215+ Crores Raised, 75+ Companies & 100% Success ft Grip Co-Founders | FO 31 - Raj Shamani

what is the reason why indians are not. accepting alternative investment i i. think i'll i'll summarize it in one line. okay i think people are running after. returns and not wealth creation. well we met each other in in our. previous organization um where were you. it was a company called chalo okay so um. i co-founded the company and ashish. joined them. about a year two years later yeah yeah.

two years he was the co-founder so i i. was just managing a city kolkata oh nice. so. what was it about. you all three was this challenge. yeah. no no no no so i co-founded two of the. guys who are now running the business. okay uh and then we met in charlotte and. we decided to start grip um afterwards. okay and what was it. shallow is a is a mobility startup it's. actually one of india's largest mobility. solutions it is uh you know think about. people taking a.

dtc bus or the best bus in bombay. best for bus. bus. the biggest problem was. right so cello started by saying can we. tell you when your bus was exactly right. like think about you know when your uber. will live when your ola will arrive what. about for the best bus nice so we. started fitting gps inside buses. and giving a mobile app for people to. track it so wait so this is what cello. started as um took on many many shapes. but now effectively all ticketing.

tracking for city buses happens for. children right so you can book us you. can have a smart card you can have a. mobile ticket for your bus delivered to. channel wow classic case of acquiring. customers through a hook and then now. using them nice nice so as i guess. like what what did you guys like about. yourself. [Laughter]. that's an interesting story yeah but. i think we can i mean i think we wake.

and i should actually work together. and uh. ashish and i work very little together. actually only towards the last part of. my my 10 year cello but we somehow got. along. was a serious guy and senior right. now he knows me slightly.

you end up spending a lot of time with. that person right that's okay like what. is apart from the work where does a. co-founder help you. i think apart from help just i'll just. first go to the thing that. like we are three co-founders where we. hooked on the same problem. and with the same solution and same. mindset right the problem was that we. wanted to look at the alternative. investment industry we struggled with. this problem at some point in our life.

opportunities apart from your. traditional uh fds rds and then your. equity and mutual fund markets which. will take enough. time from you right. we were strengthened struggling with. that and we discussed about that problem. with each other. and when we discuss about that we. realize he. this is not only my problem this is. ashish's problem as well this is nikki's. problem as well. so. we have written down that problem and we. thought here yeah.

this is a real problem statement which. you can solve. the connect we have with that problem of. and what nikhil talked about that. wavelength thing. that is matching from there that we. really want to solve that problem in the. same direction got it um. i'll tell you one more story in this. when v3 started uh the first thing we. did. was write a culture note about our. company okay because we were so aligned. that we want to build an.

and i think in addition to that uh. it had more components of us because. v3 combined is the culture right. ultimately. so like if i ask nikhil what is his goal.

two years down the line or five is down. the line and if i write mine and his. right and if he wants to do x i want to. do y and he wants to do z then it's not. combined right it's not conclusive so i. think uh that. even those personal answers. also goes into that. and style of working uh if it even it. had hard question like if it gets shut. down what happens. right even all those harder questions.

uh we discussed and we came in. uh conclusion. these whole things make sense nice you. know you're on your question on giving. advice. if there's if one advice will be given. co-founder no co-founder every company. should write the culture note. at the beginning of the journey. especially in today's time when we are. all working remotely okay let's let's. break it down because i really like this. point culture notepad. without before deciding who you're gonna.

hire what's gonna be the co-founder. what's gonna be the game it has to be. the first thing that you write and it. has to be written with the co-founder. what are the five. is what is your culture of the. organization i'll give an example for. example for us a key culture is. ownership okay every person the company. should feel an owner and not in the. traditional sense here please pass it. everyone is a shareholder everyone will.

think about those things but we define. ownership in our company as taking. responsibility for end outcomes. what we often see is people will send. emails. but that doesn't mean that an outcome. has come for the company right ownership. for us is getting that outcome delivered. to the end. um so that's that's a value for us and. defining those values we have five. values those five values was was is the. third component of uh of the culture. note. one of the things we did differently in. ashish mentioned is style of working the.

style of working style of learning okay. and we haven't come across this in a lot. of other notes but we thought it was. really important. i'll give an example um. one of the style of workings is to give. context. context give context okay take it. you just tell. what is the what i'm going to get out of. it what is that going to deliver for the. organization. it's almost like a disrespect to tell. someone to do something without giving. context you are disrespecting that.

