People, Zerodha is by far one of the most fascinating business case studies in the

Indian startup ecosystem. In just 10 years, Zerodha went from 0 to $1 billion in

valuation. On one side where tech companies are on a cash drain wherein they are
incurring million dollar losses Zerodha has been very elegantly profitable with a
profit of more than ₹400 crores. And here's why it is mindblowing. all of this was
done with zero funding and zero marketing. I REPEAT. Zerodha went from zero to $1
billion in valuation with zero marketing and zero funding. The question is- In this
noisy world wherein companies are pouring in millions of dollars just to survive
in the market how is it possible that Zerodha has been able to achieve something
so incredible with zero funding and zero marketing. The answer to this question
comes from one of the most legendary entrepreneurs in the Indian startup ecosystem
who goes by the name Kunal Shah. In 2016, Kunal Shah delivered an INKtalk wherein
he proposed a very interesting theory which more or less explains the root cause
of the success of some of the biggest startups in the world. According to Kunal
Shah, in this world there are a ton of systems which have a ton of inefficiencies
and hurdles which often prevent ordinary people like you and me from moving into a
more efficient system. But we human beings once we find an efficient system we have
this innate ability to move on from where we never ever come back. As a result of
which if an entrepreneur is able to build a startup in such a way that he is able
to fix these inefficiencies and is able to help ordinary people overcome the
hurdle. He/she will be able to build a startup which will bring about a
revolution. And their startup will be such a revolution that it'll be bring about
an irreversible paradigm shift in the behaviour of the consumers. And once this is
done that startup will gain 3 massive superpowers which will boost that startup to
another level altogether. These 3 superpowers are: Number one, high cosumer
tolerance. Number two, unique brand proposition which will result into word of
mouth. And thirdly, it will result into an irreversible shift. A very simple
example that is closer to home is WhatsApp. If you see, all of us are using
WhatsApp but none of us are using WhatsApp because of an advertisement. If you
look WhatsApp as a system, back then, before WhatsApp even to send a local text we
used to think twice because 1 message used to cost us 1 rupee. And forget
international calls, even to make a normal call we used to think twice because
you'd run out of balance. But then when WhatsApp arrived, it took off all these
hurdles and today. texting has become completely effortless, that's the reason why
we spam a lot of people and that's the reason why you receive 'Good Morning' texts.
And if you look at calls, even making international calls does not look like a big
deal today. And most importantly if you see, you cannot even imagine going back to
your texting days. So, if you see there are 3 major superpowers that WhatsApp
gained as a startup. which boosted WhatsApp to another level altogether. Number
one, unique brand proposition which resulted into word of mouth. As in, WhatsApp
gave you something that you had never seen before, as a result of which customers
were screaming at each other to use WhatsApp as a result of which WhatsApp was able
to go from 0 to 400 million users in less than 5 years. And today, WhatsApp has
more than 2 billion users. Number two, like I said we cannot even imagine going
back to our old texting days, as a result of which there is an irreversible change
in our behaviour. And lastly, when we come to high tolerance if you see, inspite of
the creepy WhatsApp Privacy Policy you are still using WhatsApp. Inspite of us
understanding the dangers of WhatsApp forwards we are still using WhatsApp. And
inspite of call lagging we still do make WhatsApp calls. So if you see, we have
developed very high tolerance towards WhatsApp wherein even if they make big
mistakes, we are extremely tolerant towards it. And we will still keep using the
service as a result of which customer retention-which is one of the most difficult
things to do- is done in a way that nobody can even imagine. So, this is how by
fixing the inefficiencies of the texting system the founders of WhatsApp were able
to claim their pot of gold as a result of which they were able to create massive
wealth eventually sold WhatsApp for $19 billion to Facebook. And the founders of
Zerodha did exactly the same. Before Zerodha Nikhil Kamath observed that there were
3 major hurdles that were troubling the existing investors and were also
preventing common people of India from investing into the stock market. And these
3 hurdles were: Number one, lack of knowledge and awareness. As you all know, in
India we make more life decisions based on myths and emotions rather than knowledge
and strategy. The second hurdle they observed was that of brokerage fees as in the
conventional brokerage firms were charging a percentage commission on the amount
of investment the investor was making which resulted into exorbidant brokerage
fees. And third and most importantly, the entire process of investment was very
very tedious and very complex for a common man to understand. And that is the
reason why they came out with 3 unique solutions which turned Zerodha into a
billion dollar company. The first solution they came out with was to tackle the
lack of knowledge and awareness as a result of which to educate the Indian
population, they gave came out with something called Zerodha Varsity which is an
extensive collection of stock market and financial lessons wherein anybody can go
out there and understand how the market functions eventually, to gain enough
knowledge to make a strategic investment. And after learning from here any newbie
can go out there and make a confident investment as a result of which then and
there itself Zerodha started commanding the loyalty of the newbies. The second
solution they came out with was to discount the brokerage fees to such a large
extent that it literally resulted into a revolution. Like I said before, most firms
were charging a percentage commission as in, if you were making an investment of a
few lakhs you'd have to pay tens of thousands of just brokerage. And guess what?
Zerodha turned this into a super efficient and super affordable system wherein
they charged ₹20 or 0.03% whichever is less for all intraday trades. And guess
what? they charged zero fees for all equity and direct mutual fund investment. And
third and most importantly in order to resolve the tedious and complex process of
investment they used the internet and came out with a beautiful website and a very
simple user interface for their mobile application. Using which any common man can
get familiar with the entire process of investment without any hassles and with
100% transparency. And if you're also a newbie in the world of investment you can
use the link below to create your Zerodha account today and jumpstart your
investment journey. And that is how, by fixing these 3 problems the founders of
Zerodha claimed their pot of gold as a result of which today Zerodha is a billion
dollar company with zero investment in marketing because the consumers were
screaming at each other to use Zerodha. And today, 4 million investors are making
their investments using the platform of Zerodha. Now, the question is- What do we
as entrepreneurs have to learn from this incredible case study. People, we all
need to understand that funding is one of the ways to accelerate your startup but
not the only way to do so. So, if you are somebody who is reluctant to pursue your
idea because you are waiting for funding I would highly recommend you to do some
introspection and see how you can proceed ahead without funding. And last and most
importantly, we all need to realize the fact that there are hundreds if not
thousands of pots of gold all around us in the form of inefficient systems. And
each one of them offers ordinary people like you and me the opportunity to go out
there and claim our pot of gold eventually to build a business empire out of it.
The only question that we've gotta ask ourselves is Are we going to crib about the
problem or are we going to fix the problem? And this attitude of crib or fix will
eventually decide our destiny. That's all from my side for today guys. If you
learnt something important and found something valuable in this video please make
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please subscribe to our channel. Thank you so much for watching. I'll see you next
week. Bye-Bye. Take care.