Sampad Swain on payments, startups, and fundraising

Today we had the first conversation on our brand new platform, Conversations@YourStory, featuring Instamojo’s Co-founder and CEO Sampad Swain. In an interesting chat that lasted an hour, Sampad shared what has been driving him for the last six years, and many more aspects of his journey.

Announced last Wednesday, Conversations@YourStory is a chat series that gives you the chance to interact with leading entrepreneurs, investors, and technologists every week. It is our effort to bring out classified information residing with people who have been there, done that, and distribute it at scale.

Here are the highlights of the conversation With Sampad for those who missed it. Be sure to be tuned in for the next one on March 8 with Ankur Singla, Founder and CEO of Tapzo.

Sampad Swain, Co-founder and CEO of Instamojo, has been running his company for the last six years. He has the wisdom to share about entrepreneurship in general and the payments space in particular, and nobody was left disappointed by what he had to say.

On the future of wallets:

Unfortunately, wallets are still a regulatory arbitrage play. Standalone wallets can’t survive. But married with commerce and an enabling ecosystem, it’s a big win-win.

On digital payments and the future of payments banks:

On the future of the Indian payments market:

On new trends in fintech:

"Abstracting 'context' from transactional data is the NEXT BIG THING. We at Instamojo are super excited about this opportunity."

On starting up:

Negating competitors in a market:

"Look at opportunities to reduce cost, create a better experience, and hopefully enjoy network effects. Combining all three, hopefully, there are options to make money too."

Advice for founders in college:

“Don’t take yourselves too seriously.” :-)

On being true to oneself:

And some random musings to lighten the mood :)

Advice to your 20-year-old self:

Take bigger risks.

How did you initially zero in on your core team? Are they still with you?

Complementary skills and intellectual honesty. 65 percent are still with us.

First thing in the morning after waking up?

Check my phone and I hate doing it. I’m waiting for the day to give up on the phone completely :-)

Things you love apart from startups:

Poker and basketball.