(March 15, 2022) Moving across the country for college, fintech entrepreneur Aman Bhayana, who, at 22 is the co-founder, PayCrunch, quite naturally revelled in his newfound freedom. But even unbridled independence, he found, was something of a mixed bag. Like his classmates, he would count every last rupee – a difficult call to make when popularity and status were so dependent on “being seen” at the right restaurants and making travel plans. Requests to parents for personal credit cards were inevitably met with a resounding “no.” And with no credit scores, borrowing money from mainstream channels wasn’t possible either.
“Obviously, my father wouldn’t let me have a credit card,” Aman smiles. Working out of Third Wave in Bengaluru as he spoke to Global Indian, Aman looks every bit the entrepreneurial 20-something for which Bengaluru is now known. PayCrunch, his micro-finance startup for students has already raised $500,000 in funding from Y Combinator and plans for expansion are well underway.
Aman Bhayana, co-founder, PayCrunch
The need to ideate
Growing up in Delhi in a family of businessmen, the fintech entrepreneur to-be seemed all set for a conventional career path, choosing to study at the prestigious Vellore Institute of Technology in Tamil Nadu. “I was all set to become a coder,” he smiles. “It didn’t take me long to realise that it wasn’t for me. I love to write algorithms and design structures but I don’t really enjoy coding. I did at first but I needed something more.” His parents, Sunil Kumar and Poonam Bhayana, run two schools in Haryana – the Tagore Senior Secondary School and IPS Senior Secondary School – a legacy handed down to them by Aman’s grandfather. “My grandfather has been a great inspiration to me,” the young entrepreneur remarks, adding, “He took a loan to start the first school 70 years ago.” Does he see himself in that line of business too? “Not really. I want a career where I am learning something new all the time,” Aman remarks.
To Aman, finding his own path meant leaning into his strengths as a people person and the entrepreneurial acumen that had come to him quite early in life. “Even in school, I was always eager to participate in events in whatever way I could,” Aman says, adding, “If I couldn’t participate, I would anchor them.” This meant taking part in everything from science Olympiads to dance competitions and being a part of various societies in college as well. “In college, I was part of many societies and clubs, I was usually the guy setting things up at an event,” says the boy who draws energy from being around other people. “You gain a lot of knowledge and understanding by observing others. What do they talk about? What they are hearing, and understanding? Right now, we don’t understand each other. We need tools to do so and someone has to make those tools,” says the fintech entrepreneur.
When money matters
His experiences in college got Aman thinking. A part of various clubs in college, he even began a small travel-planning business for students. “If a student wanted to travel but had no money, we would ask them for their budget. That was all. We handled the rest,” he adds. The experience gave him an understanding of the challenges faced by college students and look for solutions.
“Everybody wants more spending money, but for students, the need is dire. They don’t have the options an employed person has – no credit, banks, etc,” the fintech entrepreneur explains. “But then I thought, why can’t I do something about it? We’re in 2020, there is so much open-source data available to use for behaviour analysis. Why not use that data and give students something they actually need?”
As he prepared to graduate (2019-2020), he and a friend, Meherdeep Kaur, hit upon an idea. What students lacked was a convenient pay later option that could be used through a third-party app or wallet. “Not everyone can get a credit card but everybody uses UPI – more than 15 million accounts have been created in the past four or five years. We wanted to create a system where a student could buy a plate of pani puri and access a pay later option,” he says, of the idea where they could register with a college id, Aadhaar card and KYC process, as PayCrunch accesses open data on their phones.
How human behaviour gave them the way forward
Much of the work involved a study of human behaviour. As they explored repayment systems, they found that customers could be divided into two segments – the ability to pay and the willingness to do so. “We checked their ability to pay by doing the math on the user account. Yet, for willingness? This is something nobody will admit to you – everybody promises to repay debts. So we study past behaviours through social media, transaction data and utility bills,” explains the fintech entrepreneur. It’s a lot less complex than it sounds, for the user at least – the credit lines are approved in an hour or two, after which the user can go to any store, scan a code through the app and pay later.
“It’s not just about money either,” Aman remarks. “In college, there is one thing more important than the money – status. We want to build a whole credit system and offer perks and benefits in the future.” Right now, Aman and his 12-member team are working to partner with stores, restaurants and pubs, and companies like Amazon, Myntra and Starbucks.
People-watching unearthed revelations
Observing people is what Aman enjoys most, thus working out of cafes helps him meet people daily. The fintech entrepreneur explores indie music, loves a good suspense thriller, “Have you heard of a writer named Sidney Sheldon” and looking mystified when met with laughter, he adds, “I have started geeking out into entrepreneurial books as well now.”
- Follow Aman on LinkedIn
