Job Description

Product Manager II

About WeRize:

Founded in 2019 by Vishal Chopra and Himanshu Gupta, WeRize is building India\'s largest full stack financial services brand for 300 million underserved middle-class customers who live in 4000+ small towns of India. This customer segment is not served by private sector banks, Insurers and Mutual Fund companies due to their low ticket-size and lifetime value and is dependent on PSU/Govt. banks. PSU/Government banks rarely provide financial products beyond basic savings accounts and these customers lack access to unsecured loans, credit cards, health and life insurance and investment products. WeRize manufactures innovative Credit, Savings and Group Insurance products designed for this customer base keeping in mind their needs, requirements and purchasing power, with a view to add a layer of financial security to their lives and enable access to credit.

While customers in these geographies use smartphones, they need proper guidance and support when purchasing the right financial products for themselves. So, a pure digital model doesn\'t work for this segment. WeRize has innovated on this front through its \'Finance ki online dukaan (Social Shopify of Finance)\', a first of its kind social distribution tech platform in the financial services space that educates and enables local financially literate freelancers across these small towns to source business through online and offline channels, recommend the right financial product(s) to customers as well as provide after sales support. These freelancers, who are located in more than 2000+ towns and cities, earn as much as INR 30,000 a month from WeRize in commissions.

Our social distribution platform supported by financially literate freelancers means exceptionally low cost of customer acquisition (CAC) and operations costs compared to both fully digital and on-the-ground financial services providers. Digital conversions among this target group are way lower when compared to upper income customers in metros and hence pure digital CAC doesn\'t work for this segment. While companies like LIC and Fino Bank also rely on freelancer distribution, they deploy local on-field teams/branches to manage freelancers in every city. That results in very high CAC and operations costs for such companies. WeRize on the other hand, has been able to acquire, train and manage thousands of freelancers in 1000+ cities only through its tech platform and without any feet-on-street team of its own. This results in highly profitable business model for Werize.

To know more about the company, please visit: https://www.werize.com/

Key Metrics:

- Annualized Revenue Run Rate of $20Mn as of Feb 2022. ( Approx $1.6Mn per month).We are growing aggressively and our revenues are doubling every 7-8 months

- Profitability- Unlike most of other startups, we are already profitable because of our unique distribution model.

- Geography Covered- Served customers in 2000+ cities pan india. Aim to cover all 4000 cities in next 3 years.

Fund Raise:

Funds Raised: $26 million (INR 192 Crore)

Valuation - $ 115.5Mn (INR 900 Crore)

Stage: Pre- Series B (raised June 2022)

Investors:

- British International Investment (BII)-UK Government\'s investment fund

(Formally known as CDC group, BII is the British government\'s investment fund. It\'s a 10 billion dollar+ impact focused fund that has invested in some of the largest banks and NBFCs of India.

- Sony Innovation Fund, Japan

Sony Innovation Fund is the investment arm of Japan\'s Multi-billion dollar Sony Corporation.

- Kalaari Capital

(One of the largest Indian VC with $850MN AUM and investments such as Myntra, CureFit, Dream11, ElasticRun, Upstox, Simplilearn)

- Picus Capital , Germany

(Fund run by Alexander Samwer- Co-Founder of Rocket Internet that had

multiple billion Dollar + exits/IPOs - Lazada (SE-ASIA), Jumia (AFRICA), DeliveryHero(EU) )

- 3one4 Capital

(Early-Stage Fund with $300Mn AUM and companies such as NeoBank Open , Licious & Jupiter Neobank in its portfolio)

- Orios Ventures

(Early-stage fund with companies like Ola, Pharmeasy and GoMechanic in its portfolio)

Leadership Team:

Vishal Chopra, Co-Founder & CEO:

- Ex-CBO Lendingkart - India\'s largest Fintech Lender ($150Mn+ fund raise)

- Fist hire of Amazon India - part of the leadership team that launched Amazon.in

- Regional Director, Souq.com - largest e-commerce player in the Middle East. Raised $425Mn, acquired by Amazon

- MBA, ISB Hyderabad

Himanshu Gupta, Co-Founder & COO:

- Ex-VP and Head of Data Science, Lendingkart - created AI/ML models and maintained NPAs
- Data Scientist, IHS Markit

- BTech, IIT Delhi

- 10+ years\' experience in AI/ML

Leadership Team:

- Head of Collections:

- Ex-South India Head-Collections, Bajaj Finance; managed 800-member team

- Head of Product:

- BTech, IIT Kanpur; Ex-Product Leader at Lendingkart and Flipkart

- Head of Technology:

- Btech CS, IIT Kanpur; Ex-Tech Leader at Paytm and Medlife

- Head of Business:

- MBA- IMT Ghaziabad, Ex- Business Leader, Lendingkart

- Head of Credit Ops:

- Ex-Regional Head, HDB (HDFC subsidiary)

- Head of Data Science:

- Ex head of Data Science at Udaan. BTech and Mtech from Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) ,Kolkata.

- Head of Banking Partnerships and Debt Raise :

- Ex head of debt/capital markets at Udaan , MBA - XLRI Jamshedpur

Role Description:

- Own and drive end-to-end complex product requirements across multiple teams. Collaborate with stakeholders, including customers, strategy, operations, and support teams, to gather product requirements and translate them into well-defined product specifications and features.

- Create long and short-term roadmaps, align stakeholders and ensure the timely and quality delivery.

- Lead a team of 1 or more product members to ensure that they are working on prioritized items and delivering high quality work on time.

- Plan and execute product launches in coordination with marketing, strategy, operations and customer support teams. Develop go-to-market strategies, pricing, and positioning to drive successful product launches and adoption.

- Develop product training materials and provide product training to internal teams, including operations and customer support, to ensure a thorough understanding of the product\'s features and benefits.

- Monitor product performance metrics, including revenue, user engagement, and customer feedback. Identify areas for improvement and take corrective actions when necessary.

- Maintain open and effective communication with all stakeholders, including executives and team members, to ensure alignment and transparency throughout the product life cycle.

Attributes we are looking for :

- 3-4 years experience in Product Management.

- Overall experience of 4-5 years

- Strong interpersonal, communication (spoken and written) and influencing skills.

- Ability to navigate a complex and unstructured cross-functional environment.

- Ability to prioritize in an ambiguous environment.

- Strong analytical mindset and ability to analyze data and come up with recommendations or solutions for solving complex problems.

- A strong understanding and Experience of software development principles of Databases and APIs.

- Experience of leading a team in the past.

- Graduation from a top tier college is a must.

- MBA from a top tier college is a bonus.

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