A Profitable Unicorn: The Story of Ofbusiness with Asish Mohapatra {Founder Journey}

The Indian Dream

A journey that started 6 years ago has resulted in one of the few Profitable Unicorn startups in India.
In the episode today, we speak to Asish Mohapatra, Co-Founder & CEO of Ofbusiness, a B2B Commerce & Lending startup focused on serving the Small & Medium Businesses of India.
Episode Outline:
(00:00) - Introduction
(03:32) - Decision to quit a career as a Venture Capitalist to become an Entreprenuer
(06:10) - Deciding to do B2B Commerce + Lending
(08:45) - Framework for early iterations to find Product Market Fit
(13:00) - Creating a new market vs disrupting an existing market
(19:09) - Convincing Investors about a India Specific business that had no global parallels
(22:32) - How the team built a Lending business without any prior experience
(27:28) - How Ofbusiness built an incredible Sales Engine
(36:04) - Scaling Culture across different offices and business verticals
(40:19) - Focus on profitability from Day 1
(42:24) - Depth vs Width while evaluating new opportunities
(47:00) - Difference between Tech Enabled & Tech Led Businesses
(51:33) - The Future of SME Ecosystem in India
(57:46) - The Future of Ofbusiness
(1:00:00) - Excellent breakdown of how evaluate value chains
(1:02:30) - Work-Life Balance
(1:04:46) - Relationship with Money (Professional as well as personal)