We invited Naman Sarawagi, Founder of Refrens.com, for an interview with Most Popular Stories to know more about his entrepreneurial journey.
Naman Sarawagi is an Independent Director of E2E Networks Limited & also an Early Investor for Cashfree, DailyNinja, Holidify, SpringRole, Neat, Sugoi Labs. His Last startup was FindYogi.com which was profitable, & it was sold to Way2 News.
- Tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey as an Entrepreneur.
I was the first hire at freecharge where I lead technology and marketing. I helped build freecharge from an Idea to its first 100k users.
Then, I went on to join Zipdial as a product manager (again a first hire), later handling enterprise sales and marketing. ZipDial was acquired by Twitter in 2015.
In 2012, I founded FindYogi.com, a profitable startup for price-comparison which was sold to Way2News.
I have invested in some startups – Cashfree, DailyNinja, Holidify, SpringRole, Neat, Walrus pay, Sugoi Labs.
I started working on Refrens.com in 2018.
- Why did you choose entrepreneurship over a job?
Even in both my jobs at Freecharge and Zipdial, being the first hire, I got the chance to work from scratch. It gave me a good hands-on how to build a product successfully from an idea. Entrepreneurship was always something that I wanted to do and these jobs gave me the right launchpad to do so.
- What was the vision behind it?
The vision is to create an ecosystem for freelancers which helps them to solve their day to day issues, generate more work and build a network around it.
- Describe the services that you offer to your customers and in what way they are unique?
We are trying to build a system around invoicing, not limiting the platform to just invoice creation which by the way is free forever. One can generate quotations/proforma invoices, track expenses, generate TDS/GST Reports. Our payment gateway can be integrated into the invoice, which makes doing payments just like online shopping.
We offer unique features like Early Pay Discounts to recover payments faster, part payments, etc.
Also, the ability to capture the client-vendor relationship which allows businesses to network among themselves to generate qualified leads is what differentiates us from the rest.
- What difficulties which you have faced or you are facing?
The initial challenge was around the marketing of the product. Although the product is free, our target audience is used to getting an in-person demo and extensive hand-holding for initial adoption. We solved this through better design. Instead of designing like a traditional invoicing system, we started with the assumption that our audience has never used an invoicing system before. This helped us win a lot of new customers.
- How do you handle the pressure and manage stress?
I guess pressure and stress are a part of your job. I genuinely believe they are essential also to some extent, it helps you to stay on your toes and never get complacent. Dealing with them involves focusing on the job at hand with full commitment. I firmly believe, if we are working positively with full commitment, results will come in (sooner or later)
- What is one strategy that you believe has helped you grow as a person/startup?
For the startup – Assume your user to be a layman. If you are able to acquire the most layman-ish user, you have made an easy-to-adopt, useful product. And if it is useful and easy to adopt, it will gain traction.
As a person – surround yourself with the kind of people you want to be. If you surround yourself with hardworking and successful people, you become one.
- How your company is helping India to grow?
Freelancers and small businesses are occupying a significant portion of the economy which is only going to increase further. We are providing them free tech tools which can help them to save on cost for these and push their business up the ladder. We are helping India create more Job Givers.
- In your opinion what are the keys to success?
Listening to your user. Being agile to make quick changes. Being consistent in your efforts.
- What advice would you give to someone starting out as an aspiring Entrepreneur?
Pick up a large market that you understand. Solve a problem where you know who the user is. Solve hard problems for the long run.
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