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Lights, Camera, FinTech | Priti Rathi Gupta @ LXME
118 Plays4 years ago
Financial independence is an essential life skill, and it has been a concept dominated by men.
But not anymore!
In this episode of Founder Thesis, Akshay Datt speaks with Priti Rathi Gupta, Founder, LXME, who is spearheading the mission to bridge the gap between women and finance.
A self-proclaimed financial feminist, Priti has been heading Anand Rathi Shares and Stock Brokers Ltd. It was through her experiences; she firmly believes that managing one’s money empowers women to fulfil their dreams and aspirations. And with her brainchild LXME, she aims to educate women about financial products, while building a community where they can engage in conversations that makes them more confident and in control of their finances.
Tune in to this episode to hear Priti talk about how LXME is disrupting the male-dominated financial sector by providing freedom to women to take their own decisions.
What you must not miss!
- Running a conventional business vs starting your venture.
- Learnings from film production.
- Financial planning: A life skill
- Plans for fundraising.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Founder Thesis Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
Take me on a tour, I'll take you on a tour. Hi, I'm Akshay. Hi, this is Aurabh. And you are listening to the Founder Thesis Podcast. We meet some of the most celebrated charter founders in the country. And we want to learn how to build a unicorn.
Meet Preeti Rati Gupta
00:00:26
Speaker
Hi, I'm Preeti Rati Gupta. I'm the founder of Lakshmi. I'm also managing director Anand Rati, shares in Stockbrokers. It is no longer breaking news that young women today are storming into male-dominated areas. But there was an era when a young woman was expected to get married, put her career on hold for the sake of her family, and it was path-breaking to see a woman take on leadership roles and corporates.
00:00:52
Speaker
One such trade blazer is Spriti Rati Gupta. She is the daughter of Anand Rati, who is the founder of one of the largest financial services groups in India. She not only took up challenging roles within the Anand Rati group, but also diversified into film production.
Empowering Women in Finance
00:01:07
Speaker
And her most recent venture and passion is Lakshmi, which is spelled as LXME. Lakshmi is a community-driven fintech that is putting women in charge of their finances by offering training, content, community and investing products.
00:01:22
Speaker
and with her decades of experience, Preeti will surely scale up Lakshmi to meaningfully impact millions of women in India. Here's Preeti telling Akshay Tath about her wonderful journey. OK, so Preeti, tell me about growing up in a family of entrepreneurs, so to say. What was your childhood like?
00:01:50
Speaker
So actually, interestingly, my childhood, my father wasn't an entrepreneur, he was a professional. And it's only at, I think when he turned 45, he turned an entrepreneur. So I've actually growing up seen a professional, you know, at home for most of my growing up years and then.
Preeti's Family Background
00:02:09
Speaker
Where was he working? Like if you get the tell us his story. Yeah, so he was working with the other Tiberla group. And he had a
00:02:19
Speaker
I think a 20 year inning there, where he set up what is known today, known as Birla Finance, Birla Money, Aditi Birla Money, and Birla Finance. It's something that he set up by... Which is a mutual fund, I think.
00:02:35
Speaker
Yes. So he actually started with, I mean, he started with the textile businesses, set up seven businesses for the group. But because of his financial acumen, he worked very closely with Mr. Berra to, you know, to come up with these ideate constantly on how could the group overall do better when it came to finance functions. So one of the things that he did was centralize all finance functions, brought them together.
00:03:03
Speaker
And that was his idea, so that you leverage on the power of the group and just the whole breadth of what the group across was doing, whether it is things like lending, borrowing, or looking at hedging, et cetera. So I think that, and that then eventually grew into a bit of finance and then what is the other financial services firm.
00:03:30
Speaker
We had an extensive career there and we moved actually thanks to his career. We moved every three years, four years, we were in a different city. So when people talk of adaptability quotient, I think thanks to him, we learned it early on. And then eventually we settled in Bombay and
00:03:53
Speaker
And I think at 45, and he just felt that his other two kids were a little younger, that was probably the, either he would take the step then or never. So I think he just made that big jump, that leap of faith at that point in time. And it's unheard of because, you know, to give up a very nice, cushy job to really start off on.
00:04:27
Speaker
So how
Early Career in Finance
00:04:28
Speaker
did he fund the business? What was his idea, basically? Of course, his forte was always financed. And having got that experience across working with the Pirla group and before that he was with DCM and company called Swadeshi Politics. So he understood the whole piece of financial consulting for corporates or companies.
00:04:37
Speaker
At least then it was unheard of. Today's world is very different. I think if you look at the startup world, you'll see.
00:04:53
Speaker
And I think when he left his job, he knew that he had to be in a business which was not very capital intensive. And therefore, services, right? And within services, of course, you know, financial consulting was something that he did. He knew was his forte. So he said he'll do that. But in the meanwhile, I got married and my husband was also in the stock market.
00:05:15
Speaker
And he was a national stock exchange broker. And my father had a Bombay Stock Exchange card. So they said, OK, why don't we join forces? He said, I'm not interested in broking. So why don't you carry on with the whole broking piece? And I would still want to continue into corporate finance and financial consulting. So I think that's what the structure was. And obviously, he knew that we couldn't do anything that was very capital intensive because he hadn't changed.
00:05:45
Speaker
too many responsibilities at home. So there wasn't like a huge corpus. Yes, there was some amount, but not a huge corpus built to have anything in the manufacturing or in industry. So it was the way to go. What did you do in terms of after your schooling got over? Did you have a plan that you want to do something in the area of finance?
00:06:12
Speaker
So I think I always knew, I think, I always say that I think it was very deeply embedded in the DNA, but I think my father played a very, very instrumental role because while I was growing up, I mean, there were no, people wouldn't do internships then, right? But I think the day I joined college, he said, why don't you go to, my choice was between a college known as Sydenham and HR. And he said, why don't you join HR? Because that's seven to 10 in the morning, and then you can come and work.
