send push message like, you know, USAID or SMS, it will be also processed. But also, when users want to pull, like they want to check, start one to switch hub and then make a call, they can do that over our app, like they just, you know,
00:22:14
Speaker
you know, pull down. And then actually we make our U.S.S.D. call and then we get the U.S.S. message and we process it and we display in the input up menu. So actually people can easily check out. And this would be like a gateway. Once people started using it to check balance, then your user base can be monetized by offering recharge.
00:22:38
Speaker
Yeah, actually, you know, our kind of load map was to secure the user traffic from balance checking and then balance recharge and then payment and then loan. Okay. How did it actually happen? Did you get into mobile charging? Yeah, actually, we still provide mobile recharge and payment. But, you know, one thing we kind of failed to follow that load map was
00:23:08
Speaker
These payment users like mobile recharge and bill payment, these payment users are not actually naturally evolving into digital loan service.
Focus Shift to Digital Loans
00:23:18
Speaker
So there was a kind of disconnection and then we kind of failed to move those payment and recharge and balance checking users into the loan. Because loan is a very specific demanding kind of service, right?
00:23:34
Speaker
We kind of kind of peabot our service from the payment and mobile recharge to reach the loan once we got the MBX license in 2019. So we started out. Interesting. So you're saying the user behavior was such that somebody coming for a recharge would not look at the same app for a loan. Even if they were taking a loan, they would not look at the same.
00:23:59
Speaker
Yeah, the demand is a little bit different, especially the personal loan. Of course, we provide also a recharge loan, which means when they recharge, we provide for recharge, like 100 rupees, recharge, recharge, like 110 rupees.
00:24:19
Speaker
and then you know like they can pay later kind of a concept but you know it didn't work out well there's very small to get size and the personal loan they need cash right so uh
00:24:30
Speaker
Yeah, that's why actually we moved to the personal role. Did you spend money on acquiring users? Because, I mean, this is a crowded market, right? You have KTM and free charge and a lot of others who want to capture this user base. Were you able to get users for mobile balance checking? Like your thesis was that mobile balance checking will drive users. Did that work out or did you have to spend money to acquire users?
00:24:58
Speaker
Yeah, actually, mobile balance checking wise, our service was unique because your dealer services, they provide very good recharge service, but they didn't provide actually mobile balance checking service, right? And this is free of charge service because we are using operators, U.S.S.D, core network. So it's free. So from the balance checking point of view, we have successfully acquired quite good users. What kind of numbers are you acquiring? As I told you, like,
00:25:28
Speaker
monthly sign-up? Oh, we reached around more than 50 million downloads. And then the active users, more than 70 million users. So it was quite good. But as I told you, we kind of failed to monetize it based on those user base. That was one kind of a fail, actually, story we had.
00:25:51
Speaker
OK, OK. So 14 to 19 was essentially a journey of trying to monetize these users who were downloading. Did you start a wallet also? Like, you got the PPI license? Yes. 2016, we got 17, we got the license. So from 2017, we launched our wallet, and then we provide our wallet service. And then after the UPI came out, also we connected with the UPI, and then we provided UPI as well. OK.
00:26:21
Speaker
I'm guessing wallet is a hard business to build, right? Unless you have because it needs network effect, right? Like because these wallets are not interoperable. Like I can't pay from my wallet to somebody's Paytm wallet. So that must have been a like a very, very hard business to scale up. Yeah, exactly. That was one of the reasons why you were so pale. Like, of course, lately, you know, the interoperability is there.
00:26:50
Speaker
So we can utilize it, but definitely that's one of the reasons. So you're saying now there is interoperability? Yeah. Now actually, the PPI 2.0 came out. The PPI interoperability is going to, we are going to launch very soon, the PPI interoperability. So we can even interoperate with banks as well. So I think that's going to come very soon. And how will it work through the phone numbers?
00:27:19
Speaker
Yes, wallet account. You need to create the wallet account based on your number and the mail. Okay, interesting. Are wallets still in use today because I thought UPI would have killed wallets? Yeah, wallet traffic is not that high at all.
00:27:44
Speaker
you know, UPI after UPI actually, because you know, one of the biggest advantage of the wallet is that the very easy and convenient way of payment and then transfer, right? But without OTP, but UPI, you know, actually so much more simpler and the easy way. So UPI is dominant now. I think there's also some new version of UPI called UPI Lite, which has been launched. What is UPI Lite? UPI Lite actually, we are not actually doing it.
