Viren Rana
CEO
Since childhood, Viren grew-up admiring his father who is an Indian Air Force veteran, and his grandfather who is a well-versed farmer. He watched them work hard day in and day out and come-up with new ideas and solutions to be a better individual at their professions. In a nutshell, they outshined as his role models from the standpoint of ethics and morals. Besides, he always believed that trusting in his own self will let him achieve anything he ever wanted to. All these lessons coupled with his deep-rooted passion to create his own business triggered Viren to evolve into a successful entrepreneur in the FinTech realm today.
Learn more about Viren’s inspirational journey from the following snippets of an exclusive interaction between him and CEO Insights.
What inspired you to plunge into the payments domain?
My professional journey began as a tech programmer at US in 1996 when I realized that the country held a sea of opportunities for entrepreneurs. Also, I’ve always had a strong ardour to become an entrepreneur and had a good appetite for risks. Hence in early 2000, I laid the foundation for my first integrated message collaboration startup at Silicon Valley, wherein clients outsourced their emails, voicemails and faxes to us through Exchange 2000. But due to lack of funds, we had to shut down the firm. This didn’t hinder my
dream to become an entrepreneur, but rather bestowed me with great lessons. Later in 2002, I bootstrapped ISTS Worldwide, a global payment technology solution provider with a strong focus on enhancing revenue. This time, we tasted sheer success and sold it out to Clear2Pay in 2011.
My second FinTech firm is Renovite (Estd. In 2015) that is focused on transforming mission critical payment systems via Cloud-Native technology. But the inspiration to plunge into payments domain sprouted in me way back during 1996-98 when I worked for an American store in the retail payments sector. That’s when I also realized that legacy technologies in this space had its own limitations and cutting-edge solutions were the need of the hour. Thus, I bootstrapped Renovite as a Cloud-Native Payment Solutions Provider for banks, payment processors and retailers.
Brief us on the challenges that you faced during your entrepreneurial journey.
My focus has always been on investing money wisely and augmenting revenue in my business. Unlike most entrepreneurs who hire smart people and tell them what to do, I breathe the mantra of hiring smart people and staying out of their way. During the current Covid-19 crisis, decision making has drastically slowed-down among businesses. Yet, we have ensured to cut-down unnecessary costs in every possible way so that we could lead the business on profitable terms. Believing that most banks, payment processors and retailers will shift their businesses to cloud post the crisis, we are geared-up to take advantage of this through our Cloud-Native payment solutions. Thanks to our extremely motivated team and cloud-based internal systems, we have been working seamlessly from home since the start of the pandemic without losing productivity.
What opportunities do you foresee in the payments domain?
With the influx in novel and flexible technologies, payment systems ought to proactively adopt them to process diverse payment tokens. I
My second FinTech firm is Renovite (Estd. In 2015) that is focused on transforming mission critical payment systems via Cloud-Native technology. But the inspiration to plunge into payments domain sprouted in me way back during 1996-98 when I worked for an American store in the retail payments sector. That’s when I also realized that legacy technologies in this space had its own limitations and cutting-edge solutions were the need of the hour. Thus, I bootstrapped Renovite as a Cloud-Native Payment Solutions Provider for banks, payment processors and retailers.
Unlike most entrepreneurs who hire smart people and tell them what to do, I breathe the mantra of hiring smart people and staying out of their way
Brief us on the challenges that you faced during your entrepreneurial journey.
My focus has always been on investing money wisely and augmenting revenue in my business. Unlike most entrepreneurs who hire smart people and tell them what to do, I breathe the mantra of hiring smart people and staying out of their way. During the current Covid-19 crisis, decision making has drastically slowed-down among businesses. Yet, we have ensured to cut-down unnecessary costs in every possible way so that we could lead the business on profitable terms. Believing that most banks, payment processors and retailers will shift their businesses to cloud post the crisis, we are geared-up to take advantage of this through our Cloud-Native payment solutions. Thanks to our extremely motivated team and cloud-based internal systems, we have been working seamlessly from home since the start of the pandemic without losing productivity.
What opportunities do you foresee in the payments domain?
With the influx in novel and flexible technologies, payment systems ought to proactively adopt them to process diverse payment tokens. I
believe that both public and private sector banks must stay abreast of increasing transaction volumes and prefer our Cloud-Native payment solutions that are payment token agnostic and have auto-scaling capabilities to avoid shut-down of their payment processing systems. Hence, we trust that our unique solution can transform the payment domain across the globe in the coming years and benefit banks, retailers and payment processors to a great extent.
Do you mentor startups?
Yes, I do and also mentor anyone who requires my advice! Besides, I’m an angel investor in half dozen technology startups across the world.
How do you keep yourself and your employees abreast of the FinTech industry?
I read a lot by attending industry conferences, websites, and social media, while my long-standing experiences in the industry has helped me in being prepared for the future. At the office, we believe in ‘On the job learning, training and development’. Teams conduct intra-product and inter-product knowledge sharing sessions at regular intervals which gives better understanding to everyone of what’s latest happening in FinTech world and what we are aiming at as a team. The best part is that we have a very focused and motivated team who are willing to learn, share and make things happen.
What is your take on maintaining work-life balance?
I ensure to play golf with my boys and my wife during the weekends and spend as much time possible with them. Yet, finding the right balance is still a mystery!
Viren Rana, CEO, Renovite Technologies
With a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Shivaji University and Executive MBA degree from California State University, Viren outclasses as an expert in the delivery of technology change for payment providers.
Favourites:
• Hobbies: Playing golf & going to movies
• Books: Motivational books
• Cuisines: Rajma Curry & Aloo Paratha
• Travel Destinations: Maldives, Europe & North America
To the Budding Entrepreneurs:
Believe in yourself, be frugal whether it’s investor’s or your own money, and work hard. Stay focused on augmenting revenue and creating solutions to real-world problems rather than just valuation.
Do you mentor startups?
Yes, I do and also mentor anyone who requires my advice! Besides, I’m an angel investor in half dozen technology startups across the world.
How do you keep yourself and your employees abreast of the FinTech industry?
I read a lot by attending industry conferences, websites, and social media, while my long-standing experiences in the industry has helped me in being prepared for the future. At the office, we believe in ‘On the job learning, training and development’. Teams conduct intra-product and inter-product knowledge sharing sessions at regular intervals which gives better understanding to everyone of what’s latest happening in FinTech world and what we are aiming at as a team. The best part is that we have a very focused and motivated team who are willing to learn, share and make things happen.
What is your take on maintaining work-life balance?
I ensure to play golf with my boys and my wife during the weekends and spend as much time possible with them. Yet, finding the right balance is still a mystery!
Viren Rana, CEO, Renovite Technologies
With a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Shivaji University and Executive MBA degree from California State University, Viren outclasses as an expert in the delivery of technology change for payment providers.
Favourites:
• Hobbies: Playing golf & going to movies
• Books: Motivational books
• Cuisines: Rajma Curry & Aloo Paratha
• Travel Destinations: Maldives, Europe & North America
To the Budding Entrepreneurs:
Believe in yourself, be frugal whether it’s investor’s or your own money, and work hard. Stay focused on augmenting revenue and creating solutions to real-world problems rather than just valuation.