Paytm: Building a Payments Network

Sunil  Gupta; Das  Narayandas; Rachna  Tahilyani

Case | HBS Case Collection | January 2017 (Revised May 2019)

Paytm: Building a Payments Network

by Sunil Gupta, Das Narayandas and Rachna Tahilyani

Abstract

By January 2017, Paytm, a mobile payments company that started in 2010, became India’s largest mobile payments platform with over 142 million users and $5 billion valuation. Could Paytm become a $100 billion company its founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma envisioned it be?

Keywords: mobile payments; ecommerce; mobile app; india; Entrepreneurship; Expansion; Service Operations; Mobile Technology; Service Industry; India;

Language: English

Format: Print

21 pages

Educators Purchase

Citation:

Gupta, Sunil, Das Narayandas, and Rachna Tahilyani. "Paytm: Building a Payments Network." Harvard Business School Case 517-091, January 2017. (Revised May 2019.)

Case | HBS Case Collection | July 2020

Pattern Brands

Sunil Gupta, Elie Ofek and Julia Kelley

In March 2020, direct-to-consumer (DTC) company Pattern Brands needed to decide how to allocate resources across its different brands. Pattern Co-Founders Nick Ling and Emmett Shine hoped to avoid the pitfalls faced by some DTC companies—such as inability to scale and lack of competitive differentiation—by relying on their previous experience running a successful branding and marketing agency. Rather than focusing on a single brand, they conceived Pattern as a “DTC 2.0” model—a portfolio of 5 to 10 brands that shared a common theme of activities related to the home and a common mission of helping millennials enjoy daily life. Since its founding in August 2019, Pattern had launched cookware brand Equal Parts and home organization brand Open Spaces. Although Pattern’s team still believed strongly in the benefits of a multi-brand strategy, Open Spaces’ sales and unit economics had significantly outperformed Equal Parts’ to date. Pattern’s leadership wanted to build on Open Spaces’ early momentum with new product colors and product lines, but they debated whether to act on the results of a recent customer survey indicating a positive response to an Equal Parts product redesign. Ling and Shine now had several decisions to consider. How should they allocate resources between repositioning Equal Parts and continuing to grow Open Spaces? How and when should they continue building Pattern’s portfolio by developing a third brand? How much should they invest in marketing parent brand Pattern? More broadly, did Pattern’s model represent the future of DTC brands?

Keywords: Brands and Branding; Marketing Channels; Marketing Strategy; Product Marketing; Product Launch; Product Positioning; Business Model; Business Startups; Growth and Development Strategy; Demand and Consumers; Business Strategy; Diversification; Competitive Advantage; Consumer Products Industry; Retail Industry; North and Central America; United States; New York (city, NY); New York (state, US);