00:28:14
Speaker
UPI, like, you know, UPI, what's it called? UPI 2.0, I think, you know, there are in-house kind of things, even though UPI, auto-payment, auto-linear payment is going to be enabled. I think that's going to be very powerful. Auto-linear payment, this is like the, say, every month, some subscription money, like your Netflix payment can happen. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Recurring payment, okay.
00:28:41
Speaker
Okay. Okay. Very interesting. Okay. Okay. So why did you wait for an NBFC license to launch lending? Because you could have become like, you know, there is that LSP loan service provider model through which you don't lend from your own books, but you just source loans for existing NBFCs and you earn a margin. Actually, you know,
00:29:10
Speaker
We did without MBPS license in early 2019. But you know, it was not actually full-scaled in a version of loan business. We had a partnership with the small MBPS and we started our business. But you know, you are absolutely right. That was one of our kind of mistakes we believe.
00:29:34
Speaker
we were supposed to start, even before getting the, of course, you know, the English license, because we had a PPR license, but we thought like, you know, it's gonna happen within six months of time after application, but it took like more than one and a half year, because of this PPR license, IBI was a little bit more like, you know, sorrow.
00:29:53
Speaker
So I think, you know, it's one of the kind of regress I have. We were supposed to launch with the various partners based on their last team model, whatever.
00:30:06
Speaker
Okay. Okay. Okay. Got it. So tell me the journey once you got the NBFC license, then did you change your product? Like the app on Play Store must have been at one point of time saying check your balance. So did you change that app? And like, how did you, how did the business shift? You must have had to pivot the business. Yes, exactly. Like, you know, after we got the license, after we made a decision to
00:30:34
Speaker
comprehensively and aggressively approach this loan business. We changed our whole duplication and at the time we actually removed balance check-in feature from our app. We were kind of pivoted to this loan-focused service. That's where actually we started to build up small ticket size. At the time, our loan was one month
00:31:01
Speaker
and then the most smaller ticket size. What ticket size, average? At the time, our average ticket size is like, you know, around a few thousand rupees. A few thousand rupees. Now it's like 15,000 rupees, but at the time it's like, you know, less than 5,000 rupees. Very small ticket size and then very short term tenure alone at the time we provide it. And how did you...
00:31:28
Speaker
build your underwriting engine because you're saying next billion users, there probably would not have been a credit score for most of these users that you wanted to lend to. I mean, you know, in the lending business, it's easy to lend. It's hard to recover and success comes when you recover the money. So how did you create that
00:31:54
Speaker
strength and capability to make the business profitable by actually recovering the money, lending to the right people, lending the right amount for the right duration. Actually, you know, that's basically everything, right? The foundation of what is loan, so-called loan or lending business, right? How to underwrite them, how to manage the risk. So,
00:32:22
Speaker
But actually, from the day one, we launched this service and company. We were very focused on the data. So we actually successfully have built up our data server data network from the balance checking time. And then we had a very good data analytics team. And then we kind of
00:32:46
Speaker
or get the users access grant and the access to various kinds of information and data. So when we start to prepare this digital loan service, we actually successfully managed to build a so-called alternative credit scoring model. So version 1, like version 0.5 and version 1, we launched in 2019.
00:33:14
Speaker
So, you know, we can access as your application, Android application provider, we can access various Android, you know, data set, like, you know, what kind of, and for model, they are actually using it, what kind of application they are using it, like basically geography information and various finance related SMS information. So there are like, you know, various, very valuable data set we can access. And fortunately,
00:33:44
Speaker
We actually had a message engine, which is to provide balance checking feature. So based on this message engine, we have developed, you know, like, you know, finance and latest, you know, message storing and analysis engine. So now, actually, we have three modules running, Dank score, version six.
00:34:06
Speaker
automatic credit score version 5, SMS score version 3, all those in models, we could have successfully managed to build up based on this our previous endeavors like message engine and other data analytics scale. Can we spend some time on each of these? Let's start with the SMS score. What determines SMS?
00:34:32
Speaker
Of course, you know, we can live for today and then to some extent it's valuable. But many of our users, they don't have a similar score. They have a very low, actually, similar score. That's why we have built up our own proprietary alternative credit scoring model so that actually we can actually build up our own user's credit level. So we call it POD score.
00:34:55
Speaker
probably of default score. So this POD score, based on this POD score, we disburse the loan. And then also we have a pricing engine. We call it LBP engine, risk-based pricing engine. So based on this LBP engine, we can kind of decide the interest rate.
