Resilient Problem-Solvers: Kush Sodhia on Building Papaya, Scaling in SEA, and Staying Sane

If you’ve split a bill via QR at places like Bartel’s and thought, “Wow, that was painless,” you’ve met Papaya—even if you didn’t know it. In this conversation, Papaya’s co-founder Kush Sodhia unpacks how a “conventional” career turned into founder grit, why aligning incentives beats selling hardware, and what it really takes to raise money and expand across Southeast Asia.

From banker/consultant to builder with purpose

Kush’s path reads classic on paper—finance in Boston during peak banker years, JP Morgan in London, MBA in Chicago, then Bain and BCG. The twist? Three years into consulting he realized he was still chasing purpose. The years of high-pressure, client-service work turned out to be “blessing in disguise”—a training ground for the stamina, structure, and communication founders need. The leap to entrepreneurship wasn’t a eureka moment; it was a slow, honest reckoning with the kind of work he wanted to do.

“Everything I’d done before became useful the day I had to build something real.”

Papaya’s origin story: one product, two big restaurant problems

Post-COVID, restaurants were hurting. Papaya started with two targets:

1. Staffing strain – hiring, training and retaining front-of-house was harder than ever.

2. Sales pressure – operators needed bigger baskets and faster turns.

The first product was the now-familiar mobile ordering & payments flow. Importantly, Papaya doesn’t force it: staff can still take orders for guests who want that experience, while everyone else can self-serve.

What the data says: Across ~10,000 orders for a large customer, mobile-flow orders drove 10–15% revenue growth and 20–50% bigger baskets versus non-mobile orders. That’s real, sustained uplift—not a launch-week spike.

Alignment > hardware

Where many POS providers push upfront hardware bundles and tiny monthly SaaS, Papaya flipped the model:

• 100% web-based POS — any phone, tablet, or laptop can run it (no compulsory hardware spend).

• Usage-aligned revenue — Papaya earns primarily through payments (via gateway partnerships), so it grows when the restaurant does.

That alignment bleeds into everything from onboarding to support: the whole company is incentivized to improve throughput, adoption, and repeat use. On the guest side, cross-venue rewards mean you can earn at one venue and redeem at another—helping restaurants acquire new customers, not just “punch-card” loyalists.

Why Thailand, and how to think about Southeast Asia

Kush came home for a mix of reasons—some chosen (the opportunity curve in SEA), some not (visa roulette). But he’s clear: Bangkok made him an entrepreneur. Lower living costs, a culture more open to risk, and a fast-maturing ecosystem removed just enough friction to try.

Looking beyond Thailand, Papaya sees two clusters:

• Shrinking or price-pressured markets (e.g., Singapore, parts of Hong Kong). Demand is under strain; you end up fighting over a smaller pie.

• Growing, under-tooled markets (e.g., Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia). The pie is expanding and the tech stack is still early.

Either way, SEA is not a monolith. Payment integrations travel; go-to-market does not. Papaya’s plan is partner-led entries (think families, conglomerates, local operators) rather than lone-wolf land-grabs.

Fundraising without losing your mind

Kush doesn’t glamorize it: fundraising isn’t fun. It is manageable if you treat it like an operating process.

His playbook:

• Track everything. A living spreadsheet of every VC conversation, notes, reasons for “no,” and the follow-up trigger (“Come back at 150 venues.” Great—return at 150).

• Show up in person. “I’ll be in Singapore/Jakarta next week” gets you meetings. Zoom rarely does.

• Take every conversation. The “never happening” intro sometimes becomes a yes—two years later.

• Get used to “no.” You need one or two yeses; you’ll hear dozens of nos. Don’t argue your way to a check—build your way there.

“You’re not going to talk to three VCs and get three term sheets. That world does not exist.”

Founder reality: speed, stretch, and resilient problem-solving

Yes, startup life is romanticized. Also true: the upsides are real.

The good:

• You pick your people. Co-founders, early hires, culture—you set the bar.

• You become world-class niche. Payments rails, MDRs, FOH flows—depth compounds.

• You move fast. Price change tomorrow? Do it. No decks. No committees.

The honest:

• Everything takes longer. Sales cycles, product work, market entry—double your first estimate.

• It’s always on. There’s no “between projects.” The company is the project.

• Rejection is a feature. Sales, partnerships, capital—you’ll hear no, a lot.

“Founders are resilient problem-solvers. Big or small, there are 100 problems a day—and you solve them.”

And don’t choose this path just to “get rich.” Probabilities don’t support that goal. Choose it because you want to build. As Kush puts it, the first real invoice and the first ticket printing from a kitchen printer? Unforgettable.

What’s next: turning Papaya into an open platform

The 2025 swing is all about open APIs. Papaya’s shaping an ecosystem with three interlocking parts:

1. Merchants at the core (restaurants using a web-native POS and QR order/pay).

2. Customers with portable accounts, rewards, and—eventually—advertising touchpoints.

3. Partners plugged in via APIs: reservations, accounting, insurance, financing, supplier ordering, and more.

The vision: give operators best-in-class everything through integrations, not by trying to build every adjacent tool. Let restaurants focus on what guests actually come for—great food, drink, and service—while Papaya weaves the digital back-of-house together.

Final takeaways

• Align incentives. If you win when your customer wins, you’ll build the right things.

• Treat SEA with respect. Shared rails, different roads. Local partners matter.

• Operationalize fundraising. Track, travel, follow up, and don’t take “no” personally.

• Optimize for resilience. The glamorous stories skip the grind; the grind is the job.

  
  

You can follow Papaya’s journey (and a lot more restaurant discovery soon) on LinkedIn and Instagram—they’ve just hired a social lead, so expect more action there. And if you’re building in F&B or thinking about SEA expansion, this episode is a masterclass in keeping it practical and optimistic.