At BrilliantRead Media, it is our constant endeavour to bring meaningful and powerful stories from India and around the world to empower and motivate our growing community. As part of this, we invited Alka Mehta for an exclusive interview with us. She is an Entrepreneur, Leader and Founder and CEO of PayAid Payments. Let’s learn more about her incredible journey, background, and advice for our growing community!
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with Alka;
We are aware of your contribution to the ecosystem, talk us through your background and your journey as a women entrepreneur, please;
I did my schooling from Baldwin Girls High School, Bangalore and then completed my graduation from Jyoti Nivas College, Bangalore. I was a hardworking yet fun-loving student and also was an extremely active cadet in NCC, representing Karnataka State in various NCC camps, including the prestigious Republic Day Camp, where I bagged a gold medal.
NCC not only instilled discipline in me, it also turned me from a shy teenager to a confident and courageous young woman, which has made me one of the best in sales and relationship management in the payments industry.
I have a corporate work experience of approx 31 years, having worked for several large Indian and MNC corporates viz Kirloskars, Kompass, McDonald’s, Design Core and HDFC Bank. Each job and role taught me something new and I believe that my corporate life prepared me for my current entrepreneurial journey.
I would strongly advise all entrepreneurs to get work experience with a good corporation for at least 3-4 years, understand the culture, the processes, the do’s and don’ts and then start their venture.
What attracts you towards entrepreneurship instead of a corporate career?
While I come from a business family, I was the first girl in the family who worked at office jobs which are today taken for granted by girls from our community. This freedom to work gave me a strong foundation which has become extremely useful in my entrepreneurship journey.
However, I always wanted to start a venture of my own which would help the mid-sized businesses and when the idea of PayAid germinated in my mind, it was too strong an idea to let go of and I knew I had to take the plunge into entrepreneurship.
‘PayAid Payments Pvt Ltd’ is such a unique name; talk us through more about it, please. Our audience would also love to know what kind of problem you are solving?
PayAid Payments because we are a payments solutions company, solving issues with regard to payments for mid-sized corporates and MSMEs. Most online businesses suffer from transaction failure problems with only 60% of the transactions being successful.
This means that they are losing 40% of their customers. With PayAid, these businesses can improve their transaction success rate to 93% and increase sales by 30%.
What does your company specialize in?
As our name suggests, we are in the payment business, working with mid-sized businesses and offering them enterprise-grade payment stacks.
The benefits of partnering with PayAid are:
> PayAid offers a flexible payment solution.
> We calculate the best route across banks and MIDs, configuring rules in real time.
> We assign various bank payment gateways to your organization and track the status of the server in real time.
> Our intelligent algorithm monitors the drop in the success rate of transactions and routes your transactions through other bank gateways.
Benefits:
– A high conversion rate of transactions.
– Unmatched user experience.
– Lowers shopping cart abandonments and incomplete transactions.
How do you manage to keep going despite the challenges? What drives you?
I have always been a self-motivated person and this has definitely helped me to just go-go-go even in the face of challenges and strife.
Who do you believe has been the biggest source of motivation in your daily life?
I am guided by the words of the author Christopher McDougall from his book, Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen – “Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up, it knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed.
Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn’t matter whether you’re the lion or a gazelle-when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.”
My daughters who always believed that their mom is the best in the world have been my constant support ever since they came into my life. This helps me motivate my team as well.
What are some of the strategies that you believe have helped you grow as a person?
~ Thinking on my feet
~ Integrity
~ Mindfulness
In your opinion what are the keys to success?
There is no single formula to success, however, the following have helped me.
1) Planned execution
2) Responsibility for my actions
3) Resourcefulness
4) Positive attitude
5) Curiosity
What advice would you give students and young professionals who want to have a successful career?
a) Be open to learning and also unlearning
b) Take responsibility for your actions
c) Integrity is also doing the right thing when no one is watching
Last but not least, what are the three most important lessons you have learned in your life?
BrilliantRead is committed to bringing stories from the startup ecosystem, stories that reshape our perspective, add value to our community and be a constant source of motivation not just for our community but also for the whole ecosystem of entrepreneurs and aspiring individuals.
Note: If you have a similar story to share with our audience and would like to be featured on our online magazine, then please write to us at [email protected], we will review your story and extend an invitation to feature if it is worth publishing.