Credit Scoring and Risk Management
00:35:13
Speaker
So those things and then the based on the income level and then the expected like, you know, four year kind of a level, we dispersed like how much we can dispose to our users. So we have built up barriers on the writing related models. And then actually we dispersed alone. So, you know, without giving specific details, if you can,
00:35:37
Speaker
Talk about the philosophy of each of these, like, you know, for example, a good SMS code means that the person has regular paycheck coming in, so that would be good. Oh, now, actually, you know, these three models are now almost integrated, and then it's working as kind of one model. Okay. But, you know, originally, when we designed, when we started, like, Bank of School or HCS, Bank of School is the oldest, second is the HCS, and third one is the SMS code. SMS code is,
00:36:06
Speaker
Comparatively young actually. Sorry. What's the second one? ECS. ECS. I'll come to credit scoring. Okay. I'll come to credit scoring more there. Okay. So we have a bank score is like, you know, bank statement. Right. We upload a PDF or something. Exactly. And then we, oh, we are kind of a stripping. So bank score is about six.
00:36:29
Speaker
HSC is like, you know, as I told you, like a various Google Android based data set we access and then we build up the operating model. The third one is the SMS because SMS, financially related SMS is very, very powerful. So we decided to build a separate model based on the SMS. So actually we built up SMS.
00:36:49
Speaker
Okay, okay. I'm assuming in the Android dataset you would, for example, if somebody has many loan apps on their phone, then that would be a red flag. Like it would mean that he's trying to get loan from many different places. Like that would, and probably for each geography you would have some sort of a score. People from some geography might be high risk. Like those would be the,
00:37:16
Speaker
ways in which that Android data is evaluated? Not actually deeply, but overall, I think it's not just our company, but also all these tallenders. Basically, the vendors are very similar. Relatively, South region people, they have a lower default rate than the North.
00:37:42
Speaker
And then there are some characteristics based on the region and then age group and then the metropolitan level. Those kind of things are there.
00:37:58
Speaker
What is, you know, what kind of NPA levels have you seen? How has that improved over the years? When you launched, what kind of NPA levels were you seeing then? Yeah, actually, you know, when you launch our service, it's over 10%. And then for the COVID time, you know, it's like, you know, 30-40%. For the moratorium, I don't know if you remember, moratorium was there. But now, for the last three and, you know, four years, we have managed to upgrade the motors.
00:38:27
Speaker
And then we have a greater underwriting capability so much. So I think now our DPD, default rate is like around 6%, 7% that range. Okay. And what is the average rate of interest that you charge? We are charging very low interest, zero point.
00:38:49
Speaker
1% per day or a week. I don't remember exactly, but our late payment interest, the default kind of interest is very low. 0.1% per day would work out to about 36% annually. Yeah, but I don't remember exactly. I think maybe now it's just 0.1% for one week or something. The bottom line is very low. We are charging relatively low actually late amount interest.
00:39:20
Speaker
You charge interest only on late payment or like what is? No, no, no, no, no. We are charging also monthly interest as well. I cannot share with you the exact actually. You can refer to our app, but you know, we charging 0.0% processing fee to 5% processing fee and then like, you know, 0.5% to 4, 5% monthly interest depending on our users credit limit and the POD score.
00:39:48
Speaker
Okay, okay. And what is the average loan duration? We have now two products, three months and six months. So it's like, like average is like, you know, many of our users, they pay in advance before the due. So average period is like around four months. And then we are now actually about to launch like nine months and 12 months product as well.
00:40:14
Speaker
Okay, which in the beginning was one month. So that one month. Yeah, three years back when you launch it, it was one month. But now actually we have three months and six months product because of the Google policy, because of the RBI regulation.
00:40:29
Speaker
Many things, actually, we changed our tenure from one month to three months. Two months passed, and then three months. And now, actually, we launched six months. And then we are about to launch nine and 12 months. But that's for our users' interest, because we wanted to lower our interest for our users. We want to give more bigger ticket size loans for our users. Just tell me, again, what are these Google policies and RBI policies? Google doesn't allow one month's product.
00:40:58
Speaker
you know, officially in the Google policy. So once we have a official one month product, they don't allow to unload it. So they look at that as like predatory lending, one month product? I don't know exactly, but you know, that's what actually Google is doing here. Okay. And then Alibi doesn't have a very strong official guideline for tenure kind of things. But as you know, Alibi is very, very strict, sensitive about users interest.
00:41:27
Speaker
So to protect our users, I think it's the right direction. So they are doing some of these things. So you're saying short duration loans have higher interest rate than long duration loans? Yeah, normally. Normally, yes. Like at a fundamental level? You know, actually, you know,
00:41:51
Speaker
I don't know if you have the concept of APR, like annualized percentage rate. So if you think about APR, once you have a longer tenure product, you can charge very low, even with the same amount of the revenue you are going to generate, you can charge lower monthly interest to our users. So longer tenure product is beneficial for our users because they have a lower burden for the interest payment.
