Razorpay CEO Harshil Mathur talks about deliberate culture, building to a need, and the principles of product development

Today’s guest on First Principles is Harshil Mathur, CEO and co-founder of Razorpay.

Razorpay claims to be India’s first full-stack financial solutions company. And if that sounds very much like how a coder would describe a company, it’s because that’s exactly what’s happening.

When Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar, two coding enthusiasts fresh into their first jobs, started working on what would later become Razorpay, they never really set out to build a company or be entrepreneurs. They just wanted to solve a problem.

But in doing so, they were compelled to create Razorpay.

Today’s episode is a delightful mix of first principles thinking, thoughts on product development, and the importance of deliberately driving company culture. Earlier in August, The Ken’s journalist Shashwat Mohanty did a story on the challenges Razorpay faces in realising its neo-banking dream. The story is now behind a paywall but you can find it here.

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