What I'm trying to understand
The specific questions vary from one conversation to the next. The underlying theme stays the same.
Companies operating in India work across payment systems, tax rules and telecom networks that were designed separately. I want to understand where the resulting friction falls: which problems teams manage with spreadsheets, which with internal tooling, and which they have accepted as a cost of operating. I ask about decisions, trade-offs and unexpected difficulties, and what people would do differently.
Areas I keep returning to
- 1Payments, settlement and reconciliation. How funds move from a customer to a bank account, and how finance teams account for them.
- 2Tax, regulation and data protection. How teams comply with requirements that can conflict with one another.
- 3Finance operations and working capital. Payables, vendor payments and the cash tied up in the process.
- 4Logistics, commerce platforms and payouts. Shipping, returns, inventory, and what marketplaces and couriers ultimately remit.
- 5Messaging, authentication and voice. Automation that must remain reliable on real networks at scale.
- 6Credit, KYC and verification. How lenders and platforms decide which data to rely on.
Any findings I publish will be aggregated across many conversations and will not refer to any individual or company.
Who I'd like to talk to
Founders, CEOs, CTOs, engineers, and finance, compliance and operations leads at software and commerce companies in India, at any stage. No specialist expertise is required. Your first-hand experience of the problem is what I am seeking.
What a conversation looks like
- About 30 minutes, by video or phone, at a time that suits you.
- I prepare questions in advance. There is no sales pitch.
- Conversations are held under the Chatham House Rule. Nothing is attributed to you or your company without your written consent.
- I do not ask for source code, credentials, customer data or any confidential material. General patterns are sufficient.
- Once I have spoken with enough people to draw meaningful conclusions, I will send you the write-up, with findings aggregated and no individual identifiable. If it misrepresents your situation, or anything in it could identify you, I will correct it.
- You may withdraw at any time, and I will delete my notes.
What I do not do
- I do not sell products or services through this site. If this research leads me to build something, I will say so openly. I will not contact you about it unless you ask, and I will not use anything you told me in confidence.
- I do not sell, rent or share contact data.
- I do not accept sponsorships or run lead generation.
Work so far
About
I am Aditya Khanke, a software engineer based in Bangalore, with a B.Tech in Computer Science. I am interested in how companies in India operate day to day, and where the work proves harder than it appears. I build small projects to test ideas, and I speak with the people who have worked through these problems.
github / linkedin / aditya@fourspace.org
Messages about this research are sent only from aditya@fourspace.org. Messages from any other address are not from me.