00:42:20
Speaker
Also, they can get bigger ticket size because in a monthly EMI amount per view, once you have a long potential product, you have a less burden to pay every month, right? The amount you need to pay is going to be less. So long potential product is good for a PR point of view and then the ticket size point of view.
00:42:39
Speaker
Okay, I understand ticket size, like if you're taking a three month loan for 15,000 means you're paying 5,000 each month. If you take a one year loan, then that 15,000 can become 60,000 again, 5,000 each month. So obviously your access, you can now access 60,000 instead of 15,000 in one go. I'm not really clear on this APR concept. If you can explain with an example or if you think it's too technical, we can skip it.
00:43:04
Speaker
It's not too technical, but it's a very simple thing. If you charge 1% per month and you have a 12-month product, you can make 12% interest from them, from this one stage of this loan. But if you have a six-month product and then you charge 1% per month, then you can make 6% of the profit. Instead of 12%, you can only make 6%.
00:43:34
Speaker
And if you annualize it, it's the same, 12%, right? But actually, you can make only 6% of the revenue only, while this 12 months product generates 12% of revenue. So even with the same APR, the six months product, you are going to make only 6%. This 12% product, you are going to make 12%. So instead of 12%, even though I charge 10%, I actually make 4% more compared to the six months product.
00:44:02
Speaker
So that's the kind of a very simple math. Okay. Okay. I understand. There is a customer acquisition cost for each transaction. Like transaction costs. So if you're doing 6% loan two times, so you're paying the transaction costs or the customer acquisition costs twice to make that same amount of money. If you do it once, so it's like basically bulk, bulk packaging,
00:44:25
Speaker
Basically, the customer acquisition cost is split over a longer period, so you can pass that benefit on. Okay, I understand. Okay, got it. And so what is the approach towards acquiring customers? What's your go-to market? That also must have changed. Were you earlier doing performance marketing for the balance checking product? Actually, basically, we are
00:44:53
Speaker
doing similar like online marketing and then cross-checking marketing, digital marketing for now, like Facebook marketing, Google marketing, SMS marketing, affiliate marketing, we are doing it. So from those digital marketing point of view, we are doing the similar kind of marketing activities with other digital players. But one thing kind of unique to our service is that from all time, like, you know, when we provided the balance checking features,
00:45:23
Speaker
We are very strong in acquiring users through, we call it laptop marketing, network marketing. So once they leave for our service to others, they get some incentive and then they can get the service. So for this loan, also we are doing it. We call it Welcome Loan. This Welcome Loan is a specific product, specialized product for this network marketing. So our users recommend the loan to their friends
00:45:51
Speaker
If they get the loan, we share some incentive. That's going to be very, very cost-effective. And then I think we are doing very good cost-effective, good CHC-wise marketing. So that's another big advantage pros we have from CHC point of view, marketing point of view. This would be in the form of a mobile recharge?
00:46:20
Speaker
or what would the bonus, the referral bonus work? Yeah, we are giving the cash back points to our wallet.
00:46:30
Speaker
Okay. Okay. And then they can utilize it because they can recharge the volume money to their bank. So they can use it for like, you know, cash. Okay. Okay. It's a cash waste. And what does it cost you? Like what is your average referral amount that you spend for every user who is signed up?
00:46:50
Speaker
It's much more cost-effective than affiliate marketing or web-based and Google marketing. So our CH cost is quite actually competitive, thanks to this local welcome loan type of marketing.
00:47:05
Speaker
Okay, okay. And this works because you already have six, seven million users, active users from the legacy balance checking products. So therefore those legacy users have, so there's enough base for referral marketing to help you. Otherwise for a new company, this might not work, right?
00:47:23
Speaker
Yeah, that's partially yes and partially no, because you know, of course, you know, when you launch our load service, you're right, I mean, we already have some users, so that actually they can report to our service, but at the same time, as I told you,
00:47:40
Speaker
you know, these payment users and loan users are different. So to some extent it was working, but you know, it was not actually totally working. So we started to build up our own loan users. And once we have loan users, actually we apply the same liberal network marketing vehicle to those users to expand our new loan users.
Marketing Strategy Transition
00:48:05
Speaker
Okay. Got it. So initially you would have spent more on performance marketing and then you would have reduced that spending once referrals. Exactly. And what's your split now? What percentage of users come through referral? Sorry, 40% of all you users are coming from this network marketing. And the remaining 60 come from what sources?
