Ashok Hariharan (IDfy) on Building India's Identity Verification Stack скачать в хорошем качестве

Ashok Hariharan (IDfy) on Building India's Identity Verification Stack

In this episode, Ashok Hariharan, Founder and CEO of IDfy, shares the raw, unfiltered story of building India's largest background verification and digital identity platform from scratch. From nearly dying with just two months of runway in 2013 when 12 employees chose deferred salaries over leaving, to surviving a 90% revenue collapse during COVID by betting everything on Video KYC technology built three years early, Ashok reveals how patience and strategic readiness beat blitzscaling. He discusses IDfy's evolution from a ₹3.5 lakh background verification startup to a comprehensive RegTech platform processing 65 million verifications monthly across onboarding, fraud detection, and DPDP Act compliance. Ashok shares contrarian insights on incremental compounding over spike growth, building a 15% ESOP pool (largest in Indian tech), and why IDfy doesn't have "founders" but a leadership team designed for 40-year longevity. He unpacks India's hidden ₹10,000 crore fake employment industry, the technical architecture behind handling 100,000 requests per second, and why contributing to India's privacy law in 2018 positioned IDfy to dominate the DPDP compliance wave. This candid conversation with host Akshay Dutt covers everything from rewiring the entire platform in Elixir during Diwali, to expanding internationally with 15% revenue now coming from Philippines and Indonesia, to the cultural philosophy of "Saraswati over Lakshmi" that shaped IDfy's approach to wealth distribution and organizational design. Whether you're a founder navigating the funding winter, building in RegTech or fintech, scaling background verification or KYC solutions, or simply fascinated by resilient startup journeys, this episode delivers actionable frameworks on manufacturing luck, surviving near-death moments, and building sustainable profitable growth in India's digital identity ecosystem. Subscribe to Founder Thesis for more deep-dive conversations with India's most resilient founders, and follow Akshay Dutt on LinkedIn and X for startup insights and ecosystem analysis. 00:00 - Ashok Hariharan's Unconventional Path to Entrepreneurship 03:25 - The IDfy Origin Story: Fraud, Housing Discrimination, and Information Asymmetry 10:23 - The First Pivot: From EdTech Dreams to Background Verification Reality 16:25 - Digitizing India's BGV Industry: From Paper to Platform 23:55 - The 2013 Crisis: When 12 Apostles Chose Belief Over Paychecks 30:26 - The VC Who Called Background Verification a "Stupid Business" 33:34 - The Gig Economy Breakthrough: Scaling to 4,000 Verifications Daily 39:35 - Building a Gig Platform Before Dunzo: IDfy's Field Agent Network 47:17 - CrimeCheck Acquisition: Mining 330 Million Court Records in 22 Languages 52:27 - The Supreme Court Aadhaar Ban That Killed Competitors (But Saved IDfy) 56:38 - The Ola Money Disaster: Rewriting the Entire Platform in 14 Days 01:02:35 - Manufacturing Luck: The Strategic Readiness Framework 01:08:09 - Building Single-Photo Liveness Detection Before Deepfakes Existed 01:10:54 - COVID Crisis: From ₹2 Crore to ₹30 Lakhs Monthly Revenue 01:13:03 - The No-Layoff Decision: 80% Salary Cuts and Betting on Video KYC 01:17:00 - The Three-Platform TrustStack: Onboarding, Risk, and Privacy 01:22:10 - Inside India's ₹10,000 Crore Fake Employment Certificate Industry 01:26:02 - Contributing to India's DPDP Act and Building Privy Platform 01:32:10 - Privy vs OneTrust: Winning Privacy Compliance with India-First Approach 01:36:17 - DPDP Act Rules 2025: The May 2027 Compliance Deadline 01:42:07 - The Competitive Landscape: IDfy vs Signzy, HyperVerge, AuthBridge #AshokHariharan #IDfy #IdentityVerificationIndia #BackgroundVerificationIndia #KYCSolutionsIndia #VideoKYCIndia #RegTechIndia #DigitalIdentityIndia #FraudDetectionIndia #DPDPActCompliance #IndianStartupJourney #StartupFundingIndia #FounderThesisPodcast #AkshayDutt #IncrementalCompounding #ManufacturingLuck #GigEconomyIndia #FintechIndia #AadhaarVerification #UPIFraudPrevention #IndiaStack #PrivacyComplianceIndia #CrimeCheckIndia #SyntheticIdentityFraud #StartupResilience #ProfitableStartupIndia #B2BSaaSIndia #EnterpriseTechIndia #SEAExpansion #PhilippinesStartup #IndonesiaFintech Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the speaker, not necessarily the channel