person to to not apply their mind they. mean better at it right yeah and. actually deliver something more than. what you asked for okay so one of our. style of working is to give that context. interesting these are some of the key. components of the culture note that we. wrote down and in a remote working. environment. the only thing that will keep people. together is this. right. it's not money it's not those extra. perks it's not that gift pack that you. will send to their house. it's this alignment. i like this point i like this one. because this makes a lot of sense right.

and i used to say this to a lot of my. friends in school and college so i was. always this kid. and this is the biggest.

that style of working never gets. disrupted. and the weird thing is you expect people. to be owners yeah but you don't respect. them to give them context right so it's. a it's a one-way street and we sort of i. think one of the you know your earlier. questions was what brought us together i. think shared experiences right about and.

about organizations where we felt that. that was not a really a you know. 100 culture that we wanted to be part of. and those shared experiences allowed us. to also craft an organization and value. system that we are proud of being. founders of. now there's a good point okay i want to. ask to make it light. tell me each okay you guys can take one. minute. don't take the name of the organization.

but tell me like what not to do hire a. family member. agreed. agreed no micromanagement. no micromanagement okay. uh but some people that i don't feel. like a perfectionist they give examples. of steve jobs. i think uh for me it would be. uh. giving artificial pressure okay okay.

what do you mean by division so. basically not giving artificial pressure. so yeah someone should not give. artificial pressure of anything. so. i have been part of multiple. organizations and uh i felt uh at this. one organization that. everything is so urgent. everything is priority. there is always a sense of pressure in. doing everything so i was just always. thinking. everything is what is low priority.

so that that was something a. big learning. just check it now and. just do the highest priority thing that. can move your eighty percent okay now. talk about the problem okay like you. guys started came up together cafe. starbucks.

what is the problem that you're solving. sure so um. you know so. you know vivek mentioned that we looked. at this i had this thoughts many years. back and kept evolving but i used to. work at morgan stanley and um. because of working morgan stanley. restriction to information i could. barely invest in stock markets so. literally all my money used to land. fixed deposits right or even worse in a. current account savings account and.

basically was not making any money. we generally we correlated with the same. problem and when we spoke to people we. realized that most people. are actually have a complete lack of. investment options okay. which means that the only way that. they're generating money. is by themselves working hard for it. okay. most indians are just slogging away day. after day. to create more income which is then paid. 30 tax on but that is the only source to. wealth creation.

the money that is actually being earned. is not really working hard for them. okay and it's not earning money for them. the reason we identified is and so. before we get into that the the reality. is that the top point one person of. india the richest of indians. actually don't have that that way. they don't actually end up doing a lot. of hard work on a daily basis but their. money makes money. why can't the same be true for. larger populations. and that is the problem statement.

honestly the problem statement that we. had at grip key there is a lot of money. lying with people who are very hard. working. their money should work harder than they. work okay and grip wants to provide. investment options that makes it. possible okay now tell me one thing. now that indians know about it. that there are certain people who know. about alternative investments there are. people who are interested in there are. few people who are. like. they you know. they understand but they don't want to.

do it there are a few people who are. they're they're tired with traditional. ways of putting like putting money right. there is your company there are a lot of. people doing doing something something. something. what is stopping indians what do you. think what is stopping indians to come. and. accept this at large. because if you look at. what crypto has done right crypto exams.

and mass adopt okay. i don't know what is the reason maybe. the right marketing may be the right. people involved yeah for more could you. be here. joe xyz what do you think what what is. the reason why indians are not accepting. alternative investment. i think i'll summarize it in one line. okay i think people are running after. returns and not wealth creation. investment crypto it's. a very very small number right you have. lots of accounts but very small numbers.

where people are. want to be part of this gold rush but. actually i'm not generating any. significant wealth from it kryptos is is. a probably one of the most concentrated. asset classes in the world yeah. um. but i i really like this question uh. when we started the business we also. thought the same way. that. if we create fractionalization right. problem solved. we'll have millions of users. but over a period of time we realize. that. we're missing a lot of other strategies.

that need to happen. um. one is that. you need to solve for other frictions. representation. of friction alternative investments may. have liquidity. but your product is 24 months 36 months. long yeah but you need money how do you. get it out right so there are these. other frictions that exist in the. solution in the product itself. and as a company we have to also solve. those directions okay okay.

