Today’s guest, in the backstage, has a company with a current valuation of more than 3 billion dollars.
How many of you have heard about Groww?
Its founder, give him a warm welcome, Lalit Keshre.
Yes, how are you?
Please have a seat.
How many of you have used Groww?
They are many. And we haven’t paid them to come here.
Before the audience asks you questions, I want to learn about your journey.
First, when did you start Groww?
We started Groww in May 2016. We were working on Flipkart.
Our background was in tech. My background is that I am from a small city in Madhya Pradesh. Then I went to IIT Bombay.
In Flipkart, we saw how facilities are available for rich people or Tier 1 cities through the internet.
Its access is in pan India.
In 2017, you officially launched it for the public. Yes.
What was the growth after that? Like it’s been 6 years. What was the growth of 6 years?
In 2017, we started. In 2016, we launched products like the app which didn’t work.
In 2017, we wanted to launch and get at least 100 customers to know it’s a market fit.
When we launched it, 600 customers came. We got a feeling that it is liked by customers.
Our growth happened through word of mouth. The customers who used the product talked about it to their friends.
The people who raised their hands, recall how you got to know about Groww? Theirs a big possibility that you got to know from your friend.
When someone likes the product, they talk about it. Like Wi-Fi.
We moved forward from the people with similar products in just a few months
By Dec 2017, we didn’t even have an app.
Launched via a website?
We launched via the website. Making an app is expensive. We didn’t have engineers.
Our founder, Neeraj, made everything with 2 frontend developers.
So we got a team really good since the beginning. In December, we launched the app, we grew more from there.
A few of our customers said that our product is good but we are getting regular funds.
Regular funds are funds with the commission. We never advised but the commission is there.
Then we took a big bet to move to 0 commission as customers wanted it. We launched that, and we grew more.
If we see from your perspective, direct is much better than regular. The difference is very less.
The regular has 1.5% and the direct has 0.5%. The difference is just 1%.
If we see 1% from a compounding point of view, 5-10-20 years down the line, the amount is big. So through his platform, he started offering direct.
During your whole journey with Groww, what was the most challenging phase?
What was the biggest learning that you haven’t learned in your previous companies?
Challenges are good. If you see Indian philosophy, challenges have proved that you are growing eventually when you cross challenges.
In Groww, the initial year was tough.
But that built bond between co-founders and customer understanding bettered.
Before this, I did a startup that failed. I learned what not to do.
The learning I got is.
Let me tell you about my previous learning. Customer obsession is very important in any business.
If you know your customers well then you can grow. Growth is equal to understanding your customers.
In Groww, the most important learning is that business is built by people.
People who are working with you are the most important people. It started with my cofounders, early hires, and current people.
People who work with you are very important. It was a big realization that it is very important for any business.
How big your team is currently?
We are 1200 people. -1200 people.
Sir, I run an agency, a marketing agency.
We provide service across US and UK. I am all about people management.
We need to understand people. Even if we talk to the US, it’s the PayPal mafia and in India, it is the Flipkart mafia.
In India, CEO of big companies are coming from Flipkart. How do they hire?
This is a very good question.
Can you explain who are the people who came out of Flipkart and are doing big things?
They are many from Flipkart like PhonePe, Groww, Cure Fit, and many others.
Flipkart is 40 billion dollars. But the companies that came from Flipkart are together more than 40 billion.
So the founders didn’t only make Flipkart but also created value in India.
There are many reasons why hiring is high. In Groww, customer obsession, problem-solving, etc is thought about.
Two things have played in Flipkart.
One is scale, the growth is most when your learning slope is most steep.
The more difficulty you face climbing a hill, the better the learning. Everybody got and saw Flipkart.
Second, the culture on Flipkart played a big role. When your growth happens, problems come.
During problem-solving, people take initiative.
I will tell you an instance. Due to some mistakes, many orders get canceled.
On a rakhi day, many orders got canceled. We thought that if orders get canceled then rakhi won’t reach.
The rakhis are sent by sisters to brothers.
So 10-15 product engineering team sat the whole night and packed and sent them so that they reach on time.
The originals will reach later which is okay. That’s an example of customer operation. It’s going out of normalcy.
Technically, they are your brother.
When many challenges are there, people understand you, and a bond is made.
People around you are all talented. You learn a lot from them. Whenever you see innovation, it happens in the group.
Sir, my question is that it takes time in the beginning to build a startup.
When things come at pace, good like we want, then we have to do more.
We put effort into it, do more things, advertise, online marketing. Then things stop going as we planned.
Guilt comes that we have to do something else and better. We think of leaving it there. Give up on it.
Can you give an example of the thing you are speaking on?
Yes sir, earlier I used to teach in a coaching center. I started my own coaching center.
I started teaching and got good responses from the children. Many students came. I thought of growing more.
Made YouTube channels, and they also got a good response. But when I thought of growing it big, it was not happening.
I have 2 answers in my mind.
One is the framework I use- Why Now Framework.
Suppose Groww has 100 customers but I want 1000. I will ask, why don’t I have 1000?
Then I ll try to find answers to why I don’t have them. Then you have 10 things, you will do a hypothesis test.
You need to do it continuously with perseverance. There are many failures.
The second is related to it- Not everything will succeed.
In Groww also, we did many things which failed. No one knows nor will be able to find out. Failures are not remembered.
My earlier startup failed but you must not know it. No one has heard about it.
The point is- not everything works.
When you do something new, the success rate is different.
These are the 2 answers I have for now.
Thank you so much for sharing your experience. Thank you so much.