00:48:32
Speaker
various digital marketing vehicles. It's like basically fame, Facebook, Google, SMS, Apple 8, all those like digital marketing vehicles, which is the same as others. Okay. Okay. Got it. Got it. And you know, there's this ratio of CAC to LTV, the customer acquisition costs as a percentage of the long-term value of the customer. What is that ratio like for you? That's another big kind of, uh,
00:48:59
Speaker
Like in a competitive point, we have our lipid loan rate is actually a maximum of 85%. So once our users get the loan, the probability of libigit and to get the loan again is 85%. So our CHC ultimate ratio is quite high, so like over five times. So I think that's another thing we are very proud and then
00:49:26
Speaker
That's from the nature of our users, nature of our product, nature of our product market. Amazing, amazing. So 85% repeat rate is very, very high, I think. Okay. What is the...
00:49:44
Speaker
Reason for your success. I mean, as a product, it is definitely a product which is seeing success. What is the reason for it? Is it that you have selected an untapped market or is it that you are better at marketing? What do you attribute the success to? Is it the selection of the market or the execution or the strategy?
00:50:09
Speaker
Yeah, I think it has a million dollar question. I think that's the question we need to answer that because not just us, it doesn't apply just to us. Like, you know, many digital lending companies as well and many Pintek companies as well. But from my translation point of view, I believe one word, one word, focus. Now I will kind of, one of the big gift, there might be several points, but one of the biggest ones is that focus.
00:50:40
Speaker
We are very focused on our target of users. We are very focused on our kind of products. We are very focused on our kind of underwriting model. We are very focused on our kind of users tailored marketing and our kind of tailored collection. So everything comes from our target users. We call ourselves as a segment player. We are very proud. We are not proud that
00:51:08
Speaker
Okay, everybody, you come and you get whatever you want. No. You know, one crore, 10 lakh of money users. I'm sorry, our service is not for you. We are very specialized for maximum is one lakh. Maximum period is six months for now, later maybe 12 months, but our major problem is three months, six months. So our target of users are very crystal clear.
00:51:34
Speaker
We are only focused on those users. So everything is tailored for that. Of course, you know, maybe some of my friends even told me like, hey, Charlie, why are you doing so difficult business? It's not easy to...
00:51:47
Speaker
manage the risk, it's not easy to underwrite them properly. You know, there are so many good users, like, you know, you can just give one crore loan to one person, then, you know, your 10,000 rupees loan, you need to sell like 1,000 people, but, you know, this one crore. But, you know, we are doing it intentionally because we believe, possible, we want to create the value, like finance for all. We want to solve this financial inclusion issue. We want to solve this access to credit kind of issues.
00:52:17
Speaker
but also at the same time, this is Bing market. I don't know if you have read it or not. I think if you Google and see the report, you can easily actually find out. I'm going to share with you this link so that actually you can report to that. It's like the report came out two years ago, 2021. It was very, very interesting actually report. I will just share the link here so you can actually report to that.
00:52:46
Speaker
You know, there are many, very interesting, because this is from Google and Sibil, you know, these big guys. And then they were talking about this Talon and they were talking about small ticket size loan, everything. But one of the biggest thing is that under 10,000 rupees loan in 2017, it's only 3% out of whole this Talon, transactional number wise, not volume wise,
00:53:15
Speaker
that number became 70% in 2021. 3% became 70% in less than four years. And now after two years, then 2021, the number I strongly believe is more than 90%. This multi-case size loan market is growing explosively because of smartphone, you know, you know,
00:53:43
Speaker
people, next billion people, Indian middle class people, they don't need one crore money. They don't need one 10 leg of money. They need like 10,000 rupees, like, you know, 20,000 rupees, 5,000 rupees money. And then this market is already huge and major, but it was, you know, fine. Gold loan or like payday loan. But thanks for smartphone, this market is coming into digital. So this digital out of digital loan is very, very natural.
00:54:13
Speaker
to see because that's a major market. That's the major population, major product, what they need. We are providing those loans only, only. Some actually players are very proud that you please come here and then you can get one crore money to 1000 rupees. We don't do that. We are not interested in providing one crore, even 10 lakh.
00:54:35
Speaker
Maximum one leg only. I'm sorry many of my actually friends asked me. Hey Charlie I heard that you are doing loan business. Can I get the loan? Like I need just you know 50 left I was like, oh, I'm sorry. I'm going to just to you one good ICI bank French guy So you better talk to him maximum you are gonna get one leg
00:54:55
Speaker
So that kind of story happens a lot. So yeah, that's it. Interesting. So you're saying two factors. One is the market is exploding from 7% transaction wise, 7% share to today you're estimating 90% share is this.