if i was to draw the parallel to crypto. again. liquidity. right. and if you are hence able to invest. small amounts of money in a liquid asset. you're likely to to become united to. drive more adoption yeah. what we are trying to solve the. companies hence no longer just the. fractionalization but we are actually. trying to solve the entire experience of. the user. and we have this motto in the product. team that we want to make it as simple. as stock investing right that experience.

has to be solved. no make sense i think. what is stopping majority of indians is. there not a lot of people talking about. it and why not not a lot of people are. talking about it because of the. liquidity issue yeah it's not going to. talk about returns. sexy. right we don't have elon musk to. tweeting about it. because he's not going to say oh this is. passive income generating will give you. stable returns right it's not it's not. [Laughter].

what have you noticed about indian. specifically while you were doing this. because you are selling a a financial. product okay. second something which is not a category. yet so you're in a category creation. that too. [Laughter].

that was very easy to get the mass. adoption because of the problem. statement i'm sure that must be hard as. well sure but i know what you mean. but this is like extremely hard even. though it sounds sexy oh i'm gonna make. people invest in startups it's it's. difficult right. because i come from the experience where. till last year. i i always wanted to be like okay now i. want to start investing in startups and. i want to become an angel i want to.

become a manager i want to do all of. that i started investing and once i. started getting daily stuff actually i. started my pants i was like. bro should i do it or not do it. even if i know i have the right access i. know the people i know the founders. say like what how do you sell and if you. are able to be successful in all of this. what is what did you identify. with indians because. um. that's a that's a tough question i'm. trying to correlate to one thing that.

can be said. one of the things which okay let me talk. about a few things that we've seen. happen and you guys should add. um. i think there's a desire. coming out of the problem statement. itself. try. okay. and hence lot of people are happy to. start. with a small investment okay yeah and. because our minimum ticket size is only. ten thousand rupees a lot of people say. let me put ten thousand piece okay and. let's see what happens i'll watch it for. some time. and if things are really going as as.

communicated. then i'll do more. right. we've seen that behavior. second is. we've seen a lot of people now get. comfortable with a completely online. experience okay which we also didn't. expect initially. 90 of our users have never reached out. to us for a communication right they. come on the website they see the. information. we try to do our best job of providing. as much information as possible. educating them about the returns and the.

risks. uh and then they make an investment. right if they feel comfortable they then. make subsequent investments. the third thing we've seen is that if. you get it right. you don't need to do any marketing right. um. 30 to 35 of our total users come because. someone else told them that they. invested in the product yeah okay so. these are some of the things that from a. user point of view i have seen. um. and you know we're seeing this play out. so typically a person will start their. first investment.

around 30 000 rupees okay the next. investment will be 40 rupees. okay. and. if a person has. spent. a year on our platform. his total investment size will be seven. x seven times his initial uh investment. because he started trusting using trust. trusting so i think trust builds slowly. uh and honestly any financial instrument. is in the game of is in the business of. test. yeah. different shapes and forms right um.

if you're able to build that through. various mechanisms including allowing. them to try your product etc i think you. have the ability to own to have that. customer for a for a very long time. now there's a lot of lessons in this. number one is if you're trying to build. something which is. in a new category. put that rush of trying because nobody. is like i mean the culture is shifting. where everybody wants to try something. new it doesn't matter what they want to. try something new that is first second.

then you deliver what you've committed. don't overcome it don't do anything just. come like commit certain things and then. you deliver that because that. particular thing when people try and. they get what they want that gives them. a form of trust and once they have that. they not only invest more they'll talk. about it more yeah and once they talk. about it more it's going to work out. really well i think a lot of times in. the new age of startups we tend to miss. out on this because everything is super. sexy.

right it's not about. thinking from a perspective. you know one thing we got very fortunate. with and it happened we didn't cause it. to happen. some of our users started a whatsapp. you know whatsapp is like we started a. business on whatsapp this i think it's. it's uh really the. backbone of india business anyway so. someone started a whatsapp group and.

disseminated the message that this. whatsapp group exists to other of our. other users. now we have maybe 200 people on that. whatsapp group all of our users 2 and. 200 of our users on that whatsapp group. that is the like a goldmine for us. because these are our most engaged. people okay they have taken the effort. to join a whatsapp group. i think all comes right on all. groups and they're still taking your. time. and they communicate to us very very. uh.

you know uh in with no filters feedback. about us okay okay speaker. literally if you could change a word on. the website we get a feedback on the. whatsapp group uh anything we are newbie. launching we are able to test with this. 200 user-based audience and that to me. is a really like if you can get that. set of people. who are. actually you know they make about a. product but they're the most uh loyal. user-based because feedback. and that they're building with you.

