The business of opposite things

FORA GENERATION INCREASINGLY NON-COMMITTAL, OWNERSHIP HAD BECOME A LIABILITY. BAMANIA SAW THIS AS AN OPPORTUNITY TO COMMIT TO A VENTURE

- ANEES HUSSAIN

THERE'S A PARTICULAR KIND of entrepreneur who hunts constraints.Where others see limitations as problems, they see them as moats to build. Geetansh Bamania is that kind. At Rentomojo, the furniture and appliances rental business he founded in 2015, every customer promise creates an internal constraint.

Cancel anytime? He absorbs the churn risk. Free relocation? He needs warehouses in every city. Flexible ownership? He must carry hundreds of crores in fixed assets. His customers get freedom because he accepts none.

Thewiring started early. In 10th standard, Bamania’s math tutor posed a problem to the class. Everyone else applied the standard theorem. Bamania, bad with memory, spent two days proving it from scratch. “I went against the tide to prove that theorem,” he recalls. “It took me more time but I could see that lens of reverse engineering.” His tutor paid him 500 for solving what others wouldn’t dare to attempt. In Bamania’s mind, this had set ina permanent impression: the harder the path to solve a problem, the sweeter the reward.

Fresh out of IIT Madras in 2012 witha mechanical engineering degree and a project in neural networks, Bamania took his first job at KPMG in Bangalore. His starting salary was %27,000. To furnish his rentalapartment,he tooka &2 lakh loan. Over the next three years, he moved through four cities and six houses. Each time, he either hauled furniture across state lines, costing %30,000-%40,000, or sold it at throwaway prices, watching his 2 lakh evaporate.