00:55:14
Speaker
from 3% in 2017 to now, I think it's more than 90%. 3% to 90%. Amazing. Amazing. And I'm guessing that this would have also been driven by the UPI apps, right? Every UPI app is now looking at lending as the way to make money, especially Paytm. And so they would also be powering this explosion. I think, you know,
00:55:41
Speaker
you know actually you know if you google it finance what's the term of finance then actually you can you can get the kind of the translation actually that's the definition of the loan finance is actually is equal to loan even banks you know actually the original bank right original banks is loan actually you know and then the biggest business model for banks is actually the loan and the biggest business
00:56:10
Speaker
model for security companies, a stock trading company. Actually, it's loan. The biggest business model for insurance companies is also loan. So every financial player actually by the end of the day, they are making money from the loan. The loan is the core of the gist of the finance. And definitely, yes, we are very focused on this loan and we are making money out of the loan. But I think it's because that's the strongest demand of the old finance service is the loan.
00:56:39
Speaker
That's why I think, you know, loan is very, very important. And then basically that's empowering people's life.
Target Demographic and Cultural Engagement
00:56:47
Speaker
Okay. Okay. What's your ideal customer profile like?
00:56:53
Speaker
Yeah, that's also very interesting question. You know, our average age is like 20 to 35 years old, like more than 70, 80% of our users are coming from there. And then 70%, 80% also our users are from tier two, tier three cities, suburb areas. And then we cover like 95% of pink coat of pen India. And then like we have a salaried and then, you know, like, you know, small shop owners,
00:57:21
Speaker
Kiranasa owners, they're missed. But you know, typically our kind of users, like, you know, all 20 to 35 years old, and then they move from the country to the city. They work as a gig workers or like a small Kiranasa workers. And then they send money every month to their home, like, you know, 50% or 30% of their salary. And then they spend 20, 30% full-day rent and then 20, 30% full-day life.
00:57:50
Speaker
daily life. So that's the kind of typical, our users, you know, the profile. And they would take a loan to maybe buy a mobile phone or some sort of asset purchase or something like that. Yeah, but, you know, still the, you know, this digital loan market is not huge, like less than 100 million people. You know, in India for now, more than 600, 700 million people use a smartphone, but only less than like, you know, I think maybe 70, 80 million people only.
00:58:18
Speaker
they use the loan over the app. So still this market, the potential is huge. Amazing. Amazing. So a lot of growth potential yet. And you said that you're not for everyone. So which means saying a lot of no. What does your funnel look like? How many people download the app and sign up versus how many of them actually are approved for a loan?
00:58:45
Speaker
approval rate is, you know, like, you know, it depends on our kind of business focus and everything. So it varies. But, you know, average, our funnel is like, we are also very focused on the funnel improvement, funnel integration. We are also very strong. We are very proud of this funnel kind of improvement and A-B test kind of things. But anyway, like around 20%
00:59:11
Speaker
uphold our users, we try to keep approved alone out of 100 users from the downloading. Okay. So 20% of people who apply for a loan or 20% of people who download because some people might download and not apply because they're not getting the value if someone wants a one lakh loan. The number is not that different. The number is not that different. Okay. Okay. Okay. Got it. Got it. Okay. And what is your collection strategy?
00:59:40
Speaker
Actually, we have another machine learning based model, so called the collection score. So collection scores, we don't count on any offline agent. Based on the credit collection score, with some users, we never contact because we know these people really pay. And then some users, we are very focused on DPD minus five. Some users like DPD. DPD, what is DPD?
01:00:10
Speaker
That'd be due. Okay. Due date. Yeah. Due date minus five. Okay. Some users we only do calling or online push after the five. Due five. So depending on this collection score, we have different strategy, but basically we are counting on push message, SMS and final measure is basically called. So we barely count on the offline agent. That's why actually we are kind of a saving.
01:00:39
Speaker
a lot of cost from collection point of view. Right, right. And for such low ticket loans offline doesn't make sense. The cost will be too high. I mean, you'll lose money on each loan if you start deploying offline agents. And they pay through like a UPI transaction or something on the end. Yeah, majorly, majorly.
01:00:59
Speaker
okay okay okay and it's a like if someone is taking a six month loan then like every month he has an EMI or it's up to him like he can pay as like there is flexibility in paying or yeah yes we have a flex loan and then they they have flexibility yes okay okay okay and the interest will be charged according to the repayment schedule that they yes yes okay
01:01:25
Speaker
Okay, okay, got it, got it, okay. What is the disbursement rate right now? Like, monthly, how, what, like, what is your loan disbursement? How much do you disburse every month? Loans? We are growing 10% month to month. So which means, like, which is going to end up, like, you know, 2.5 to 3 times more growth every year. So that's the kind of growth rate we are making.
