Paritosh Sharma, Head, Channel Partnerships, PayUmoney Payments Pvt Ltd., Gurgaon, was in Coimbatore a couple of months ago to lend a helping hand to young entrepreneurs. He was back in the city to attend a business meeting. The Covai Post caught up with him to discuss what young entrepreneurs can expect from www.PayUmoney.com among other things.

TCP: This is your second visit to this city. What brought you back in such a short time? And what are your observations about this city?
PS: In my opinion Coimbatore is a very vibrant city. The people of this city are very hard working. This city has produced and it continues to produce several generations of successful entrepreneurs. It looks like it runs in the family of the people of Coimbatore to do business (Laughs). Interestingly, I observe that the focus of the business that is based out of Coimbatore is no longer manufacturing related. A lot of people from Coimbatore are exploring various other avenues of business and one such sector is doing business online.

TCP: You have mentored and you continue to mentor several people who wish to do business. What is your advice to such entrepreneurs who continue to dream of making it big one day?
PS: They say people learn from the mistakes they make. I was an entrepreneur myself. I started two companies. I made a lot of mistakes and unfortunately I had to give up both these ventures and I took up a full-time job. One thing that I would like to advice entrepreneurs is not to spend their business investment on aspects that do not require the funds. Say for an example, when you have a company in the form of www.PayUmmoney to ensure that your business is able to receive payments online, you do not have to hire a team of professional to set up your own in-house payment gateway for your business for the purpose of receiving online payments.

TCP: You made a mention of www.PayUmoney.com that allows entrepreneurs to take advantage of receiving online payments. Can you explain to us in detail about this aspect?
PS: PayU has tied-up with more than 1.5 lakh merchants and is empowering them to have their own website as opposed to selling on marketplaces, where they have to share 10 per cent margin with the respective marketplaces. Every money transaction that is facilitated through our online payment gateway www.PayUmoney.com earns us a two per cent commission (plus service tax) of the value that is transacted. In this manner entrepreneurs do not necessarily have to go through the trouble of having their own payment gateway set up, instead they can make use of our services for a nominal fee.

TCP: Can you share the future plans of www.PayUmoney.com?
PS: At presnt, through our services we are supporting nearly three million users. As a company our aim is to have five million customers by this year end. More than one-and-a-half million business ventures use the online payment gateway service that we offer, a majority of our vendors are small and medium business owners. We are hoping by the end of this year, this number will improve too.