Big update: BimaPe is shutting down. We've had an incredible 10 months building the Wallet product - we had the privilege of speaking with 500+ users, maintained an organic 30% MoM growth rate for 6+ months and built some industry first features. 3 simple reasons for this decision: 1. We were unable to reach our Market-Product Fit (PMF) metrics set in March 2021 2. Customer feedback (you love us but not sure about the product!) 3. We found another (bigger) problem to solve - more details at the end of this post. There are 3 key mistakes we made: 1. Mistook Product Vision for Product Strategy 2. Mistook a Design problem for an Engineering problem 3. Stretched ourselves too thin Each mistakes requires a few paragraphs of explanation so that you don't repeat this mistake - this is covered in a Medium post linked below (in the comments) For all our users who shared their PII - rest assured that we will continue to NOT share your data with any 3rd party without your explicit prior consent; more details of the same (including how we will dispose of the PII) would be available in the inbox of your registered email. Coming to where we are today - we haven't returned investor capital and shut down the business. So, what's next? Introducing Verak. Our team started working on Verak around June 2021 - the product recently crossed the US $20,000 monthly net revenue milestone. Building, launching and scaling the 'BimaPe' offering taught us how to work best together as a team. Over the past 3 months, everyone at Verak has been doing their life's work - we couldn't be more excited to tell you more when the time is right! Verak will open to the public around March 2022 - until then, we will allow limited beta access. However, we will continue to share information on our LinkedIn page - including full-time & internship roles - so please feel free to follow us @ Verak Thank you for your support, feedback and good wishes over the past few months - every small thing counts 🙏 #startups #india
It is great to see how early-stage startups pivot fast to evolve as per the needs of the market and customer but I am curious and have some questions: it seems to be the case from the comments that BimaPe and the newly named product are two completely different - so why BimaPe page's name is changed retaining old followers you are also not showing BimaPe in your profile completely - as there were good learnings from BimaPe and you want to talk about it you were being clear and transparent hence I am asking this, it is a bit confusing & misleading also different time periods mentioned at different places - October 2020 in your profile, June 2021 in this post, July 2021 in medium perhaps others might too find this disconnect; this is no way to point fingers as I read many of your posts Rahul and thought these were gaps I noticed
a bigger problem... Verak is an e-wallet for everything, not just insurance?
Interestingly I was not surprised and did not say 'why on earth!' after seeing your post. Because I know founders have characters! But how Verak is different? I am sure it's not an entirely different product, I think it's a better version of BimaPe. Rahul Mathur
I have been following BimaPe for a long time and this news is quite surprising! All the best for Verak!
After reading the first line, I was like wtf no this can't happen! Kudos to you Rahul for making such decisions public, normally we only see rose-tinted success stories. But this shows that the actual startup journey is full of twists and turns. All the best for Verak, rooting for you people🙌
Rahul Mathur Firstly, thanks for such a heartfelt note on 'why', 'what went wrong', 'learnings', 'what's next'. Secondly, everything that didn't work out is a milestone for something huge. I wish you all the best for everything. :) Onwards and upward!
In everything we do, how we do it and how it eventually turns out, one key ingredient can never be taken away - FEEDBACK. This is What leadership will teach you and you have successfully achieved that over time. I wish the Verak team more impressive and scalable outlook in 2022.
Wow! This is kinda huge! The most appealing part of this post is your sheer honesty about shutting down BimaPe. Good luck Rahul Mathur and team for Verak. Will watch out for updates on LinkedIn :)
Thanks for sharing Rahul Mathur! Takes a lot of guts to stay true to the PMF metrics and decide to shut down if they aren't achieved. Wish you and your team the best for Verak!
On a short break || Prev: Founder @Verak (acq. by ID)
2yIf you'd like to read more about why we're shutting down BimaPe and investing into the Verak product - please do check out the Medium post authored by our team: https://medium.com/@Rahul_J_Mathur/shutting-down-bimape-2f58dd3b3489