Today’s guest on First Principles is Harshil Mathur, CEO and co-founder of Razorpay.

Razorpay claims to be India’s first full-stack financial solutions company. And if that sounds very much like how a coder would describe a company, it’s because that’s exactly what’s happening.

When Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar, two coding enthusiasts fresh into their first jobs, started working on what would later become Razorpay, they never really set out to build a company or be entrepreneurs. They just wanted to solve a problem.

But in doing so, they were compelled to create Razorpay.

Today’s episode is a delightful mix of first principles thinking, thoughts on product development, and the importance of deliberately driving company culture. Earlier in August, The Ken’s journalist Shashwat Mohanty did a story on the challenges Razorpay faces in realising its neo-banking dream. The story is now behind a paywall but you can find it here.

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Full Episode Transcript

Rohin:
“We want to be seen as a money movement company.” Harshil, you told us this in a story back in 2017, if I’m not mistaken. You were 26 years old back then. And you were the CEO and founder of Razorpay as you are now. Is that still what you see yourself as or Razorpay, a money movement company?

Harshil:
Yeah, it is broadly. It’s still the same. I mean, of course, the vision has expanded a lot in the last couple of years and the expansion keeps happening.But the core premise of what Razorpay is, hasn’t changed… that we are here to make money movement simpler and easier, whether it is receiving money, sending money, managing money, whatever it is. We are here to simplify a money movement at the end of the day. That’s that. That hasn’t changed.

Rohin:
Could I ask you to explain what Razorpay is in one line, if possible?

Harshil:
Yeah. So we are a company that is aiming to build the full stack financial ecosystem for internet businesses. That is our… as I put it, a broad vision of where we are after the idea being that… 

Rohin:
Sorry, hold that thought. Like I want to come into that and add two steps. Firstly, full stack. It is something that we hear all the time. Everyone from a full stack developer to a full stack company. I’m going to ask you to explain what does full-stack mean generally, or in this context? And secondly, what’s an internet business?

Harshil:
Yeah. Right. 

Rohin:
How is it different from a regular business? I want you to explain these two things.