Manish Patel would like to think he’s like the Star Wars supervillain Darth Vader. But when we meet him at his office in South Mumbai, he isn’t dressed in all black. Instead, he’s wearing a white shirt and jeans, perhaps reflecting his personality, fuss free and to the point. And thankfully, Patel isn’t wearing a mask. His heart is on his sleeve.
The quick-witted Patel says his life has been a “unique rollercoaster”. Home-schooled in South Africa, where he grew up surrounded by circus performers, Patel studied to become a doctor. Instead, he set up a liquor distribution company in Mumbai, before getting the idea for Mswipe (a portable card payment device) in 2011. Since then, his company has raised $31 million from Ratan Tata’s UC-RNT Fund. And late last year, Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin of B Capital invested $10 million into the Mumbai-based company.
In an interview with ETPanache, Patel talks about growing up in Africa, business lessons he has learnt and why entrepreneurs always need to learn new tricks.
Patel says that his life has been like a rollercoaster ride Wine, medicine and tech — you’ve had a varied career. How do you know when to identify that something is or isn’t for you? I don’t think of it as a change in careers. I have always pursued what I have liked to do. Life has charted out a nice journey for me, and I have played along. A lot of these things seem reckless at times but there is a lot of thought that goes into it. I need to enjoy what I am doing and I need to be solving a problem. What you see are only the projects that have worked out, there have been some failures as well.
You grew up in Africa in a circus. What was that like? My dad owned a circus. It made for a very interesting childhood as I was home-schooled. For me, school was wandering around the circus camp. I would interact with the artists. The only thing I really retained was this one act I would watch every single day and I never got tired of it. One performer had a big bowl of water with four goldfish and he would swallow it all. And I would say ‘Wow!’ And then he would regurgitate it back in the bowl and the fish would all be alive. I don’t know why but that has really stuck with me (laughs). Another favourite was this dog who had the ability to do math.
ADVERTISEMENT
The Gift Of Time: What Hotshot Bosses Would Choose To Do With An Extra Hour, Each Day
1/7
Time is the one precious commodity that these business names can never have enough of. But what if they could add 60 more minutes to their day? Here’s what they would do. (Text: Gynda Alves)
Time is the one precious commodity that these business names can never have enough of. But what if they could add 60 more minutes to their day? Here’s what they would do. (Text: Gynda Alves)
Sector head, Spencer’s Retail
“I would take out some more time for my passions. I would like to pursue photography.”
Sector head, Spencer’s Retail
“I would take out some more time for my passions. I would like to pursue photography.”
Chairman, Lowe Lintas
“I would spend the extra hour in my day playing badminton. I already play once a week but would love to be able to do it daily.”
Chairman, Lowe Lintas
“I would spend the extra hour in my day playing badminton. I already play once a week but would love to be able to do it daily.”
Partner, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas
“I would spend it reading. I will read anything — even the back of a ketchup bottle. I enjoy literature and do an annual read of Jane Austen novels. My favourite is Emma.”
Partner, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas
“I would spend it reading. I will read anything — even the back of a ketchup bottle. I enjoy literature and do an annual read of Jane Austen novels. My favourite i..
Read More
Head, sales and marketing, Hindalco Industries Ltd
“I would spend the extra hour shopping. I would spend it on sites such as Amazon and Flipkart.”
Head, sales and marketing, Hindalco Industries Ltd
“I would spend the extra hour shopping. I would spend it on sites such as Amazon and Flipkart.”
MD, Lodha Group
“I would spend the extra hour with my kids. We have something called dad time and it involves whatever suits their fancy. It could be anything from reading a book to playing a game or figuring out what they want to do during summer.”
MD, Lodha Group
“I would spend the extra hour with my kids. We have something called dad time and it involves whatever suits their fancy. It could be anything from reading a book to playing a game o..
Read More
MD, Puma India
“I would use the extra hour in my day to play sports. Badminton, tennis, football, cricket — I love it all. In fact, I would say I need to stay fit to play sports — not the other way around.”
MD, Puma India
“I would use the extra hour in my day to play sports. Badminton, tennis, football, cricket — I love it all. In fact, I would say I need to stay fit to play sports — not the other way..
If you had to describe your life now, who would you be — the juggler, the clown or the ring master? None of the above. I would like to think I am a little like Darth Vader with an Imperial Fleet at my command.
Did you learn anything about people or business at the circus that you use today? I’m not sure if I was old enough to take away lessons. But I did in retrospect. It taught me that nothing in life is constant. You need to evolve, and over the years the pace of change has only gotten faster. If you can’t adapt to that, then you’re not really going to have fun. I’ve seen it from my father’s work in entertainment. When cinema got more affordable and widespread, no one went to the circus anymore. As a consumer, you can enjoy the ride but from the business side of it, you have to adapt.
ADVERTISEMENT
How do you deal with change? People are not scared to change, they are scared of learning. You need to learn new tricks.
Mswipe received $10m in funding last year. How did you react when you heard the news?
ADVERTISEMENT
(Laughs) I always knew the news was coming. It wasn’t one of those things where I was waiting with baited breath, wondering whether Eduardo was going to say yes. There was no reaction moment, as it was an evolution. He has ambassadors who sent a message. So, it grows on you rather than blowing you away. The whole process took about five months.
