CxO Of The Week: Sampad Swain, CEO & Co-founder, Instamojo

CxO Of The Week: Sampad Swain, CEO & Co-founder, Instamojo, he has 10+ years of experience and started his journey with Godrej & Boyce.

Your top priority while making decisions to improve tech infra in your organization?

Making it simple for the end users is the top priority. Providing ease in usage has been our USP and the tech team works relentlessly to make the technology easy for our end users. Given our target audience are small business entrepreneurs, our primary focus as a business is to make the MSME segment of India go digital. To make this possible, we need to keep the technology simple and user-friendly, and of course, accessible to all.

Challenges you face in driving digital transformation?

Digital adoption in itself is a challenge while driving digital transformation. Our target audience being MSMEs, it has been quite a challenge to educate and convince them to adopt digital payment solutions. Moreover, constant change in tech space and upgradation makes it tougher. By the time users get accustomed to one aspect of technology, new tech development is introduced. Hence, keeping the users up to date with technology has been and is bound to be a great challenge in the future too.

Do you feel that freshers in the industry come with only basic knowledge but don’t have the right skills to fulfil job requirements? If yes, your suggestion to students and colleges?

Freshers might have limited exposure to hands-on knowledge of solving problems, but they definitely come with a new perspective, which quite often than not even we tend to miss out on despite our experience in the industry. Fulfilling job requirements is a hands-on process that will happen on the job, once the candidate begins to settle in. Nobody is born with the right skills. Also, aren’t we all learning continuously? So the only advice I have is that, be it a fresher or somebody with experience, be open to changes and learning.

What’s your mantra to become successful in life?

As the saying goes, “there can be no better teacher than your last mistake”. Failure and making mistakes is alright, as long as you learn from them. But do not repeat the same mistake; be open to making new mistakes. If you don’t make a mistake, you will not learn.

What would you like to give back to society?

Create a positive impact on society through technology. Instamojo was initiated with the intent to make a difference in the lives of small entrepreneurs, telling the world that, anybody can start a business, we will help you streamline your operations, through a variety of our solutions.

Your favourite book and what are you reading now?

One of my all-time favourite books is ‘Simple’ by Alan Siegel and Irene Etzkorn. Currently, I am reading ‘Americana’ by Bhu Srinivasan.

What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?

Spend time with family.

Achievements (Awards & Recognitions)

BusinessWorld (BW) Achiever 2017

Experience

Has 10+ years of experience

First Job - Godrej & Boyce

Education - B.E in Electronics Engineering & MBA

Take a look at the previous CxO of the Week