Rahul Mathur

💥BimaPe is funded by Y Combinator💥

Yes, you read that right - we've kept our participation in YC's Winter 2021 programme a secret for quite a while:

BimaPe is building one hub for a family's insurance in India

With BimaPe, you can:
💡Discover your hidden insurance benefits
📜Understand your policies
💪Make an informed purchase, port or cancel decision (soon!)

Important points to note:
💸YC adds another $125K (or, ₹88 Lakhs) to our war chest to invest in building a better product for you
📈6,800+ members trust us to make good insurance decisions on their behalf

👊Working with YCs investment partners (Tim, Surbhi & Jared) has helped us grow fast, think clearly & execute correctly.

🙏When Abraz, Eashan, Kunal & I started working on BimaPe ~6 months ago, none of us thought we'd get here.
- Very thankful to Vishrut, Krish, Nishant, Pranav, Vedika & Abhinav for joining us in this journey.

⚡We're growing 30% month-on-month organically - our team is very grateful for your support along the journey.

👉You can start by discovering your hidden insurance benefits with BimaPe here - https://bimape.com/

#startups #india

On Tuesday, I got one of the biggest shocks of my life.

Our CEO Ankit pinged me and said “there's someone interesting in our office you should meet.“

I started the conversation assuming that the person was an enthusiastic 18-20 year old - here's where I got stumped:

Tanish (2nd from right in the picture) is 14 years old! 🤯
- He's managed to get meetings with Amit Jain (Cardekho), Gautam Adani & other eminent personalities (ask him how)
- He worked at an electronics firm for 3 months when he was 13
- Using that experience, he has a private label charging cable which he sells on Amazon

And, the coolest part - he has his own perfume label called O'Bar which he sells on his own e-commerce store (www.frugle.in)

He came to our office to get advice from Ankit and Ish - but I got a masterclass on him in the process on perfume manufacturing, pricing, WhatsApp marketing & Shopify ecosystem.

It takes some courage to start any business - but serious courage to travel 35 kms on a Rapido from Delhi to Gurgaon (he did this alone, for the first time!)

#india

I messed up most of my management consulting & investment banking interviews during my final year of University.

As an international student in the UK, I was worried about my visa status - after a string of rejections - I pulled in an offer from Accenture for their London office.

At that time, and for my entire final year at University, I was quite disappointed - my batchmates bagged some terrific IBD and quant jobs paying ~50% more than my role.

I didn't realize this back then - but, I somehow ended up doing NO consulting work in my one year at Accenture. I networked my way into a very cool role as an Analyst at their FinTech Lab in London (an incubator for early stage FinTech startups).

I loved my first & only project at Accenture - from my first day to my last. Whilst most of my peers struggled in their first 2 months to find a suitable project.

My biggest fear going into the corporate world was that I'd get pulled into process. However, my only corporate job let me explore my love for 'building' (with others) without any of the process.

I didn't get that dream 'package' (one of my batchmates just bought a damn house) but I did get a dream 'experience' - lots of lessons packed into one year.

Many of my connections will feel the pressure to get the FAANG, MBB or bulge bracket IBD job. It may be a life changing experience (but, I also know it has been a life ending experience for some peers).

Your first manager and your willingness to learn everyday, from everyone & from every circumstance will matter much more in the long run than where you start your career

1 year ago - BimaPe - was just a concept I was testing on phone calls. No Ivy League degree or corporate job will ever prepare you to go through Y Combinator, raise financing, hire your initial team members and generate your first ₹ or $ in revenue.

But, take this from me - your willingness to keep going every damn day and keep improving - that will pull you through everything that is to come when you build a company.

#startups #india