00:06:39
Speaker
with me and you can handle the family portfolios. So you learn all of that. So a lot of credit to him for pushing me into using that part of the day. So whether it is managing our portfolios, family portfolios, or learning a new language, that was just basic and all of that. And just pushing me towards finance and finance related subjects.
00:07:09
Speaker
And then I interned with my uncle, who was a stockbroker. So I sort of got the hang of, I mean, by the time I was married, I knew what stockbroking was all about. And so I think he sort of pushed me from early days to say, look, you know, you have to, if nothing else, you need to understand how money works. Because no matter whether you build a profession in it or not, it is something that will always serve you well.
00:07:37
Speaker
And I think that to me was very empowering. And it was part of- You were investing real money like he gave you a corporate-
00:07:45
Speaker
Absolutely. So I started by understanding how he'd done the investments, right? So across our family portfolio, I would understand what stocks, when our dividends declared, make sure, you know, very basic. I think he started with making me do accounting stuff that, you know, check whether dividends have come in or not in each of the portfolios, each account, etc. And that just helped a very, very
00:08:09
Speaker
you know, fundamental understanding of how stock markets work. What does it mean to
Building Anand Rathi
00:08:13
Speaker
invest into stocks? You know, why do you look at stocks that pay dividends and you look at growth stocks where, you know, the appreciation of the stocks helps you build your capital. So I think that was very, very helpful. And which is why, to me, it's now, you know, it's something that's just part of who I am because it's been deeply embedded.
00:08:37
Speaker
So like around 1920 is when your father also started Anand Rati and then you started going to the office and learning the role. So tell me about the journey of how probably Anand Rati started with a small team of couple of people and how it grew, like your contribution also in that whole journey. Yeah. So actually when I got married, Anand Rati wasn't already set up. He was my father still with the Birlas.
00:09:05
Speaker
And my husband set up a stock broking company. So he came from, you know, the background of textiles. And he said, I want to, you know, 1991, everybody wanted to do stock broking, right? Because that was the Harshal Mehta time. It was a boom in the markets. There was just much money there. And he said, why don't we start something here? And which is where I helped him set up his national stock exchange, you know, the broking company.
00:09:31
Speaker
because I had that, you know, experience I knew. In fact, when we set up the company, I was actually doing institutional trading, sitting on the desk and doing trading. So that's the journey started. And then in 1994 is when Anand Rati was set up, when they joined forces. And invariably, I think,
00:09:56
Speaker
You know, the way we started functioning or how other than my father and my husband, every other family member who came in was like, look, we need hands, right? All hands on board. So that's how we joined the business, each one of us setting up a business.
00:10:15
Speaker
Of course, the company started really small, very small office. We had about, I think, 15 to 20 people. Essentially, as you can guess, most chartered accountants, most of them chartered accountants. 1520 is pretty sizable to start a company with.
00:10:32
Speaker
Yeah, but you see what was helpful was that we already had, in our national stock exchange, we already had a broken business. So that was already a business that, you know, that had revenues. And then of course, the financial consulting at that point in time, you know, it was not very sort of people heavy.
00:10:59
Speaker
And if anybody who wanted to sort of give a mandate for financial restructuring of the company, etc, they always wanted Mr. Rati there. So it was his brand basically. And then of course, over a period of time, we realized that it is not very scalable because if he has to give so much time and you know,
00:11:20
Speaker
irrespective of whether you build teams. So then slowly, of course, as each one of us joined the business, for example, when I joined, I set up the commodities desk, currencies desk. My brother joined in, he set up the wealth management business. Soon we had the investment banking business. My sister-in-law joined in, we set up the insurance business.
Strategic Decisions and Growth
00:11:40
Speaker
So that's how we sort of, I think when we just started, we said, okay, you know, let's see who brings in what strength, what can we do with these limited resources. But I think it helped to have, again, my father's acumen in saying that, you know, this is, you know, you actually come back to that whole unit cost system, which he had implemented with the Birla's and saying, you know, this is how we sort of look at
00:12:13
Speaker
In that sense, very unconventional. Most business houses then would say, OK, let's first build revenue, then take on expenses, right? For us, right from the beginning, we knew that if we had to create a business of this size, you need to get resources from outside. And which means that it will be an expense that you take on. But that is the way to grow to the size that you want to. So I think we did do it very differently. And I think most businesses didn't.
00:12:35
Speaker
building revenues. Also I think we were very
00:12:43
Speaker
Like your father put in his life savings. No, not just that. And I think, you know, I mean, today what you call the startup mindset is what we had back then, right? You said, okay, let's first just get in the, you know, the resources cost and we'll see how we, you know, very first and then figure out monetization. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was, I mean, the monetization was very clear, of course. We knew each of the businesses, there is a monetization happening very soon.
00:13:11
Speaker
But I don't think we waited for other businesses to sort of pay before we set up new businesses. And it helped to have family members who came in to set up different businesses. Right, right, right. Otherwise, you'd have to pay very high salaries for having professionals to do those things.
00:13:35
Speaker
Yeah, but interestingly, Akshay, one of the things that we always, you know, the way we've run Anand Rati is also that within a year and a half or two years, we build in a professional team for the business. So the family member actually is the entrepreneur, right? So they go and stick their neck out and they say, okay, let's create this business. But let's also get professionals to then take charge and
00:14:01
Speaker
So which is, you know, we today call ourselves or we are known as family led, but professionally run company. But we build a sizable business. By 2000, I think we were
00:14:14
Speaker
For retail, we were present across 1000 plus locations. Our branch offices were there. And this was like on like your old or franchisee models? So it was a mix of both, but we were the only group that had more of our own branches as opposed to franchisees.