You're Not Alone: Top Bosses From Google, Honda Have Also Burnt The Midnight Oil
1/7
Each one of us have had to burn the midnight oil ever so often.
A Bombay High Court judge recently sat for over 10 hours to prevent backlog, finishing at 3.30 am.
Big business names share tales of when they lost track of time.
Each one of us have had to burn the midnight oil ever so often.
A Bombay High Court judge recently sat for over 10 hours to prevent backlog, finishing at 3.30 am.
Big business names share tales of..
Read More
Cofounder, MD, Scootsy
“We were a month into the launch of Scootsy and not many people had heard of us. So we had a promotion on Friendship Day where for every order, we would give away an order free. Within hours it went viral. Understaffed and overwhelmed, we all took on the task at hand and started answering calls. We also had to figure a way to increase our delivery capacity — fast. It was a mad shuffle as we cut deals with temporary staffing agencies, and, at some point, we had to stop taking orders. The next few hours went in responding to irate customers. We finally wrapped up all deliveries by 1 am and managed to deliver on our promise for most of them, but barely hung on by a thread. The night didn’t stop there, we spent hours figuring out how to automate what we had done. By morning, our tech teams had detailed product documents and they got to work on building most of what we have today.”
Cofounder, MD, Scootsy
“We were a month into the launch of Scootsy and not many people had heard of us. So we had a promotion on Friendship Day where for every order, we would give away an order fre..
Read More
Cofounder, MobiKwik
“I clearly remember the longest day(s) in my life. It was the time when we were planning to launch our own payment gateway in 2010. We started working by late 2010 and by New Year’s, we were very close to the launch. However, due to some urgent work, the key person who was working on the payment gateway’s code had to leave. And, in the rush, we couldn’t get our hands on the code. So my [now husband] co-founder Bipin and I decided to personally work on the whole code again, along with a couple of others. In fact, we missed the build-up to our wedding because we were engrossed deeply in getting this up and running. On the day of my sangeet, our payment gateway work got over in the afternoon and then I was in a meeting till 4:30 pm. My mother was furious because the function was supposed to start at 6 pm and my wedding was the next morning.
After putting many days of long hours of effort into the launch, we thankfully made it happen.”
Cofounder, MobiKwik
“I clearly remember the longest day(s) in my life. It was the time when we were planning to launch our own payment gateway in 2010. We started working by late 2010 and by New Ye..
Read More
Founder, Matrimony.com
“I worked non-stop for 36 hours when I was working for Polaris. We were working on a project launch for an MNC bank. We launched the product but had to go back to the older version; it wasn’t a successful launch. We had to rework it. But today, when I look at people working for twothree days non-stop and our engineers working for some of our launches for 48 hours, I feel my situation was better.”
Founder, Matrimony.com
“I worked non-stop for 36 hours when I was working for Polaris. We were working on a project launch for an MNC bank. We launched the product but had to go back to the older v..
Read More
CEO, Honda Cars India
“It was during a recent thunderstorm. We were sitting in a Gurugram hotel meeting room till 11 pm, having a discussion and listening to all the sounds outside. The meeting was on long-term strategy for India. We started at 9 am on Sunday, with key guys from the factory, purchasing, marketing, etc, as all their schedules would not match easily. The meeting room had glass windows and a balcony outside. That was my first experience of the Indian rain and it was amazing.”
CEO, Honda Cars India
“It was during a recent thunderstorm. We were sitting in a Gurugram hotel meeting room till 11 pm, having a discussion and listening to all the sounds outside. The meeting was..
Read More
Group product manager, Google
“The field research days [while testing a product] are the longest. For our new product recently, we started at 6 am at a park to talk to people. This was followed by visiting about 10 living rooms, a quick dinner and then again on the field. The day ended at midnight. But I loved it, even though it was physically taxing.”
Group product manager, Google
“The field research days [while testing a product] are the longest. For our new product recently, we started at 6 am at a park to talk to people. This was followed by ..
Read More
India country manager, EYAP
“I was in Turkey and came back to India at about 7 am. I went directly to the office as there was work to be completed before a prestigious event in the evening. We had invited top architects and interior decorators from across the country. The food was specially curated with Turkish dishes. The evening ended at 10:30 pm, but it was so enjoyable and exciting that I didn’t notice the time go by.”
India country manager, EYAP
“I was in Turkey and came back to India at about 7 am. I went directly to the office as there was work to be completed before a prestigious event in the evening. We had ..
How closely is Saverin working with you? What is the one thing he said that has stuck with you? I am learning a new approach to business in newer economies. I have always done business in a conservative and typical fashion. But the approach that Silicon Valley has is different. When it comes from people who are putting money where their mouth is, I feel that I should give it some more thought and try to implement models adapted for India. Scale is also something he [Saverin] said that has stuck with me. The second is that you need products which are simple in a way that the common person can work with. A lot of the engineers come to the table with overengineering. What they need to understand is that there is no engineer on the other side, only normal people. If my mum can use my product, then you’ve got it.
What do you do for fun? Right now I am learning to code in Python. It’s a new programming language that’s become widely popular. I need my holidays too. Once a year, I take a solid two-week break. I love to explore cities. Last one was Dubrovnik. I love Europe, Italy and Florence in particular. Take it all in and just relax at the cafes.
