Our Conversation with Nithya Nithi

Intro

A person filled with energy, open to challenges, and a wizard with numbers, Nithya did her first job with the London Stock Exchange Group as an Analyst and later moved on to an early age Startup.

Career

• In the year 2021, Nithya finished her MBA while working with LSEG as an analyst.

• Later, she got a chance to work with AvairSense and is now heading the Finance and Human Resources department while making things a piece of cake.

About AvairSense

AvairSense (OurEye Private Limited) is a smart camera company that specializes in building AI-enabled security cameras. It was founded by Sourav Sanyal and Ajay Kumar and backed by Y Combinator and 100x. AvairSense goes all out to build the smartest cameras ever, to help people see beyond what they can, and empower people to protect their love. The product is entirely made in India and will be launched soon.

How does finance look at AvairSense

Nithya says that when she joined in October 2021, the team size was 4-5 and the entire core team was filled with talented techies.

She further explains how she built everything from scratch. From Zoho books, and Razorpay to other software, she has set up an incredible process for anyone who next steps into finance at AvairSense

Oh, and did we mention she is doing all this by herself?!

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There’s a vast difference between a finance person looking at the finance data and a common man looking through it.

AvairSense outsources things such as Taxation and Auditing to an external team. With the help of the auditing firm, Nithya likes to keep tasks such as bookkeeping in-house

Challenges she faced while building systems from 0

• According to Nithya, the biggest challenge she faced was to explain finance jargon and process to non-finance folks.

• She also finds it pretty annoying when people mistake HR and Finance to be the same (we agree with her though!)

What does our finance rockstar’s day look like?

As Nithya is handling both HR and Finance at AvairSense she likes to divide her day into 2:

• The first half of the day is for finance. In general, a typical day for Nithya involves a mix of financial and HR tasks. Some of her financial responsibilities may include preparing and managing budgets, analyzing financial data, and preparing financial reports.

• The second half is for HR duties. This could include managing the company's payroll, coordinating employee benefits, recruitment and onboarding process, and handling any employee relations issues that arise.

She doesn’t like to spread out 1 task for the entire day.

Challenges/Painpoints

• The only pain point she had was not having a structured system.

How Zuna can differ from others

• A lot of documents are asked for financial valuations and other processes as well. It is easy if anyone could have all the details and documents/give a checklist for documents.

When is the right time to hire a finance guy?

• Finance is the foundation of any business. Hiring a person in the early stage to handle all financial activities is very important. However, at a time, when the company’s revenue and expenditures are increasing it is a must to hire a finance person.

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