00:14:37
Speaker
And so that by then I think we were very, very firmly established in the investment services retail piece. Our wealth business was just building up. I think we had started it and it had come, you know, it had picked up legs. Institutional business was for H&I's only or? Absolutely. It was H&I and ultra H&I actually.
00:15:04
Speaker
And that was picking up legs. Also, I think we had investment banking had also picked up. We had sort of said we started doing a lot of capital raising, corporate capital raising through IPOs or companies.
00:15:26
Speaker
Insurance was probably not started in 2000. So we were actively still in the broking space with an investment banking arm and the wealth management sort of picking up. 2000 is when I think that the broking space would have just started to get disrupted with the online players. So how did Anand Rati evolve as the market?
00:15:54
Speaker
Well, I'll tell you. So this is a very interesting story. So we also started with our online broking. And I remember us and Cher can't be debuted on the same day. This was 2001. And I remember that our this was 1999, I think just on the cusp of 2000. Right. And and we had all our because we went online, we had
00:16:16
Speaker
Because of our brand setup, we just had too many people log in in the first day itself. And I remember our site crashed, right? Because we weren't interested in traffic. But yeah, that was that. So we were amongst the first few to go online. I think technology is something that we've adopted or we've adapted to very quickly, right from the beginning. Because I think everybody pretty much had the mindset that we need
00:16:45
Speaker
to use technology, really, to run businesses, scale businesses. Right, right, right, right. OK, OK. And how did your role evolve? Like in 2000, what role were you playing? And how did that evolve? So again, just setting up businesses. And of course, around 2000, I'd actually taken a break because my son was born. And I hope we talk about Lakshmi, and I'm going to tell you why Lakshmi happened. I took a break, and then when I came back,
00:17:13
Speaker
Also, that was the time when, like you said, the capital markets or stockbroking as an industry had become very, very... When did you come back? So, this was 2004. And so, it had become very professionalized.
00:17:31
Speaker
And so had our company. So when I came back, I realized one of the things, I mean, I wasn't really adding value in the business because there were professionals who were very, very well qualified. And I think for me, it was time to set up, you know, play my role of setting up new businesses. So 2003 is when actually I started, I went back to school. So I did executive education at SPJN. So that was something that was always sort of left unfinished, right?
00:18:00
Speaker
So took care of that unfinished business. And I think while I was there, I sort of also looked at the landscape of within the financial services, what are the new trends? And of course, the commodity futures were just starting. Commodity futures in our country had been banned for almost 40 years.
Venturing into Creative Arts
00:18:25
Speaker
And then they sort of, you know, then the, the finance bill was passed which said, Okay, now, now we can have exchanges which offer future commodity futures. And that to me was a very interesting space because it was new, it was
00:18:41
Speaker
Markets were very unorganized even then. And it was challenging because the fundamentals and the way the markets behaved were very, very different to stock markets. It was like every commodity was an entire stock market by itself. So that's what I came back and I set up the commodity futures business.
00:19:03
Speaker
And then over the next few years, currency futures also happened, which is a great complement to the commodity futures, because commodity futures are essentially also very internationally linked. So your commodity prices are internationally a large part of your commodities prices, whether it's gold, metals, precious metals, or it is a lot of the spices or pulses, they were linked to international prices.
00:19:27
Speaker
And therefore, I think currencies was a great complement to commodities. So currency futures was also what was the test that I set up. So tell me about 2010.
00:19:43
Speaker
like decade by decade. So we talked about 2000 where we were. So 2010, 2010 commodity markets were booming. I think the business that I had set up was doing exceptionally well. We were amongst the top three commodity brokers. For me, it was personally also a very, you know, it was a challenging and gratifying journey. So around 13, 14, I guess you started getting into
00:20:12
Speaker
other things, like 13 I can see you started Ishka Phil and 14 of you did managing that role. So tell me about that period and the transition that had happened. Yeah, so I think there was one personal life incident which sort of just made me take two steps back and think about what exactly do I want
00:20:39
Speaker
want my life to look like going forward. And while I was 13, like this happened around that time. Yeah, just so 2011, actually, I lost my mother and she was very young. She was 59 when she passed away. And it just just made me sit, sit up and think that, you know, life is unpredictable. It's ephemeral and you need to start really
00:21:07
Speaker
you know, stop or rather stop living just in the present. You need to look beyond. And I think which is where I said, OK, these are the few things that I know I want to do. So my my mother was she was she had the artistic creative genes. I mean, I got them from her. I was always she made sure that we are all learning music. We are all into the arts in some form or not. Remember schools were not playing such an active role back then.
00:21:37
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks to my mother, I think all of us have got that exposure. And she would keep telling me that you're very creative, you should do something with the aptitude that you have. And I think after she passed away, I said, look, I mean, I do want to do, I want to create some sort of legacy. I know businesses are there and we are creating a legacy there. But maybe something which has a longer shelf life and which is more mine, personal mine as well.
00:22:08
Speaker
And then I was doing some work on creating a film fund, which was part of what we were thinking at Anand Rati, because a lot of our clients did want, at that time media and entertainment was booming. And everybody wanted one for 10, right? And we said, can we create a fund around in this space? So when I did my homework, I think I realized that, well, a fund is not very suitable because we are very conservative in offerings in wealth.
00:22:35
Speaker
and entertainment space is usually volatile. So you couldn't try it in a box and therefore it was not doable. But since I did my homework and I've always had that bent of mind saying, okay, I want to do something creative.
00:22:52
Speaker
You'd see a space evolving, a space for very, you know, sort of intellectual cinema. At that point in time, it was called intellectual, but today you have content has really become, you know, the thing, right? But at that point in time, it was essentially the stars. If you make a film with the stars, you had it, right? But the satellites were slowly buying content by saying, OK, even if theatrical, I don't make great money, I know that here.
