During the summer of 2024, Prashant Pokhriyal (MBA '25) interned as an NYU Stern MBA Sustainability Fellow at Esusu. Read on to learn more about his time there:

Name: Prashant Pokhriyal

Year: 2025

Specialization: Tech Product Management, Entrepreneurship & Innovation, Sustainable Business & Innovation

This summer I interned for Esusu, a fintech startup dedicated to helping people reach their financial goals. Currently, Esusu primarily achieves this through Rent Reporting, a service in which Esusu-onboarded renters pay rent, Esusu reports these payments to major credit bureaus, and the renters have their credit score boosted as a result. Given the importance of credit scores to gaining access to the financial system (for renting an apartment, getting a car, lowering interest rates on home or auto loans, and so on), rent reporting can potentially have a life-changing impact on renters.

Although I worked under the Director of Strategic Initiatives, my work corresponded to both the Strategy and Product verticals for Esusu. My primary deliverables were as follows: 1) Conducting a series of interviews with Esusu-onboarded residents on their needs and future product preferences, 2) Writing a thorough analysis report on the aforementioned interviews as well as a guide for future resident interviews, 3) Recommending new Ideas and Partnerships I'd recommend Esusu to pursue, and 4) Completing a Competitive Analysis Report for the Director of Strategic Initiatives.

My favorite aspect of the internship was that given its broad scope, I got to be creative in how I thought about the industry’s future hurdles and how Esusu could overcome them. Much of this creativity was fueled by the variety of perspectives I got to hear from. The most notable of these perspectives, of course, were those of Esusu-onboarded residents themselves, who provided a series of insights that I hope will help shape the future of Esusu’s offerings. In addition, I also found open conversations with different Esusu employees a great source for creativity. In general, I’ve realized the following: many startup employees are highly invested in the vision of the company, and have started to form creative ideas on how the startup can adapt or reach new markets, even if these ideas don’t get to be fully fleshed out or further developed in their day to day work. As an intern thinking about Esusu’s future problems, I found these conversations invigorating, and they certainly played a role in my final deliverables.

As I intend to continue working at mission-driven technology startups in either a product or strategy role, my time at Esusu has provided me with invaluable experience. In particular, I believe the dual partnership of conducting effective customer interviews and fostering creative ideas through employee discussions will prove a useful tool for my future startup endeavors.