9. Assumptions and Open Inputs
The brief gave the concept, three pieces of evidence (Churn Buster, the Matt Goldman interview, and the platform-risk note) and a list of candidate platforms. It didn't give a target customer, price, geography, team, hours per week or traction. Here's what I assumed, and how the verdict changes if each assumption is wrong.
9.1 Assumptions made
| Input | Assumption used | If actually different… |
|---|---|---|
| Wedge | Razorpay Subscriptions and UPI Autopay merchants in India (picked in 02) | If you already have deep access to Shopify subscription brands or Paddle sellers, the odds still don't rise much, because the native and specialist coverage there is the problem, not access. |
| Location | Founder based in India, or with strong Indian merchant access | Without Indian access, the recommended wedge loses ~35% of its odds (condition 1), and no other wedge scores better. |
| Hours per week | Two columns: ~15 hrs/week and full-time | Under 10 hrs/week, the sales motion stalls. Cap expectations at $1–3k MRR. |
| Team | One technical founder who can also sell | A co-founder or advisor from Indian payments (ex-Razorpay, Cashfree, Juspay or Chargebee) is the biggest single boost: faster API answers, partner access and credibility. |
| Price | Flat INR tiers: ₹2,499 / ₹6,999 / ₹14,999, blended ~₹6,800 | If merchants insist on performance pricing, offer 10–15% of incremental recovery (holdout-measured) to Scale only. |
| Exchange rate | ₹88 = $1 (not verified) | A 5% move changes the customer counts by ~5%. |
| Stage | Idea. No code, users or revenue. | Any paying merchants, or a working Razorpay integration, would change the conversation. |
| Market size | 2,000–4,000 Razorpay merchants billing ₹5 lakh+ a month in subscriptions (analyst guess) | Under 1,000: cap at $3–5k MRR. Over 8,000: the $20k odds rise by roughly half. |
| Razorpay API | Failure and mandate events can be read. Payment links can be created. A third party may not be able to trigger retries. | If retries can be triggered, add retry orchestration at P1. If failures can't be read reliably, the wedge doesn't exist. Stop at day 14. |
| Indian involuntary churn | At or above the Recurly education and digital-media levels (~1.6–1.7 points, ~⅓ of churn) | No Indian dataset was found. If it's much lower, the ₹ recovered per merchant drops and so does the ROI story. |
| Monthly churn of RecoverPay's own customers | 3% after month 6 | At 5%, $20k is out of reach, and $10k needs ~20 new merchants a month. |
| Funding | None, and none needed | Doesn't change the product advice. |
9.2 Inputs that would change the verdict most (please supply)
- Hours per week available, and for how many months.
- Where you're based and your access to Indian subscription businesses (names of 10 you could call this week).
- Payments experience: have you built Razorpay, Stripe or UPI integrations before?
- Any existing relationships with Razorpay, Cashfree, Juspay or Chargebee people.
- Budget for WhatsApp Business Platform fees, DLT registration and hosting in the first 6 months (small, but confirm it).
- Why this idea for you? Operators who've felt failed-payment pain themselves sell it far better.
9.3 Definitions used throughout
- Involuntary churn: subscribers lost because a payment failed, not because they chose to cancel.
- Recovery rate: failed payments that end in a successful payment, divided by all failed payments in complete cohorts (Churn Buster's definition, which keeps cancellations in the denominator).
- Incremental recovery: recovery rate on the treated group minus recovery rate on the 10% holdout, times failed ₹ volume.
- Tier A / Tier B: as defined in the portfolio README.
- Qualifying merchant: bills ₹5 lakh+ a month in recurring subscriptions through Razorpay (Starter tier merchants below this are accepted, but not counted toward the market-size estimate).