'South Delhi was too expensive, moved to Dwarka': MobiKwik founder says his house was startup's 1st office

MobiKwik founder Bipin Preet Singh has revealed that he moved out of a house in South Delhi after launching the digital banking platform in 2009 because the rent was too high. Instead, Singh and his wife moved to Dwarka, where the property rates were much more affordable.

"We had an apartment in South Delhi earlier, but then we figured out that South Delhi was way too expensive - to pay the rent and running a startup. Then we moved to Dwarka," Singh said in the Master's Union podcast. 

Singh shared details of how the couple used their house as MobiKwik's first office. "That apartment where we lived on rent, I still remember it was Rs 10,000-12,000 rent. It was the first office, in a way, of MobiKwik. Because that's where we hired the first person," he said.

Singh also shared that he had to wake up every morning at 7:30 am to open the door to an enthusiastic employee they had hired. 

"In the drawing room we had these tables set up. We hired another crazy guy who wanted to come at 7:30 in the morning, so he used to ring the doorbell. You would open and he would come and start working. So that's what it takes. Basically, to bet everything that you have, your life, your everything to start something on your own," Singh said.

Singh said it was easier now to start a company than it was earlier. "If you're building an internet startup, the amount of money that you need to just make a product is very small today compared to what it was because the cost of technology has come down dramatically," he said.

He also pointed out that as founders one does not need to look at top institutions alone for talent. 

"India is very fortunate to have a huge supply of engineers. I come from IIT, the point that I'm making is I actually rarely hire from IIT. I've actually hired most of my engineers not from IIT. We go to all colleges because I feel the passion and hunger and talent is democratic, it's not concentrated only in IITs. People who get into IITs, of course they have cracked one test and they're smarter. But in that peer group there are other challenges. Most of them end up thinking in the same way - 'yeh karna hai, aise karna hai, do Master's, MBA, XYZ'."

"But if you go across India and see the diversity of people. [In] the length and breadth of this country, there's talent everywhere. So, you can find great engineers. You can build it with very less amount of money," Singh said.

Singh and his wife Upasana Taku founded MobiKwik in 2009. The platform boasts 140 million registered users as of 31 March 2023.