Savour the joys of delayed gratification

Practise Pay Now Buy Later (PNBL). Invest a few thousand rupees each month and buy the item by redeeming your investments upon reaching the required amount

It was October 2000. The start-up I had co-founded six months ago was in trouble. The original plan to become an online Direct Selling Agent (DSA) for car loans (clients compared and chose from competitive online car loan quotations) had not worked as anticipated. We were forced to pivot the model and become online DSAs for credit cards. This took off well and helped the start-up survive.

While I understood why credit cards were popular among individuals, I always wondered why shopkeepers accepted them. If a customer bought goods worth Rs 1,000 and paid in cash, the shopkeeper received the entire