A newsletter by Poojith Valasingam

Tinkerer's
Notes

Half-formed ideas, hard questions, and the occasional thing that might actually be worth building. I write about product strategy, fintech, and whatever I can't stop thinking about. Blunt feedback welcome.

₹2.8Cr
Disbursed in product CUG launch
70–80%
Reduction in loan journey time
180+
Branches across 12 states
2+
Years in product & strategy
MSME Lending Product Strategy Electronics & IoT Fintech Digital Transformation
Tinkerer's Notes

What I've been writing.

"Embarrassment is an underexplored emotion." These are ideas that used to stay in the room. Now they don't. Subscribe to get new posts in your inbox — or read them here as they come in.

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About

Engineer.
Strategist.
Builder.

L&T Finance Management Trainee, 2025–
IIM Kozhikode MBA, 2023–25
Deloitte USI Business Analyst, 2022–23
IIT (BHU) Varanasi B.Tech Electronics, 2018–22

I started as an electronics engineer at IIT (BHU) Varanasi, building hardware systems — noise-cancellation devices, image-recognition robots, embedded vision systems. That gave me something most MBAs don't have: an instinct for how products actually work at a technical level.

After IIT, a year at Deloitte USI as a Business Analyst — working on data and analytics problems for Kroger and Exelon across the US. That's where I learned to diagnose problems structurally and translate messy operational data into decisions that stuck.

An MBA at IIM Kozhikode, competing in case competitions — including one for Zomato where my individual submission converted directly into an internship. That internship became a deep dive into MSME credit systems at Zomato Hyperpure.

Now at L&T Finance, running product for a new MSME lending vertical — zero to live market in nine months. The parts I find most interesting: designing systems for people who've historically had limited access to formal credit, and making those systems fast, fair, and scalable.

Tinkerer's Notes is where the ideas that don't fit into a slide deck end up. Outside of work — photography, travel, and thinking too hard about why some products feel inevitable and others don't.

Experience

Where I've worked
and what I built.

L&T Finance
May 2025 – Present
Management Trainee, Product & Strategy — Digitization Team, Bengaluru
Leading the launch of MEL (Micro Enterprise Loan) — a new MSME lending vertical built from scratch. Automated the full credit underwriting pipeline, cutting journey time by 70–80% to a minimum TAT of 2 hours. Managed 10 cross-functional teams and 6 vendor integrations. Now live across 180+ branches in 12 states, projected at ₹10–15 Cr/month at scale.
8/10
User satisfaction
0
Critical bugs post-launch
Zomato Hyperpure
Apr – Jun 2024
Strategy & Product Intern
Redesigned the merchant credit system for Hyperpure's B2B platform. Built a payment-history scoring model using repayment behaviour, order frequency, and GMV — cut credit escalation cases by 50%. Internship originated from winning a Zomato case competition as an individual.
30%
Credit utilisation lift
50%
Escalation reduction
Deloitte USI
Jun 2022 – Jun 2023
Business Analyst
Two client engagements — Kroger (retail analytics, 2,000+ locations) and Exelon (operations efficiency). Cut reporting cycles by 22%, improved AR recovery by 12%, reduced manual effort by 26%. Selected among 25,000+ employees for the Deloitte AI Academy.
22%
Faster reporting
26%
Manual effort cut
Case Studies & Projects

Problems I've worked on.

01 — Case Competition
Reinventing credit scoring for salary-advance apps
Designed a product concept for SalarySe replacing CIBIL-based scoring with a Financial Wellbeing Score — incorporating spending patterns, savings behaviour, and repayment history. Added gamification to make financial discipline feel rewarding. 2nd Runner-Up.
Fintech Product Design Credit Risk
02 — Case Competition
Social sharing as an acquisition channel for Zomato
Proposed making Zomato order history shareable on social platforms — drawing on how Spotify turned listening into a discovery loop. Food is already social; the app just wasn't. Individual submission that converted into a direct internship offer.
Consumer Product Growth Behavioural Design
03 — MBA Project
Turnaround strategy for Café Coffee Day
Analysed CCD's financial distress — mapped root causes in debt structure, outlet economics, and competitive positioning. Built a phased recovery plan: outlet rationalisation, cost reduction, and a new digital revenue channel.
Corporate Strategy Financial Analysis Turnaround
04 — Case Competition
Growing Nimyle's share through a 4P relaunch
Developed a market growth strategy for ITC's Nimyle floor cleaner against Lizol and HIT. Proposed targeted improvements across Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. Top 10 teams at IIM Kozhikode.
Brand Strategy FMCG Go-to-Market
05 — Hardware Project
Noise-cancellation hardware with ML cost optimisation
Built a hardware noise-cancellation device achieving 82% suppression efficiency using adaptive filtering. Integrated ML into the signal pipeline to cut production cost by 30% without a drop in performance. End-to-end from signal design to benchmarking.
Hardware Signal Processing ML Integration
06 — Hardware Project
Facial recognition attendance system
Designed and deployed an embedded vision system using OpenCV and CNN for real-time classroom attendance. Achieved 91% recognition accuracy across 180+ students in varied lighting. Full ownership from hardware input to structured data output.
Computer Vision Embedded Systems Deep Learning
Get in Touch

Let's talk about
interesting problems.

Open to PM, strategy, and consulting roles. Also happy to discuss product, fintech, or hardware.