Ankita Jain Says Go paisa !!

Born and brought up in Surat, Ankita Jain was working at Radio Mirchi and Big FM. With a background in marketing, she was drawn towards the field of digital marketing. “Back then the eCommerce in India was in a very nascent stage, so for additional income I used to do digital affiliate marketing for companies in US and UK,” says Ankita. Slowly and gradually she started earning more than her salary. Along with Aman (her husband), she decided to get the Concept of CashBack to India in 2012 and started up GoPaisa.com.

The response of the industry was not welcoming because I was just 24. Most of the brands did not even take us seriously

Though the concept of CashBack was non-existent and a lot of people in the country thought that CashBack as a concept would never be successful. “Our strong belief and understanding of the Indian psyche made us invest and helped us be patient towards growing the Cashback eco system,” she adds.

My parents were totally against leaving my job, because they felt that this crazy initiative of ours would just spoil my entire career.

But the numbers spoke for themselves and people slowly started believing in the concept of ‘GoPaisa’. The company came up with a model to charge a brand only for sales and not for the traffic. They now have more than 550 brands associated with them. The journey for Ankita has not been an easy one. Tie-ups with brands was a difficult task as the team was young and the concept was still new. Many companies believed in consumers with Coupons and deals. “Cashback was associated with credit card and banking,” adds Ankita who drives marketing in the organization.

We had a lot of issues in hiring good talent, our first employee who was a coder at GoPaisa ran away after his first day at work.

Ankita believes that family is one of the important pillars which helps in building a successful entrepreneur. “I would really like to give the credit of my success to my Father and mother in law, as they understand me prioritizing my work over household chores. They provide me with all the support necessary, so that no barrier comes in way of success,” she says. Being a startup, the founders have long and undefined working hours . Also, “Having your life partner by your side is a big positive because he understands the pressure equally and hence no time is wasted in “justifying” the long hours.” says Ankita.

We womenprenuers have to do double shifts, we have to fulfill our professional as well as our family duties. Hence, we never have the luxury of time for ourselves.

One of the biggest challenges of starting up really early in an undiscovered region is the lack of awareness among consumers. “Indians love to save, so the market potential is definitely huge,” she adds. While having difficulties in hiring the right candidate for the job, Ankita started from scratch. “I was making social media pages for GoPaisa, then building tie-ups for online, everything. In this little journey, she has grown from being a carefree girl to becoming a responsible young woman. While people think that she is very young to do this, she responds by only talking about the success that GoPaisa has achieved. “We had a million plus users and this Diwali we have delivered a sales of Rs.57 crore in one month for our partner merchants,” she says happily. The company is hoping to close this financial year with over a 550 crore of GMV for its partners.

She advises the future womenpreneurs to learn something new every day and believe in themselves. “The only person who is stopping you from achieving your dream is ‘YOU’, so it is very important that you stick to your dreams and be ready to face all the hurdles coming your way” .

Visit GoPaisa : www.gopaisa.com