00:23:20
Speaker
I can sort of de-risk it. And that space was empty. There weren't many people making a lot of interesting cinema. And I said, okay, this is probably one place that I would want to get in.
00:23:34
Speaker
So I told my family, this is what I want to do. And as you can assume, here is a family of financial experts. And they were like, right, folks, are you sure you're wonderful folks? Nobody makes films. But I had to really convince them. But that to me was also, that was the time when it was a huge recognition of the fact that as an individual, you have your own financial goals also.
00:24:05
Speaker
And are you really thinking about that? Or you're just assuming that, all right, in the future, if I want to do something, I'll do it, right? And I realized that this is something I want to do completely on my own. So to create that corpus took me some time. But the biggest learning was that if you have financial goals, it's important to write them down and start working towards them.
00:24:31
Speaker
And that's how Ishka films came about. And it all happened, actually, a lot of things fell into place. I had a great friend who, who suggested this, you know, who voted me to meet this filmmaker. And I met him, he had a great script. And, you know, I said, okay, this is the kind of film that I want to make something that's quirky, but still has entertainment value and yet leaves you with a thought.
00:24:59
Speaker
Which film was that? The first one that you did? Actually, the first one was eventually made second. It's a film called Karma. But actually, I started my journey with that script first. But we had to shelve it for some time because of some, you know, again, learning experiences. But we had to, I had to put it aside. And in the meanwhile, I had another great script that came my way and which was
00:25:23
Speaker
the director of the film Anu Menon, I met her and she described it. And that was the time that I was still sort of dealing with the loss, my mom's loss. And this resonated so deeply. And then I realized also during that time that when I spoke to people, every person had that sense of, everybody's gone through some sense of trauma and loss to loss of a loved one.
00:25:48
Speaker
And I thought it was a great film. And so right from scratch, I mean, that was my, waiting was my hands-on journey to filmmaking. So right from talking to the cast, writing to them, getting your budgets drawn out, you know, everything, marketing, publicity, just doing everything hands-on. I think in that one film, I sort of at least understood that, how do you, you know, what are the do's and don'ts of making a film?
00:26:15
Speaker
So yeah, that was that was my first film. And then of course, Carva got made in the meanwhile. And this is like your personal corpus that you invested in. Absolutely. Absolutely. So I didn't have a lot of money, right? So I had to make small budget films, but films which I truly believed in.
00:26:36
Speaker
How many films have you made under the Ishka? And this would be like, what? You would be a producer here? I'm a producer. And I've made, I think, features too. I've made three short films. But this is the thing, right? It, you know, it needs bandwidth. I am not the aim is not really to get a studio, but really make films that I believe in. So as in when I have time. But now I've set up a team at Ishka as well.
00:27:04
Speaker
So we are looking, so I have two or three features more in the pipeline. And I think that's a field that I've learned a lot and I apply a lot from what I learned there here as well in my financial services. I think it's... What kind of transferable learning have you got from filmmaking? You know, filmmaking, it was very interesting for me, that journey into filmmaking, when I just...
00:27:31
Speaker
you know, when we were making Waiting and I would speak to the script writer, the dialogue writer or the director or even Naserji and, you know, people who were Kalki, who were in the film, it was very liberating because when, you know, coming from where I was, it was a very, very structured way of thinking and working.
00:27:55
Speaker
It had backed by data, it had a structure and there was a need for uniformity in what you were doing. There was a checklist approach basically.
00:28:06
Speaker
And I think that was a completely different word. There were no rules of the game. There were no boundaries to how you could think. And I think that's why just being with the set of creative people, I think to me, it helped me also come back and say that there may be more ways of doing this than how one thinks.
00:28:34
Speaker
Also, I think it brought, you know, as a woman, I always thought that I brought a lot of empathy quotient to the team, to the company. But I think I brought back so much more with those interactions because, you know, those are people who are living life very, very differently than how we are. I mean, if you look at people in the film industry, it is a film to film.
00:29:05
Speaker
It's like a freelancing thing. There is no guarantee of what's going to happen tomorrow.
00:29:11
Speaker
And yet for them to live that fulfilling life to me just brought home the power of doing what you are 100% enjoying it totally and just being in it like you know and I think so many different things that that I think that impacted me as an individual which I think I sort of brought back
00:29:37
Speaker
to the teams here and a lot of people would ask me that how do you how can you do you know to completely like other ends of the spectrum sort of jobs but I think they were very very complimentary and
00:29:55
Speaker
It basically helped you increase your EQ, like your emotional question. Yeah, I mean, people tell me that I was always very, EQ was very, very, sometimes a bit too high. But I think, yeah, it did totally. And you became the managing director. So you take that role from like, who was the MD before that? And you tell me about that transition.
00:30:20
Speaker
So essentially, we typically sort of had an overarching umbrella over all our companies. But as you know, in financial services, because of different regulators and different compliances, every stream of business needs to have a separate entity. So for example, insurance has to be a separate entity from broking.
00:30:46
Speaker
Similarly, you know, now even your advisory has to be, you know, you can't do advisory and broking, but wealth had to be separate, you had investment banking. So there were just too many, NBFC had to be a separate structure. So that's when we sort of sat down as a, and we have a family board. So we within us sort of decided that we need to individually sort of
00:31:11
Speaker
Looking on our, you know, going by our core functions, what we spend most of our time over, we think we have the skill of, you know, where we are playing leadership roles. Choose to be on boards of their company. That was also the time we brought in more structure to our boards. We just made sure that we have external board members.
