INSIGHTS #19: Narayan, Power2SME on Building a B2B marketplace for the India

We continue with our discussion on building for India in the #INSIGHTSpodcast Series and in this episode, we focus on selling to manufacturing SMEs. To talk about this important topic, we have Narayan, Co-founder of Power2SME, a "buying club" for SMEs. Narayan is a serial entrepreneur and before starting Power2SME, he was the founder & CEO of Denave, India's largest technology powered sales enabling services company. Previously he held various leadership positions in companies like Oracle and Microsoft.

On this podcast, we discuss the need for a “buying club” for the Indian SMEs, the role of credit in the economy, the life of a few and inescapable market effects:

Identifying a value proposition that can scale
Solving the right problems - choosing a problem which is a real pain point for customers
Importance of aligning with the interests of all players in the ecosystem

Building out the marketplace
Building out a marketplace for large sellers and small buyers
How is the market structured, and the quality of supply in India
Onboarding small unorganized players onto an organized marketplace
Turning Skeptics to believers - getting your first large seller to take you seriously

Working capital for SMEs
Challenges with getting credit for SMEs and the challenges for banks to underwrite and service SMEs
Why is working capital a big issue for SMEs? Potential for innovation
Taking on risk with NBFCs to enable credit for SMEs
The ILFS, liquidity crunch and how the credit system operates

Lessons learnt from running a startup
The ups and downs of running a startup - dealing with market effects
Effects of policy and regulation on business and SME
Diversification of portfolio of customers and lenders
Advice for startup founders - the importance of building a strong leadership and mentorship network