Entrepreneurship is not about joining the herd but cutting out your own path. EarlySalary’s Ashish Goyal knows its as well as anyone.
Ashish Goyal is co-founder and CFO of EarlySalary. He oversees the overall strategic direction of the company and focuses on building the funding profile to ensure that it is diverse and deep. He comes with 18 years of experience in Global Financial Space and Portfolio Management.
Ashish has incorporated a dynamic approach in launching his Fintech in India. Under his leadership, the company uses technology and analytics as its core to provide high-risk management style while consistently providing a better customer experience. He has set up a mission for his organization to become the first choice of credit for digital India. In a short span of time, EarlySalary has achieved a milestone of disbursing more than 1 Million loans amounting to over ₹2,000 Crores.
Ashish shares exclusive insights with DKODING Media on his dynamic strategy that resulted in the accelerated growth of EarlySalary during the pandemic.
1. The entrepreneurial journey with EarlySalary
When EarlySalary came into the picture, it was just an idea. Many people told us that this is tough to build and there is a lot of competition out there. Moreover, we were told that the time for app-based lending had not yet arrived. But what I saw was a large need from young consumers, lack of products and a lot of paperwork to get loans.
The last 4 years have been an enriching journey for EarlySalary as well as for me personally. We were able to build a business that has helped lacs of customers avail financial assistance with superior user experience and minimal physical interaction. We do not have any branches and also build an ecosystem that allows us to acquire, service, and collect efficiently.
“We were able to build a business that has helped lacs of customers avail financial assistance with superior user experience and minimal physical interaction.”
Ashish Goyal, Co-founder, EarlySalary
2. The Pandemic Experience
There is no one who is not impacted by COVID-19, only the impact levels are different. We are in personal financing business which got severely hit by the lockdown and consequent effects. The earning capacities and outlook became very uncertain for many borrowers. At EarlySalary, the direct impact of COVID-19 was slower recoveries from customers, as well as a slowdown in new disbursements. However, we proactively worked to manage the impact. Risk management helped in lower impact than the peers. The overall impact of COVID-19 on our business is less severe than the industry. Also, we recently raised some equity capital before the breakout of COVID-19, which puts us in a comfortable position to manage the liquidity.
Watch : Reboot 2020 with EarlySalary
3. Changing Customer Behavior amid Crisis
At the start of the lockdown, we saw conservational behaviour where the customer was holding on cash for uncertain times. However, as time passed, the customer uncertainty went down back and they started paying EMIs. We also started servicing our customers by new disbursements in a measured way. The consumer including us shifted to essentials and bare minimum lifestyle. But as the unlock phase is going on, the consumer demand is coming back. The colour of demand will change as the travel, tourism, sharing etc. will take time to come back. We might see more demand for nearby vacations, renovation, skill upgradation, etc. I expect that consumer demand will normalize in the next couple of months and the economy will recover slowly.
4. Future plans and products in the pipeline
Today, we are much more confident about the economic environment and started disbursements to new customers. The COVID-19 period has reaffirmed our business principles that building sound risk management practices in good times is critical. We look to expand our customer base in our core products in the coming months. As well as we are looking to build purchase financing as a new product line where the customers can use our line of credit to the shop.
The COVID-19 period has reaffirmed our business principles that building sound risk management practices in good times is critical.
5. Advice to young entrepreneurs just starting out
Entrepreneurship is a journey albeit most enriching one. It is something which you should do passionately like there is nothing else in life. Just start, hang on and keep building enterprise step by step. The ability to better the lives of the customer, employee, and everyone around is in your hand. Hang on, find ways and conquer!