00:31:33
Speaker
you know, our boards are full, you know, completely sort of. Otherwise, if you see a lot of the family run companies, boards are, you know, they're just there in name, right? Okay, there is. Which is where we that's how we structured. So then, which is why we had kind of and we also said that we don't want all family members to be on all boards. Because I think individually, we were also evolving and growing. And I think each one of
00:32:02
Speaker
sort of needed that space to also work in. So which is why, you know, I was on the board, I am on the board of Anand Rati share and stock brokers, because preliminary, that's where I play a greater role.
Founding Lakshmi
00:32:16
Speaker
We were also setting something known as preferred channel, which is moving even forget commodities, but even moving our. And how would you rank them like which are the bigger parts of the businesses, like relatively?
00:32:33
Speaker
So I think obviously the ones that one that services are in, you know, our businesses, which is stockbroking business, I think that that is one of the larger chunks. But our construction and SMEs also, you know, maybe just slightly behind the so I would if I were to put it, you know, I would put 40, 40, 30 and 30.
00:32:58
Speaker
Just you're talking of the NBFC? NBFC, yeah. So within the group, like these entities, like what are their relative contributions to? Well, on contribution, I would say I think wealth management today is about 40% of our contribution. Okay. And our retail or our broking services and distribution, which is Anand Rati share and stock brokers is about 30%. And then we have all other businesses as well.
00:33:27
Speaker
Okay, okay, okay, okay. So, you know, tell me about Lakshmi, like, you know, when did that idea come to your mind? And what, what was the trigger for that? So well, like I said, right, there were a couple of milestones in life that made me, you know, just sit back and think that, why didn't I come from financial services, I understand financial planning. I'm somebody who didn't sort of plan for this financial goal.
00:33:57
Speaker
And then I think when I looked around me all along, especially when we deal within the retail services, when we speak to women about financial planning, it's very disturbing to see that women, whether they are earning their own money, doing great in their careers, very smart at what they do, when it comes to managing money for some reason, just sort of they are resigned to saying that the men will manage it.
00:34:25
Speaker
my husband, father. So they would understand the concept, but they would say, no, let me talk to my father or my husband or brother, and then I'll come back. And I think to me, that was something that invariably would affect me very, very deeply, because I do think that one of the reasons why we speak about gender equality, et cetera,
00:34:52
Speaker
One of the reasons why I think in terms of gender pay gaps, etc., there's still time to go and there's a recognition of it, but there's still some time till we reach the equal pace for men and women. But one of the fastest way of at least reducing this financial equality was just to start managing your money and making it grow.
00:35:16
Speaker
And that was also the one way of really saying, you know, for a woman not to have to compromise, whether it came to her career or her relationship or anything else in life, right? And if you're a woman, you have so many stories around you, which are just, you know, they sort of just cement the fact that yes, if this is not done, you suffer in just so many different ways.
00:35:43
Speaker
And third piece is that as a society.
00:35:47
Speaker
I think we will not be a healthy society till women play an active and equal role because when women take charge of their money or when they grow money or they are in charge of deciding what happens with that money, I think money is reinvested into families, into communities, which essentially makes our society and I think the communities that we live in far richer.
00:36:15
Speaker
And to me, I think the only, I mean, I used to always wonder that why we are not able to, even I talk to a woman, why am I not able to reach out to her, right? And while this was a pain point for a very long time, I actually did, like I said, unfinished business at various times of life. So I went to Harvard to study. I did executive education there. I did something as the OPM, which is like your crushed MBA programs.
00:36:47
Speaker
So there we were asked to make a pitch, a strategy pitch for a business idea, which was completely new. And this was where I, you know, because it was on my mind for a long time, I pitched
00:37:03
Speaker
this idea and at that point in time, for the lack of a better word, instantaneously, I said, OK, Lakshmi is a great word because it's a right. Right. What is Lakshmi in India? And yet we we as women think we are not good enough.
00:37:18
Speaker
Um, and which is why I called it at that point in time, I called it Lakshmi and pitched that idea. And it was, I think that that was the time when it really came home to me that first women managing their, not managing their money is not just an Indian problem. It's a global issue. Right. Second, in my cohort of 160 people, my batch mates, there were about 130, 35 men.
00:37:47
Speaker
And I think pretty much a large population of the men said, why do you need a different platform for women? Why should this? Here is the platform. There's so many people doing financial services, investment advisory. Why do you need a separate one? But each one of the women, and these are all women who are leading entrepreneurs in their countries,
00:38:08
Speaker
They said, wow, this is amazing because this is where we would have put our money in when we were younger and possibly that one way to really change or impact the way women live their lives.
00:38:27
Speaker
So to me, I think that was the deepest sort of my biggest takeaway also from Howard. And then of course, my professors, they connected me to a woman in the US who had started something similar at that point in time. And then of course, connected me with a lot of resources who could make me understand what their landscape was. So I came back home all charged with knowing what exactly I want to do.
00:38:56
Speaker
And that's how Lakshmi sort of happened. I came back here. I did a lot of primary and secondary research to understand because Indian geography is different. What would work in the US may not work here.
00:39:16
Speaker
we spoke to about 5,000 women to understand, you know, what are the pain points? What are the friction points? Why? While you intrinsically know that because you've been in the business, but it was good to document it also and analyze it, right? And say, OK, these are your data points. And I think once we'd done that, that's from, you know, that distilled is what then became what Lakshmi is today. You know, bringing the fact home that
00:39:45
Speaker
It has to be a digital platform because it takes away the whole inhibition of human interaction for women when they want to just try and understand. It has to have a lot of learning and literacy on it and in a way that women relate.
00:40:01
Speaker
So we churn out humongous research, right, between all financial companies and financial services. If you just look at the huge amount of research, but there is not one research that women find good, you know, easy to read and understand because there's so much of jargons. Also, it's all very sort of
00:40:26
Speaker
you know, targeted towards men, right? So how men think about men. So it's all about beating the nifty. It is about, you know, a lot of the technical jargons that you would speak about very, in that sense, you know, there's a sense of competitiveness even there when you know, when you're talking about your money.
