2019 is almost over and the world is reminiscing how they spent their year – well – decade.
Instamojo 2019 has been a milestone year because we didn’t just hit the 1 million sellers mark on our platform but also took a bold step towards redefining MSMEs.
1 Million Businesses!
Instamojo changed from being just a payment gateway to being a growth gateway for the MSME sector in its truest sense this year.
Today, we power 10% of the digitally active MSMEs in India and enable growth for 1 out of every 100 small businesses in the country with our unique products in the lending, e-commerce and various value-added services (VAS) sector — anytime, anywhere across mobile & web.
Hitting the millionth mark on the platform was truly special for team Instamojo!
Redefining MSMEs
The new definition of MSMEs was a long time coming. Earlier MSME classification was done on the basis of how much money a small business invests to get started. The government recently introduced a bill to change the definition on the basis of the turnover of a company.
Being in the small business space for over 7 years, we understand how unique every business is and therefore, we took the opportunity to coin a definition of our own using more than just turnover and investment data.
We surveyed 400+ businesses to come up with a six-dimensional definition of MSMEs.
Instamojo 2019 – top products & features:
Instamojo 2019 was also a great year in terms of new products launches for MSMEs.
Last year, we introduced two brand new products – mojoXpress and – a shipping product and working capital product, respectively. This year, we look at how well our customers took to these products. Stats showed that mojoXpress helped reduce shipping time by 99% for entrepreneurs.
Our biggest launches of 2019 include mojoVersity – India’s first learning platform for forward-thinking entrepreneurs and MDP – the mojoDeveloper Program is India’s 1st public APIs for developers to connect with over million MSMEs.
New features introduced in 2019
This year, we launched over 10 new features and updated several existing ones. Why? To help MSMEs meet any challenges and changes that come. We engineered some useful tools for businesses.
Building communities
This year, we reached out – to our existing network and to new ones. As a growth catalyst for small businesses, we created a community for small business owners and entrepreneurs to interact and share ideas.
We traveled across India to connect entrepreneurs with each other. Our meetups have been a great source of information sharing and networking and we hope to continue that in the coming years.
Other business-supporting initiatives in 2019
Over the years, we have seen tremendous adoption from MSMEs in the services sector like educators, freelancers, accountants, travel operators, homestay owners, interior decorators, movers & packers, etc. Even those businesses that fall below the current GST limit have taken to Instamojo.
This was possible thanks to our outreach campaigns. The campaigns helped us assess core challenges faced by our sellers, and helped promote businesses that just started out.
This year, for Women’s Day, we organized a fun two-day Women’s Day Bazaar at Garuda Mall, Bangalore.
Our Women’s Day bazaar event featured over 28 women entrepreneurs and their brands. The goal of our Women’s Day Bazaar was to celebrate the spirit of women entrepreneurs and empower women by providing an offline platform for generating more sales & visibility.
IAMMSME Campaign
During the 2019 elections, we launched a campaign – IAMMSME. In the campaign, we ran a poll asking Indian entrepreneurs to vote for three of their most pressing challenges. Also, this didn’t just help us discover the challenges an SME was facing on a day-to-day basis but also helped shape our roadmap for the future.
Sure, we built our external community, and helped promote MSMEs, but what about the force that keeps us moving? It’s internal.
Our team at Instamojo don’t just work here, they create experiences. So this year, we introduced mojoJourneys, short videos that showcase (and show-off) our employees and their experience with us!
2019 was special for us, a year of growth, meeting challenges, and focusing on building businesses like yours.
Have a phenomenal 2020! Happy New Year!