01:01:52
Speaker
But some idea of your size, like how much did you disburse last year could be something or something to help me understand what scale you are at.
01:02:08
Speaker
I think, you know, maybe we, from the disbursement, AUM point of view, like, you know, you are familiar with the AUM, right? We are touching like your 1000 crores AUM for now, but you know, because of our short term
01:02:23
Speaker
You know, the annual loan character, our AUM is much smaller than our actual disbursement. Yes, yes, yes. We better take this disbursement amount. No, no, this is a good number. 1,000 crore gives me an idea because you would be circulating this money at least three times a year. So it will be at least 3,000 crores annual. Exactly. At least then it could be more also, 3,000 to 4,000 crore annual disbursement. Exactly, exactly. Okay, okay, interesting.
01:02:52
Speaker
Where does that put you among your peers? That's a very interesting question. There are many digital players. Even Paytm, they want to do this digital loan. Everybody is talking about it. When it comes to digital lenders, there are very good players like Monibue, Credit B,
01:03:15
Speaker
And then there are many. But if you ask me, who is your strongest competitor? My answer is like gold loan guys, payday loan guys. Because still, most of our target users, more than 90% of our users, they get the loan from them. So some people ask me, this market is very competitive. There are so many players out there. But from my point of view, no.
01:03:41
Speaker
because in this market, and as I told you, this market is growing explosively. We are competing, but this market, the demand is so high. Supply, I don't think it's a problem. This is not red ocean market at all. This is pure blue, pure light blue market. So I think from my point of view, more important thing for us to take into consideration is that how to get those
01:04:08
Speaker
Google loan users and then payday loan users to get into this digital loan, application-based loans, and then get the loan in a very, very good, much better UX and then commercials.
01:04:24
Speaker
The payday loan industry in India, is it like a formal industry? Like there are RBI-registered NBFCs? No, no, I don't think so. I don't think so. There are so many like, you know, very small, small players without license. That's another kind of a, you know, problem. I mean, the digital loan, of course, there are many not actually good and then qualified digital players. But, you know,
01:04:48
Speaker
Thanks for this, these Talon guys, including us. I think, you know, this market is going to be very transparent and then it's open, right? Everything is open and then regulated. So I think, you know, RBI is going in the right direction and then I think this whole technology, smartphone data thing is getting us, guiding us into the right direction.
01:05:11
Speaker
Do you see challenges with data privacy, data security laws? You know, increasingly it's becoming tight. Your ability to do underwriting would get affected if the amount of data which you are allowed to access gets restricted.
01:05:29
Speaker
No, because I think India is from India's tech point of view. India is amazing. Of course, we still depend on some Android phone dataset.
01:05:45
Speaker
But, you know, AA, you know, this AA, we actually use AA for now. Okay, so AA is account aggregator. Account aggregator, right, right. So, you know, once we start to use it, it's amazing. I mean, the, it's very easy to, we don't have to ask, you know, people to unload your bank statement PDF anymore. So it's actually a great tool.
01:06:07
Speaker
So I think you know it is India's tag in the government you know efforts to make or digitalize it in India. It's going to help us a lot actually you know it already happened because EKYC
01:06:21
Speaker
and then this UPI, IMPS, all those things were enabled in a very short time. And without that, actually, our kind of players cannot do business, right? So this kind of evolution, revolution still going on. And then I don't think it's going to impact very badly into our business.
01:06:43
Speaker
So this account aggregator framework, I've been hearing about it for a year now. But has it actually become meaningful? Yes, actually, we are utilizing it in a very meaningful manner. Of course, in SBI, it's not fully on both of your head. That's the only one problem. But we are saving a lot of cost from this area. What percentage of your users are opting for this framework, account aggregator framework? More than
01:07:12
Speaker
you know, 50, 60%. So I think the number is getting more and more. Okay. Yeah, that's a very, very high number. Okay. Okay. Okay. Got it. Got it. And in this account aggregator framework, basically they give you a consent for one time access to the entire transactions in their bank account.
01:07:32
Speaker
not just bank, you know, actually, you know, if they have some other like financial transactions, you know, they are going to open it as well. So I think it's great. Okay, like mutual fund investments, insurance policies. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, okay. Anything where your plan is linked, I guess, would be... Yeah, pan, pan card is minimum, yes, requirement. Okay, okay.