00:40:44
Speaker
And as we said, let's structure a lot of content, which is very relatable. Women, typically we understood, even if I save 10 rupees, I know what I'm saving it for in my head. I know this is what I want to do with it, right? So very towards growing and investing their money towards financial goals.
00:41:05
Speaker
So that was that one big learning, you know, that you have all your content also has to be around that has to be around financial. We made a very, very easy to understand and yet very relatable learning content. So you could just go on to the app, learn simple basics about asset classes, investing, you know, financial plans, all of that.
00:41:28
Speaker
And this was the investment platform where a woman could go and because one of the things I realized is you may have all my years in financial services, I've been doing a lot of literacy programs, right? Every women's day, my calendar used to be chock-a-block just doing literacy programs for women.
00:41:44
Speaker
But it was stopped there. There was no clear call to action. And I think on this very, I mean, right from the beginning, I knew that this platform had to have a call to action where women could actually go and invest their money. So after you've done that look, how do you take the next step of investing? Because still you don't do that. It's just left to a little bit. You forget over a period of time.
00:42:07
Speaker
Right, right. So that's how Lakshmi, the platform was built. And today I think that is something that, I mean, while I am on the board of Anand Rati shares and stock brokers, it is Lakshmi that I completely, that's my baby, that's what I drive. So what is Lakshmi comparable to? Is it like a
00:42:32
Speaker
Paytm money kind of a product where you can do all sorts of investments and Yeah, so we are I mean the aim essentially so first of all, you know, it's also made me jump the fence from running a conventional business to really doing
00:42:49
Speaker
a startup, right? So the process is very different. We are building blocks. I know what the eventual roadmap is. And the roadmap is to become the money platform for women. So help her earn money, help her save money, help her understand about spending money a little bit more judicious, judiciously, and eventually invest her
Lakshmi's Growth and Challenges
00:43:13
Speaker
money.
00:43:13
Speaker
We started with the invest block first where we said we'll bring in and curate products and package them in a way that women find it easy to take that step of investing. But eventually it is what we are building now is also blocks
00:43:35
Speaker
of everything from earn to invest. So that's the roadmap. Eventually, when she wants to save her money, earn her money and then save her money. So have a savings account where she can understand, okay, you know, this is where she can understand her spending patterns, saving patterns, use that money to invest into different products, draw out her own financial plan.
00:43:56
Speaker
So Lakshmi doesn't aim to be an advisor. It aims to be a life coach, which is teaching you this life scale of saying this is how you build a financial plan for yourself. And it's targeted to women in the age group of 25 to 35, because that is the most underserved part of the market. Because that's the age that nobody's talking to, right? Financial advisors are not very keen on reaching out to women because of the long gestation period, right?
00:44:24
Speaker
And of course, we have spillovers on either side. So we do have 20 years old also now wanting to invest the money, as well as a 45, 50-year-old woman as well. And for us, all of this are the blocks. But the core and the center of all of this sits a community where women come. So we've created a safe space for women.
00:44:48
Speaker
only women in this space where they come and talk about money, challenges, opportunities, their experiences with money, what do they aim to do with that money, a place where they can ask questions, where they can mentor other women if you've done your journey of doing your first investment or achieving your financial goals. So the community sits right in the center.
00:45:11
Speaker
And which is where women actually let go of that self-doubt and saying, you know, because a lot of the women don't actually take that first step because either they don't want to ask because there's just too much intimidation, right? What if this sounds a stupid question? What if, you know, I laugh at me, right? There's no place for women to really go and ask that question or ask their questions. And third is the whole
00:45:39
Speaker
Fear of making mistakes. I know that if I'm going to make a mistake, which is a money mistake, I will be told, I told you, why did you do it, right?
00:45:53
Speaker
You know, it's OK if I'm cooking something and I make a mistake, it's fine. It doesn't matter. But if I'm putting my money somewhere and if I make a small mistake, I will be told off. Right. I think that's the ecosystem where women I mean, that's the environment that women sort of, you know.
00:46:11
Speaker
live in and therefore which is why they get left behind when it comes to you know making money decisions and this is what the community solves all of these three things right so you're watching other women who are in the same space as you or some women who broken that and moved ahead and said yes I've invested my money so you're breaking all of these you know
00:46:33
Speaker
social orientations, doubts, everything, and then learning from each other, the peer to peer learning. So, you know, you will not see a lot of communities with men on it, but you will see a lot of communities, women communities, whether it is fashion, relationship, parenting, lifestyle, anything. That's because I think as women, we like the collaborative approach as opposed to a competitive approach.
00:47:01
Speaker
And I think that's where the community again plays a very, very critical role.
00:47:06
Speaker
So it is not comparable to all the platforms that you just mentioned because it has its own unique features which help women, you know, do that journey of breaking those down. And does it have like a social feature? Like you said that. So if you come into the app, the first thing is it has a community. And we actually just so again, you know, Akshay, I was not very sure whether women would talk about money.
00:47:34
Speaker
in our community also, right? So we tried this out as a beta feature as a Facebook closed group. We started this last year, and today we have, and it's a closed group, so we can't market it. But just by referrals, we have 10,000 women on this group who are asking, talking money and very active. We have 75% engagement on this.
00:47:59
Speaker
Wow. Okay. So to us, it was a proof of, you know, it was sort of proof of concept that yes, there is a need and there is a space that we can create. So we've just migrated it onto the app now, community. So when you come onto the app, the first thing and this is right now only on the Android very shortly in the next three days in the iOS.