they're building with us they're helping. us build. uh i i think we're incredibly. appreciative of the fact these people. are giving us our time and if you can. get that kind of user community and that. feedback going you're much likely to be. more successful. interesting what's the what's the most. shittiest upfront feedback you've gotten. let me answer that yeah. i think. there are. there is this this one guy. who has invested 10 times with us. and.

has a great portfolio. and. this guy says uh if i don't see this. feature coming or this problem getting. sold in next this much time i am i'm not. going to invest any further. so that's that's like uh. the biggest. feedback right. now. already.

it's just like that so they're thinking. so much good for us even in their. negative feedbacks for us. nice. okay.

what. is that one thing only one specific. thing it can be one word one line it can. be one paragraph whatever that you're. going to build in this decade. in the second the next decade like what. exactly are trying to achieve you're. talking to three people who have drafted. a vision statement. that is the only fun part about it i. know everybody knows that this is very. easy. okay. you know different answers and think. about it sure maybe and it doesn't have.

to be professional yeah yeah it can be. personal it can be social it can be. anything. what is that one thing like this is this. is the decade for it like we all talk. i'll talk about myself if you want to. make it easier i say there's a lot of. things we talk about big vision big. stuff right but i feel. i talk a lot about financial freedom. okay and and i'm all up for it i feel if. in india. you don't have financial freedom and by. financial freedom. there are two words like this financial. and there's freedom even if you're. making your own money you don't have.

freedom because your family controls. your life this is what happened so i. feel that india everybody should take. their own decisions and that's a big. problem in our country so i'm creating. content around that i'm creating my life. around that i've completely gotten out. of my out of the payroll of my parents. and tried to do something on my own so i. want to preach this message out. but i also know that if i don't do it at. a big scale the message would go out. like if i'm just there trying to make. let's say a couple of thousand rupees. nobody's gonna.

like give a bad about this thing. so this decade for me is to become a. creator unicorn like i want to be this. and i know that this is going to happen. maybe i will be the one maybe i'll help. someone become that but this is where. i'll be the part of somebody becoming a. creator unicorn. most probably me or someone else. right this is interesting in the. description. and this is what we want to build this. year. okay you guys don't know. it's like a morning adult do you want to. go.

[Music]. you have to be right you have to be. honest yeah that's it yeah. that's what we always wanted to be. go ahead. quick so. i think uh. for this ticket and for me specifically. it means to create a organization. with which people can relate to.

and we can provide equal opportunities. to everyone. i think uh. my my personal. thing is that i want to be busy. healthy busy. it's not like i'm just vlogging all the. time saturday sunday. like i want to be healthy busy in. something that. uh that is reaching out to masses. so with grip that's happening and. uh i i want to be.

stay engaged in this where i'm building. a great product which people can. appreciate and copy. okay and. it is already starting to happen like. with these new. alternative investment platforms coming. in they are copying our designs or some. of the elements. like most people would say. how can i file a case against them and. we are like oh great it was anyway. getting older and let's move to the new. design. so i i think for my uh to just to. summarize in the single line uh i want.

to be engaged in building something that. people. uh can look forward to look up to and. then people can start learning and. deploy that same thing in their products. interesting i love this i in fact love. this line where you're not bothered. about copying like you getting copied. that motivates you to change it as a. great way to do it because. like there's a value alignment. [Laughter]. for you uh so.

you know i actually really dislike the. word startup okay okay interesting. because to because the public perception. around startup is key. philosophy you know most startups will. feel. uh things are broken. it's jugaad and it's working together. so. i hate i actually don't like the fact. that we are called a startup because. what is startup was truly meant to be. was about being innovative right. disruptive but actually the values that. are typically associated with startups.

are. what i said up here. for me the the next decade is if i was. to you know really be successful looking. back. is it we can really build an institution. out of grip. okay. the especially in finance you know if. you think of companies like hdfc if you. think of like aig goldman sachs these. are institutions they're not companies. yeah um and they have stood the test of. time they will outlast centuries they'll. outlast whoever's started the business.

i want to make sure that by the end of. this decade we place grip in a place and. it becomes an institution okay uh. whether it is called whether it i hope. we still remain a startup we're still. disruptive we're still innovative but we. establish in the way that it has that. form a root. that is the that is the plan for taking. it damn visionary dude. [Laughter]. so i think that's the way it is one of. the state things that i. told this guys and i told the team is my. my qra.