01:07:54
Speaker
What's been your learning as a founder building a business in India, especially a founder who's not from India? What are the unique learnings you've had? What are the challenges you've encountered as an expat founder? Actually, I want to share my very interesting story.
01:08:17
Speaker
You know, whenever I had some kind of a dinner or like, you know, coffee with my friends, all the friends, Indian friends, you know, they're like, you know, hey, Charlie, you are like, you know, call India and you have been here for a long time, 20 years. Whenever I get that kind of a compliment, so-called, I kind of challenge my friends.
01:08:38
Speaker
Hey guys, if you answer me right for those following very simple basic three questions, then I'm going to admit that I'm a poor Indian and you are 100% Indian. But if not, I'm going to claim that I'm more Indian than you. So I ask like three questions. Sometimes it changes, but for example, what kind of a prepaid pack
01:09:04
Speaker
is the most popular, most selling, you know, prepaid bag. And then a long time back, like they watched the most popular poem in India. And then like, you know, and then they're like, you know, some examples, which the next billion Indians use.
01:09:21
Speaker
you know, you know, actually, of course, you know, in this great market, I mean, so many opportunities, this is like, you know, as I told you, like your size of the market, speed of the growth, maturity of the market, still this three point of view, India is the best, still from my point of view. So, like, you know, if you ask, you know, those kind of questions, and then
01:09:47
Speaker
I'm sorry, but not many of Indians can get those questions right. Because India is a big, big country. I think there are three or four countries, three or four countries in even the same region, like Gurgaon area. There are three countries there. So to understand the real India, from my point of view, as a foreigner, as a foreigner, as a foreigner Indian, I claim myself as a genuine Indian now,
01:10:17
Speaker
not Colorado, India. But, you know, as a foreigner, I think, you know, for me, because I don't have any kind of a pre-perception or whatever. I'm not actually, you know, connected with any of our group or something. So like I see India as India.
01:10:36
Speaker
And then, like, you know, I don't have any prejudice and I don't have any favor against what. So I think, you know, I see India as India as it is. And then I see a lot of opportunities and then I see like, you know, business, business and life and life.
01:10:52
Speaker
So I think that's one kind of a kind of a don't taste, I think, you know, I have. But you know, second one is like, that's the more important one. India is, you know, many like, you know, it doesn't just apply to India, but also to other countries as well.
01:11:08
Speaker
Indian people don't see India's real the big potential as it is because you know for me of course India has a lot of problems every country has a lot of problems this country also same this country has a lot of problems but compared to others I mean this country has a lot of amazing big big potential and then
01:11:30
Speaker
you know, things going on. So India people like, you know, asked me like, what's your plan for going outside of India? What's your plan? So like, you know, when can you go to the Bangladesh or Sri Lanka or like Indonesia? But as I told you, like, you know, I compare India, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand and others, I choose India because for me, frankly speaking, I don't have time to focus on India even.
01:11:55
Speaker
Why do I need to go out of India? India is too big, and then India is a good market. So I really want to focus on this market for now. So likewise, I think India is really, really great market. And then we need to see this market as it is. So from that point of view also, I think maybe I have a little bit better understanding and a better position to approach that.
01:12:24
Speaker
Okay. Got it. Amazing. And what did you have to learn to run a business in India? You must have had to learn some things about how business operates in India. I'm sure it's very different from Korea. First and the most important thing is that India is big. India is not one. That's as simple as it is.
01:12:51
Speaker
India, like as a Korean guy, maybe if I'm from maybe China or like maybe US or something, maybe I could be in a better position to understand more. But as a Korean, like you are very small country and then very single-blooded, you know, small mindset have come country. Homogeneous country, like everyone is similar. Yeah, yeah, almost same appearance, you know, and the same language.
01:13:20
Speaker
So like 50 million people only, it's like, you know, most same as NCR region only, you know, it's small. But India is big and then very, very different kind of people, very, very different kind of approach is required.
01:13:34
Speaker
I think not just originally, but also like, you know, any aspect. So I think that's the most important ones to, you know, keep that in mind. And then there are so many talented people. So I think, you know, that's also one of the very, very important things to keep that in mind to expand our business. Okay. Amazing.
01:13:56
Speaker
And that brings us to the end of this conversation. I want to ask you for a favor now. Did you like listening to the show? I'd love to hear your feedback about it. Do you have your own startup ideas? I'd love to hear them. Do you have questions for any of the guests that you heard about in the show? I'd love to get your questions and pass them on to the guests. Write to me at adatthepodium.in. That's adatthepodium.in.