Interview with Nitin Jain Co-founder | OfBusiness

We started OfBusiness in Sep, 2015 with a dream of making it the biggest B2B e-commerce platform in India. We wanted to help the growing SME ecosystem by providing them raw-material and industrial goods at much cheaper prices by aggregating demand and negotiating better prices with the manufacturers/ stockists.  We raised $5m in funding as Series A on the back of the team and the idea,.  Over the course of time, we realised that more than just material, the SMEs need credit. We have applied for our NBFC license and are currently offering unsecured financing  along with raw- material purchase to our SMEs. This is a fundamental business innovation, and has not been tried out by other NBFCs across the country/ world.  We have recently raised our Series B round in Nov 2016 and looking at hyper-growth, and we are imminently looking to raise another funding round very soon. We have grown very quickly and aim to be the largest SME financier and material provider in India in the next few years. We also hope to help the SMEs in every aspect in the near future, whether that is with financing, material, labour, scrap, machinery or efficiency. This helps in both their top-line and their bottom-line.

Q: What are the services offered by OfBuisness. Give us an insight about things.  

We help the SMEs improve their top-line by giving them unsecured financing, thereby reducing their working capital constraints, and also help them improve their bottom-line by reducing costs by aggregating demand for the raw-material and their other material purchases.  This way we help the SMEs reduce the effective interest rate they are paying on their unsecured financing due to the benefit of aggregation. Traditional NBFCs only concentrate on the lending part, thus there is no scope for improving the effective interest rate that the SME pays. Distributors in the market overcharge for the raw materials, and the charges skyrocket if they give out credit. Unlike the distributors, who want their money back sooner, we offer the flexibility to the SMEs to repay the working capital loan within 90 days of the purchase.  We are currently into the aggregation of raw material such as Steel, Non-ferrous alloys, Polymers, paper and equipment financing Solar panels etc.  Very soon, we will be coming up with more end-to-end services for the SMEs, keep a lookout.

Q: How was it studying at IIT Delhi and tell us some interesting stories about your journey through IIT. 

I did computer science engineering from IIT Delhi.  I studied with the cream of the nation, and all my classmates were an inspiration to study with. We had an extremely healthy competition and I was known as the fighter of my batch and had been given the nickname Ninja (has still stuck with me till now).  I was fortunate enough to graduate with a Silver Medal and went on to do investment banking in London at the Royal Bank of Scotland. I had offers from Mckinsey and Microsoft as well. My family and friends thought I was insane going to RBS in the midst of the financial crisis instead of opting for Mckinsey. Like this instance, I have always relied on my intuition and my heart more than what others expect you to do.  I felt that I would learn multi fold joining a turbulent sector and would be able to utilise those learning’s in the future, and it did work out.

Q: You have worked both Overseas and Now you are building your business in India. Can you share some stories of your journey? 

When I came back to India, I had no experience in working in a developing country.  It took me about 7 months to find my feet, and now I have the luxury of drawing from the experience in working in both parts of the world. Facing reality, in UK things are very efficient and highly structured. India has a long way to go, but with the push towards Startups and Digital India, the path to creating value and removing these inefficiencies has become much easier. In India, the way of doing business is completely different and slightly unorganized. I faced a lot of challenges where trust between the SMEs was very low, and this mis-trust is what we are trying to alleviate. During our early days, we shipped out 1 CR  worth of Steel to a contractor against payment on delivery with a security cheque. Before the material reached, we thought of checking the balance in the bank. Their balance came out to be a big O. That was a very turbulent time for us and taught us a major lesson, and also helped us realize the immense mis-trust problems that persist in our country.

Q: Share some success stories of your business and business partners.

Our team is considered one of the best in the startup world across India. Our numbers and our fund raise in the most difficult times for the startups w.r.t. to funding validates this point. All our co-founders have immense standing in the industry and are of the highest pedigreed institutions. In a very short period of time, we have built up a book which is in excess of 80 CR and are continuing to grow multifold. We are today amongst the top buyers for JSW steel in TMT across India. We are also supplying more than 60% of steel to the vendors of BHEL Trichy.   We have managed to increase business for most of the stockists and local manufacturers across India.  The best part is that we have done this by using technology.  We are the same size that we were half an year back, but doing 4 times more business. We have developed a proprietary bidding platform to help facilitate and aggregate volumes for our distributors/ stockists and manufacturers, most of whom are also SMEs.  In the NBFC and material distribution space, we have found a niche to solve the paint points for the SMEs, that no other player in the industry is doing. Manufacturing has been a very old sector, but for some reason, and the banking industry did not take their struggles seriously. Where the industry is offering secured credit, we are offering unsecured credit to alleviate their working capital problems, and all the industries are responding amazingly well.

Q: Where do you draw your inspiration from and what would your advice be to upcoming entrepreneurs

I draw a lot of inspiration from my failures. My failures have made me what I am today. I am in constant strive to improve myself in every aspect, whether thats people management (clients or internal), business or processes.My advice would be three fold and I always work on this personal mantra. MR^P.  A. Mindset,  B.Risk taking and C. Perseverance

A. Mindset – You should have a mind-set to dream big. Dreams are never meant to be surpassed. Keep extending your goalpost. I have never been satisfied what I have achieved and never will be. For OfBusiness, sky is the limit.

B.Risk taking – Take calculated risks in your life. Always train for gold and strive harder at every level.

C. Perseverance – Never giving up attitude. If you truly believe in something and yourself, go for it.  Just persevere and results will show up sooner rather than later.

Source: http://www.artickle.in/1769-2/