
Minus One Scaling India's Payments: How PhonePe Built for 500-Million+ Users
Oct 29, 2025
Rahul Chari, a key figure in India's tech landscape, helped build Flipkart and PhonePe's massive payment infrastructure. He delves into the importance of choosing complementary co-founders and hiring early believers. Rahul shares lessons from Flipkart's chaotic scaling days, emphasizing the need for future-proof tech. He promotes transparency in leadership, and discusses strategies for engaging regulators. Plus, he highlights the significance of simplicity in engineering and the challenges of reaching non-smartphone users. A journey through the evolution of India's payments!
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Three-Decade Founder Partnership
- Rahul and Samir have worked together for 30 years and trace their partnership back to college projects and a shared festival effort.
- Their long history built deep trust and complementary roles that allowed them to found multiple startups together.
Choose And Trust A Complementary Co‑Founder
- Do find a co-founder you can trust and who complements your skills, then hold mirrors up to each other honestly.
- Do let roles be interchangeable so one founder can step back when the other faces personal or professional strain.
Choosing Flipkart Over Funding
- Rahul describes their first startup in media distribution, the grind and rejections, and two exit offers from Flipkart and Sony.
- He chose the Flipkart path saying it matched his energy and desire to join a bigger platform at that time.