00:48:19
Speaker
So when you come onto the app, the first thing you see is a community feature where there is a crucial feature, right? Where you women are asking questions or the action is asking questions, opposing thought provoking questions. And we're not, you know, sort of answering, putting in their thoughts. So that's the first thing. And then you, of course, have the learning tools and the money tabs where you can just go and invest. So your eventual goal is to be like a neo bank like
00:48:47
Speaker
also to open up savings accounts for women. Absolutely. But you see, this goes beyond just a new bank, because what we're doing is we're creating an ecosystem for women, right? It's one of its kind. There isn't an ecosystem like this anywhere where a woman can look at everything to do with money, right? From, like I said, earning to investing their money. There are a lot of literacy programs, platforms, right, where women can go and learn. There are a couple of platforms where you can
00:49:17
Speaker
which are essentially saying, OK, learn about investment, learn about asset classes. But there isn't an end-to-end sort of a solution which can serve women for all their money needs. So it's beyond just a neo-bank also. It's far more. And the reason I say that is because I think, for example, even simple things like saving money.
00:49:47
Speaker
Today you speak to a lot of women and they will tell you that what we save is also not something that we control.
00:49:57
Speaker
It goes back to earning, saying, do you have the ability to earn your own money? If you have, then what sort of that earning should be going into your savings? Once it goes into your savings, if you're married, then this is what happens, right? You have a joint account, and yet you have your me account. If you're single, then based on your goals, this is how your spending pattern should look like, right? And I think very interestingly also,
00:50:25
Speaker
you know, when women look at saving money or investing their money, there are also a lot of other goals, for example, doing something for your parents, right, which is still a very difficult conversation for women to have if they're married.
00:50:41
Speaker
So it's tying in all these dots. So it's not just the science of managing money, but it is also your psychology of money, your needs from that, and then tying in the science together. So it's way beyond just the new bank, right? It's not just products, but it is really like I keep saying, it's the life skill.
00:51:06
Speaker
How will you get earnings? Will you offer some sort of gig employment opportunities on it? How will that earning piece come in? We already have a community which is very deeply engaged. We've been getting a lot of
00:51:26
Speaker
people reaching out to us saying that, you know, we can tie up, we can can women on your platform become partners for our product. I think we still have like a miso. Yeah, I mean, not reseller, yeah, sort of reseller sales funnels or, you know, also time, for example,
00:51:47
Speaker
the whole gig piece, right, the freelancing piece. But there's just so much you can do, Akshay. I think, like I said, our roadmap is clear, but I think it's building blocks and seeing, okay, which ones can we, we will focus on investing right now because that is that one piece which is completely underserved and which is a place that women, you know, and I think once you start seeing benefits of investing, then you want to go back to saying, okay, how can I get my own earnings? How can I increase my earnings?
00:52:17
Speaker
I mean, one of the things we tell our women is that you have to have two, three sources of earning. I think COVID has more than ever showed to us that if you're dependent on just your core job or core business, you are very susceptible.
00:52:31
Speaker
And therefore, you must have, you know, you should build up other channels of revenue. Benefits of investing and growing your money, if that is understood, then we do sort of a backward integration into saying you can now get the earning piece in. But right, totally focused on this journey of saving to investing. Okay, okay.
00:52:55
Speaker
And the monetization for you would be like when people invest so that there is a certain commission that you get to earn as a platform. So our choice is either to become an investment advisor or to have, you know, earn on the products. Right. And we realize that in India, in our country, I think people don't want to pay for advice.
00:53:24
Speaker
You know, because I don't think people take because it's also abundantly available, right? Like relationships, financial addresses available everywhere, go to Reddit, go to wherever you'll get financial.
00:53:39
Speaker
Absolutely. So I think it's hard, you know, it's just a mindset. People, first of all, don't sort of pay, you know, subscription advisory is just one of the toughest things to solve. Second, I also feel that that at the end of the day, if they are actually investing, the aim of Lakshmi is for women to start investing. And I think if I leave it at advisory, then at least Lakshmi is not accomplishing its goal.
00:54:07
Speaker
So therefore, for us, our mission is accomplished when a woman really invests her money. And how can we make her invest with absolutely no cost to her?
00:54:18
Speaker
So, for example, mutual funds, we are okay, we are regular funds, we will get a commission on that, but I think it's important for us to tell women that you can go and do a direct fund, but today if I can give 1% alpha and even more, then this is a place that, and for me it's pressure, right? I have to make sure that I'm giving women that solution.
00:54:41
Speaker
So we've chosen to be more on the distributor model of products and that's where I think our revenue model will be built out of.
00:54:55
Speaker
like the the investment which has happened so far through Lakshmi like so like it's bootstrapped by uh by uh me and my sister-in-law so we've put in our um and um and you know that's how we've started it so you know i mean the the users the women who have started investing through Lakshmi like what is that uh
00:55:20
Speaker
I don't know what you call it, like assets under management? Yeah, the AUM, well, I think, so the AUM, I think is still not a big number to talk about. But we have about half a million worth AUM within the Lakshmi because within the on the Lakshmi platform, the only reason being because we are not actually our aim is not to push
00:55:42
Speaker
on investments are, I think, focused to get women onto the community, get engaged and learn. And then for them to take that step, next step, right? But investments we've got so far is a proof of concept that yes, women, when they come to the community, they talk, they learn, they take that next step, right?
00:56:03
Speaker
So what would typically take a woman a year and a half or two years or sometimes never, right? The step to take. Today, it's a couple of months on a community and they take that step on their own. That proof of concept is there. So we have about, you know, 2000 odd women who have already actively investing their money.