is to become irrelevant. right the day i become irrelevant. the institution is done right. so that is and i really want everyone's. organization to become irrelevant. the. person is should not matter it has to be. about the company. so that's what we're trying to take an. approach to building in everything we're. doing and if we can achieve that then. we'll build something that will you know. still be around. uh for a long time. interesting this is this is cool like a.

great answer i got my real clip out of. you you know yeah. i hate startup i hate like the word. startup and then i want to become. institution this is really good part. okay guys so this is a question which i. ask everybody and the last part is. that. what do you think. i should do. differently or in a better way so that i. achieve or reach to my goal faster or in. a better way what should i do like what. do you think based on maybe our. conversation or maybe your previous.

experience with me or maybe just the. experience of you in creative economy or. anything what should be the next step. for me to make it big. so since uh you asked me to work with. you right so i i i'll go. first so uh. see. we relate so much to each other right. when i spoke about uh building a great.

product building a great institution. building a great people-led organization. right. i think one thing that you can do raj is. that. you also move towards that thought okay. currently it's just you. yeah right let's say go for god forbid. side you fall sick. right. no one is there to do the podcast right. no one will be putting content over the. youtube channel so you should think how. even if you are not there.

someone is getting that thing done. on your name and with the same quality. and and your youtube channels keep on. growing. so that's separate. advice. that's a good one that's a good one like. so so this is the next step we are. building. figuring out. so we have we have taken. money out of it and this is my kra like. figuring out people should forget that. figuring out was started by raj so. that's why we started we've taken our.

domain we've start registered a company. now so now it's going to be called. figuring out community yes. like it's a community how can we make a. community where people would love to. call themselves that they're in a space. or a phase in their life where they're. figuring out they don't have it figured. out. like because in india every time we ask. your plan. [Laughter]. we don't know that. i mean who would have thought. five years ago did you guys know that. you want to do this ten years ago nobody.

knew this you guys are figuring out to. do something bigger this is a problem. for you and then so that is the space. and that can not happen with me alone. because if i do it everybody's going to. relate to it again. the figuring out will never stand out so. that's a point but i think i can add. this that how can somebody do podcasts. on behalf of me how can somebody do the. content on behalf of me like how can go. figuring out beyond this raj's face. is the right modern community it's also. the face led so we need to get more.

faces in the game and then start trying. to do something like this. yeah i think a lot of people in the. creator economy have not been able to. make that switch right it's it's so. difficult yeah. so because it also i think it starts. with culture when you start putting that. culture out and if you keep telling your. audience again again this is the culture. we stand on any other face will stand on. those cultures audience will accept them. right now it's it's very personality. driven kind of relationship.

you know it's a very difficult problem. very very very good like it's much. easier for us to have someone else step. in our shoes but in in your case in the. greater comments much to much more. difficult problem it will happen though. yeah it's a very dopamine given rule now. that you know you're doing one video. it's getting so many likes and you're. getting the. and now when you think even even think. about becoming irrelevant that kick is. gone you have to see other people. developing that right you have to see.

nurturing those people so i think that. is what. is very important. i i definitely get yoga's point and. i like that point. because raj money can be different. but figuring out can stand alone and. become an institution by itself so we. this is our thing in our company that we. say we're not creating content. yeah we are building a university. this is the modern day university where. we are getting the best minds like. tomorrow. this sport car is going to be gold when. you guys actually.

go and achieve some another milestone. and then another milestone and then we. do another round of podcast and then. another round like this can be like a. process for people okay at every stage. there was something people are talking. about what they were going through. yeah. and. so. i don't know if i've got the right facts. but justin bieber. became justin bieber because people like. usher. backed him yeah yeah. and. in some ways they compete right for for. uh.

dollars yeah but if usher did not. take the chance to cultivate that talent. maybe justin people wouldn't be as big. as he is right. uh i think you have to move from being a. individual contributor to really being. nurturing a team and when you do that. you're in a different league yeah. are. [Laughter]. what can be the next thing he said when.

you get out of the creator mentality and. you actually become creator for creators. like you act become a platform where. you're nurturing and building more. creators that is when i i think my guess. is that all entrepreneurs will say the. same thing to you all founders because. if you that's you have to think that. there is no other option if uh if ashish. music and i spend all of our time doing. work to complete the neighborhood. for sure. that makes sense.

thank you so much guys thanks for being. here and sharing all these things i. think we got like a lot of stuff no it. is a great chat.