#82: Deepankar Rustagi - On Profitability and Staying Asset Light in B2B Commerce

Building The Future Podcast

This season of Building the Future was made possible by Moniepoint

My guest today is Deepankar Rustagi, a seasoned tech entrepreneur in Nigeria. I've known Deepankar for over 7 years, dating back to his days at Vconnect. He was one of the first entrepreneurs featured on this podcast—check out episode 8 to hear about his journey from Nigeria to India and back, where he initially worked for Tolaram Group before founding Vconnect.

In this episode, we continue Deepankar's story, focusing on his next venture, OmniRetail, an asset-light B2B e-commerce platform. OmniRetail has been recognized by the Financial Times as the fastest-growing company in Africa, with annual revenue exceeding $100 million. As a board member, I’ve seen Deepankar's thoughtful leadership and execution firsthand.

Our discussion covers:

• How OmniRetail uses decentralized warehouses and partnerships with third-party logistics providers to boost efficiency and scalability, sticking to their asset-light approach.
• OmniRetail's focus on profitability from day one, following traditional trade practices to achieve sustainable growth with strong gross margins, ensuring long-term success and customer loyalty.
• The importance of unit economics: distinguishing transaction-level profitability from overall profitability, stressing the need for profitability at the unit level right from the start.
• The impact of digitizing transactions through OmniPay to streamline payments and improve reconciliation, and the broader role of fintech in boosting profit margins.
• The inevitability and benefits of consolidation: discussing how combining specialized firms like FinTech and logistics experts enhances value and profitability.
• The impact of currency devaluation on servicing dollar loans, which can potentially shut down businesses and strategies for converting dollar debt into local currency debt to ensure business stability.

Quote: “...don't fantasize about your product in a boardroom. Go out there and see expressions and responses from real stakeholders on what they feel about the product or what they feel about the technology. They might not understand every bit of it, but if they understand the value that you're trying to offer, if they are willing to change their behavior a little to accept that value, then you're working in the right direction.”

Educational Recommendation: Business Insider, Entrepreneur.com

Transcript

CREDITS

Host: Dr. Dotun Olowoporoku
Produced by: The Subtext
Editing: Osarumen Osamuyi, Chinedu Anatune
Show Notes: Grace Obaloluwa
Design: Jonathan Nwachukwu
Voice Overs & Project Coordination: Damilola Teidi
Season Intro Video: Chukwuka Ezeiruaku