The Inspiring Journey of Nepal’s First eCommerce Pioneer: Thamel.com
The journey began back in 1997 when Bal Krishna Joshi, born in 1972 AD and a proud student of Budhanilkantha School, returned to Nepal after completing his studies in the United States. After coming back, he joined his family business and also worked with the CG Group, where he was involved in selling “Singha Beer,” a well-known Nepali beverage. Around 2006 and 2007(AD), he became part of a program called Lotto, which many people remember as Nepal’s first reality show. It used to air on Nepal Television, usually right before the Hindi movies. Unfortunately, due to some political tensions, the show had to be shut down.
The pioneering eCommerce team of Nepal went through many ups and downs in their journey paving the way for platform like sastodeal and daraz . This was a time when even a one-minute voice call cost around 200 Nepali rupees. Back then, they started a platform similar to Yahoo, where they sold subscriptions to users and provided access to useful information. For reference, during this same period in Silicon Valley, it was becoming common for startups to go public just six months after being founded. Their platform was called Yak Yak, a chat platform. While running Yak Yak, they discovered an interesting social behavior: Non-Resident Nepalis (NRNs) often used the platform to connect with their relatives in Nepal. That’s when an idea sparked, why not help these people send gifts, a gesture of love, from abroad to their families in Nepal? And that’s how Thamel.com began to take shape. It is believed to be Nepal’s first eCommerce platform, planting the first seed of online shopping in the country’s market.
Goat (khasi) selling eCommerce platform
Their goat-selling platform made huge headlines, even global media outlets like BBC and CNN covered the story. Bal Krish and his team later expanded the same online selling model in Nepal, but this time with a very unique product: goats. Yes, goats! They really thought it through and realized it would be tough to deliver goats the same way they used to deliver gifts and sweets, on motorcycles. So instead, they set up a special space within the goat market itself. But they made it different from the regular market. They provided better arrangements, kept the place clean, and even offered free soft drinks to visitors. It turned into a big hit, and they ended up making around 50,000 dollars. But here’s something most people don’t know, Bal Krishna said that during the first three weeks, they had zero sales. The team was really worried and thought the whole idea might fail and they’d end up facing a big loss.
eCommerce to Fintech Transition
Even though Bal Krishna and his team were putting in a lot of effort and generating business worth crores in turnover, the profits on the income statement just didn’t reflect it. The reason was pretty straightforward, costs had gone up along the way. Then, in 2005, people living abroad started asking Bal Krishna why he didn’t offer a service to send money from foreign countries to Nepal. That question sparked an idea, and it became the starting point for what would later turn into Nepal’s fintech giant, Leapfrog. Bal Krishna says he hired a lawyer and officially began money transfer services back in 2006. He even mentions that he used to earn a $200 cut for every $10,000 transaction, which gave a solid profit margin.
After 2012, a group of technical experts and business-minded people came together, brought in by Bal Krish, to form what would eventually become Leapfrog. The founding team included Chris Pegg, a Stanford graduate who took the role of tech lead, and Himal Karmacharya, an MIT graduate who became the CEO. Many others from prestigious global universities also joined the founding team. This move came after the 9/11 attacks, when U.S. regulations around money transfers had become stricter. The company was also officially launched after ending their earlier partnership with a software company based in India that operated under the name “Times of India.” This background holds true up to the time when the company had grown to around 150 employees.