Insight
Suhail Sameer: McKinsey teaches decision-making but fails to teach execution follow-through
“But to be honest, it's very difficult in McKinsey. You don't learn decision-making. I mean, if you learn decision-making, you don't learn to follow on. And I think that was my biggest disconnect at McKinsey, and, ah,”
Insight
Sameer: Younger generalists excel at zero-to-one execution due to less baggage
“I generally believe generalists and
Younger folks have that skill a lot more because there's a lot less baggage of what I know, right?”
Insight
Suhail Sameer: Good pure-tech products hit one million users within three months
“Companies which are multi-product companies like ours, if they struggle on zero to one, it is a function of they getting married to the product idea too much, right? Like in our type of business, it's full tech. If it is a good product in three months, it will…”
Disclosure
Sameer: BharatPe will not IPO before reaching P&L profitability
“So, but we would not do a public offer before sort of, ah, turning green on a P&L point of view.”
Insight
Sameer: Fast-growing startup leadership requires fungible generalists, not siloed specialists
“I think if a business is growing this fast, you to be fungible in the roles you play. You can't operate as, ah, I only see marketing because it comes. Right. And that's the job for the next level of team to be really good at what they are doing. But the top tw…”
Insight
Suhail Sameer: McKinsey trains consultants to make decisions with limited data
“I think McKinsey teaches you a lot on how to handle pressure. It teaches you a lot around how to sort of make the best of whatever limited, you know, right. McKinsey teams typically do like three month projects, right. So, You will never be in a place where yo…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Suhail Sameer: BharatPe maintained 10% monthly growth throughout its governance crisis
“Kept on growing. 10% month on month through the chaos actually at some points faster.”
Insight
Sameer: Processes must either systematically add value or increase execution speed
“Process has to either systematically add value or has to make you faster. If it is neither of the two, at least I have no respect for that process, right?”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Sameer: BharatPe still operates at 80% to 90% of its earlier execution speed
“By and large, every process we've implemented may have slowed down slightly, but I would not say we are, we operate still probably at 80 to 90% of what we were probably two years back in terms of speed to market and action, but has just managed to ensure that …”
Insight
Suhail Sameer: Tech testing requires 90% product readiness compared to 50% in FMCG
“Here, if you launch a bad product, it can very quickly sort of erode trust, right? And I think that's something I had to sort of consciously learn. 90% right is okay, but unlike my previous sort of roles where 50% right is okay to test in the market, it's a ve…”
Assertion Supported
Sameer: BharatPe processed 50 crore INR in daily transactions when he joined
“And when I joined, we used to do 50 crore of transactions a day.”
Insight
Sameer: Fast founder-driven decision-making must eventually transition to professional management
“Every company starts as a founder driven company and it helps the company very quickly take decisions, very quickly move on. At some stage you could do that transition, right?”
Assertion Supported
Sameer: BharatPe generated $2M to $3M annual revenue when he joined
“At least the time I joined, we were just about like, I think we used to do like two, three million dollars a year type revenue, right?”
Assertion Partly supported
Sameer: BharatPe operates with a total team of 600 people
“Our whole company is 600 people, right? And this includes a heavy feud on street nature of our business, right?”
Assertion Supported
Sameer: BharatPe has enabled credit for 500k of its 10m merchants
“Today also we have, as you said, a crore merchant but we've enabled loans for only five lakhs.”
Assertion Supported
Sameer: Indian D2C companies are generating 1,500 to 2,000 crore revenue
“Now we have DTC companies, sort of doing 1500 to 2000 crores in revenue, right?”