00:56:27
Speaker
So I think those numbers now, we are focusing on getting the community more richer, like I said, migrating it onto the app. So it is that one place as opposed to a break in the journey from Facebook to the app. That's where we're focusing on. So yeah. And what's the plan? Do you like typical startup
00:56:53
Speaker
Mindset or strategy would be like spend money on customer acquisition and that 2000 number make it like 2 million or 20 million. So we are looking at I mean our first milestone is 5 million on the community. Sort of seen a 10 to 15% conversion from community to investing.
00:57:15
Speaker
And that 5 million number comes from essentially a percentage of women who are working women who pay taxes, who are digitally savvy. Because here you are asking women to invest their money online.
00:57:32
Speaker
which is sort of do money transactions and don't feel very of it. So that's our first milestone. And what is the time you put for that, like to hit five minutes? So I think it's very, I mean, we can, so
00:57:50
Speaker
I think the way startups, and this is, again, my learning process, is that you need to dig this into milestones, smaller milestones, that when I get 100,000, there are those breaks from where you grow exponentially. So I think our first milestone, which very shortly I think we shall reach, is about 100,000 women on the community. And then from there, we see, OK, how do we take it to the next step?
00:58:20
Speaker
Interestingly for us it is not just, it is customer acquisition is the first, I mean just number of users is the first focus right on the community. That's the top of the feathers for you. But I think the way we look at it is also, you know why it is also unique is because like I said we are community driven. I think what we do is a lot of partnerships with a lot of other women communities who want to bring home to their women the whole power of
00:58:46
Speaker
you know, growing your money, talking about money, finance, et cetera. And those partnerships actually are important for us to sort of get women with high intent onto the platform. Our focus on organic user acquisition is very high. What is it really doing? There is, of course, the paid acquisition. That is much needed as a support. But I think we spend right now a lot of energy, time, effort, and really
00:59:16
Speaker
going out and even on our social media handles, doing a lot of bootcamps, etc. It's a great way for us to win trust and then get users onto the platform.
00:59:36
Speaker
Are you looking at eventually getting external funding into it and all that? No, absolutely looking at getting external funding because I think which is why we sort of like I said there are milestones that we have right from where we know this is now exponential. So I think we're sort of walking that
00:59:56
Speaker
We're trying to walk, this is, you can't really sort of say with a lot of conviction that, okay, we will do this, but we're trying to walk that fine balance between, you know, value and dilution. And I think we have, I mean, we have a great example by way of Falguni Nair.
01:00:18
Speaker
Although that field is completely different, e-commerce and that too fashion is just, I think it's very, very different. But I do think that that is something that I would always pay attention to. Looking at what is a good time to go out and raise funds. So, you know, running a community comes with its own set of challenges around content moderation and
01:00:46
Speaker
How do you keep the trolls out and how do you ensure only women are joining? I mean, a man could pretend to be a woman and join. So how do you deal with those challenges? Yeah, so you've actually just hit the sensitive spot right now because that's what we are right now completely focused on. It's just the moderation on the community. See, Facebook is very easy to moderate.
01:01:12
Speaker
And because it's a closed group, you're able to moderate it very, very closely. But on the app, we have all the issues that you say, especially when you go out and say it's a women-only community, I think you sort of attract more. But we've built in those tools. And I think it's a work in progress.
01:01:32
Speaker
But how do you ensure only women join? Is there a KYC or something? So right now, what we have on the app is typically anybody, even if you click on the app and view it. But to interact, you need to sign up.
01:01:51
Speaker
Even if you want to put in a single comment or you want to like something, you have to sign up. I think that is the first friction point where you sign up. And then, of course, we are building in other recognition tools that are in the process. But right now, I think even the sign up works fairly well for us.
Reflections and Closing Remarks
01:02:13
Speaker
I wanted to ask you about the team. What kind of team do you have? How big is it? So we have 15 people in the team right now. This does not include my technology team because we are building it at ARIT, but now we are bringing that in-house as well. So yeah, we are a 15-member team, largely all women, but I am trying to build diversity here as well.
01:02:42
Speaker
So we have three men, but I mean, given the way Lakshmi is, it will always be by women for women. So yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Questions. OK, let me end with this. So you are a very public figure. Tell me about some of the questions that you hate to get asked.
01:03:12
Speaker
Okay, my favorite one is work-life balance.
01:03:17
Speaker
I mean, that is a question that is done to death. And I'm tired of answering that there is no work-life balance. If you're an entrepreneur, there is no balance. And if you're a woman, even more, no balance. I think it's just sort of, you know, just being in the present of what you're doing. I think that's one question that I'm just completely tired of asking, tired of being asked. I think other than that,
01:03:44
Speaker
So did your husband play a supportive role? Did your family play a supportive role? So yeah, you get questions like that, I think you, but it's okay. I think
01:04:07
Speaker
Sometimes it is in a way good and I tell myself this that it's important to say that yes, you have a supportive family. I think it's important to also understand that there are certain things that as a woman you have to create, right? You have to focus more on creating than men do. So creating a support system around you is something that's very important that women should focus on. I think there's no taking away from it.
01:04:28
Speaker
It just does allow you to perform better at work. It gives you the freedom to spend more hours. So I think these are also important questions. It's also important for the men out there to know that just by just sort of being equal partners brings so much value in a relationship, in a partnership. So I think sometimes just saying them aloud is also important.
01:04:59
Speaker
If you're a woman who's thinking about taking charge of your finances, then do check out the Lakshmi app that's LXME on Play Store or App Store.
01:05:13
Speaker
If you like the Founder Thesis Podcast, then do check out our other shows on subjects like Marketing, Technology, Career Advice, Books and Drama. Visit thebotium.in that is T-H-E-P-O-D-I-U-N dot I-N for a complete list of all our shows.
01:05:33
Speaker
This episode of Founder Thesis Podcast is brought to you by Long Haul Ventures. Long Haul Ventures is the long haul partner for founders and startups that are building for the long haul. More about them is at www.longhaulventures.com