Lauuunchh…..Launchhhh….Lauuuu…Lauun…..chhhh….Luu……Lunch.
Looks like the time has finally come for us to address the elephant in the room. More like the sloth: us.
“Is this thing even real?” “Is Infino sourcing its one-of-a-kind innovation from Mars?” and everyone’s favorite, “What’s going on?”
With this, we’d finally like to stop hitting the snooze button and wake up- to you, the users.
The “indifferent stoner” is not our default mode at work.
Here’s our take on combating delay and devour with a list of exhaustive reasons and a sincere apology. We promise. No lazy days; just a switch to power saver mode to make it for the big bang.
Here’s a question: Which form of proverb do you prefer: Better late than never, or Better never than late?
We, most certainly prefer “Never late is better”. We know it’s no fun being the bearer of late news and more unfavorably do it later. We have been itching to launch since the day we came up with Infino. We realized procrastination in sending out this message would have been carcinogenic and could’ve probably killed us. For the lack of a better word, we’d like to address and bring forward a clearer picture in terms of where we’re at and the road we’re yet to tread.
We repeat this is not a drill. Don’t take this with a pinch of salt. The roadmap is here and the launch is near. (Link to Trello board at the end of the blog)
Jumping straight to the point, here’s what our Week 3734683759837 looks as entrepreneurs and what has been going on behind the screens, if we may.
Finalizing a Banking Partner took us an eternity.
The bottom line is that we cannot launch a card in India without a banking partner.
The Indian banking system recognizes an open-bank — like Infino — as a category that is still unearthing its niche. Due to an early perception like such, it took us uproars of connections, meetings and longer than expected delays to finally get one.
News with tassels of glory do sit about our threshold: the blood, sweat, and tears have survived the drip. (Finally!)
Better late than ugly.
This challenge arises, especially in highly competitive industries, such as technology and finance, where new products incorporate extensive R&D and carry the risk of horrible mishaps.
We really care about the user’s security — a.k.a. you — and everything you entrust with us.
Getting away with the vox populi of ‘less time, less effort’, we have, in the time till now, devised comprehensive security and disaster recovery protocols. The systems engineered and envisioned at Infino enable you to sleep peacefully… knowing that even if a malicious entity were to get into our system, the data will be complete gibberish.
Even statistics isn’t on our side and we can’t go back to the primordial ways of trial and error; every decision taken in designing the rock-solid and robust architecture has been mulled over for hours to ensure we give you what you deserve: the very best.
Keeping up with the compliance requirements, you’d be glad to know that Infino will be PCI DSS v3.2.1 Level 1 compliant. In simpler words, we have displayed — to a jury of security specialists — that our systems are worth the time put into designing them and can withstand some “pretty bad things”. (Pardon the euphemism.)
We need Validation- but not only yours.
Getting appropriate payment-processing licenses is fundamental for running and sustaining Infino. This includes Bank Identification Number (or BIN) sponsorship and security audits.
We are still under process and this process takes time. (clearly!)
That time when hiring wasn’t tiring.
Operating from Delhi, we faced a ton of different challenges but hiring was a pain-in-the-ass. After pre-launch sign-ups, and with an overwhelming response from our contributors -who connected us to a lot of applicants — hiring the right people didn’t seem like a draining, far fetched task. This has majorly helped us to build out our team. Also, kudos to Angelist which got us most of our associates!
Moving out of Mom’s basement.
We were bootstrapped and couldn’t afford full-time associates to build what we envisioned. With whatever we had, we were able to charm the mind of our investors and seal approximately 300K USD as seed-funding in June. This helped us accelerate at a pace which would put the speed of light to shame. Now we have 8 full-time associates and a decent office space in Delhi.
Opportunity didn’t knock on the door till we built one.
Vibhor and I are fairly new to the Indian way of operating a business. Being outsiders in the business/startup community (and that too, without connections) led to the extension of time in securing key partnerships that were required to build Infino. It took us numerous LinkedIn spamming sessions and email “shootings” to get the Infino launch wagon running.
And for the Big Reveal.
Proof t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶T̶o̶n̶y̶ ̶S̶t̶a̶r̶k̶ ̶h̶a̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶h̶e̶a̶r̶t̶ ̶ we take our pinky swears seriously.
Here’s enclosing a roundabout To-do list: the roadmap that we’ve envisioned. Also, this entails a subtle plugin of what we’ve accomplished so far ;)
*cues in a big, fat sigh of relief*
We know time flies. But we promise to launch Infino before your kids grow up. (Remember the pinch of salt we were talking about? It goes here.) But jokes apart, we are working our asses off to launch Infino. And we insist that you keep a close eye on the roadmap for further updates.
Till then, we hope you accept this heartfelt apology and pardon the delay till we flip the switch and make sure it goes up with a bang.That’ll be all folks!
P.S: We might finally get to have an anxiety-free nap today.
So get in line. Grab a chair. Make a list. Tell your mom. Infino has finally addressed the elephant in the room.
All rants/bombasts/love letters are welcome!
#UpgradeToInfino
