{
  "video_id": "ObBAxL2dFzw",
  "channel_slug": "ycombinator",
  "channel_handle": "ycombinator",
  "title": "How Groww Turned Full Transparency Into India's Largest Investing Platform",
  "duration_seconds": 1811.0,
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObBAxL2dFzw",
  "upload_date": "",
  "transcript": "Most of the time like you would not\nbuild what customer is [music] directly\nasking but you read between the lines\nokay you know what so customer did not\nsay okay show me all the products and\nthen show me all the products in\ntransparency and make the payments\nfrictionless and so on.\nWhen I learned about grow first, you\nwere in the winter 18 Y cominator batch\nand um you you guys sort of had a pretty\nsimple vision and it's one that you know\nit's actually one that I resonate with\nuh pretty significantly. You and I built\nsimilar along similar visions which is\nto enable everyone in India to be able\nto invest right and you know fast\nforward to today uh you know you've\nexperienced astounding growth and in\nNovember um you went public uh you're\nnow a public company um what what an\namazing amazing journey um I I guess I\nwant to open you know by saying that\nthis what part of what we've learned a\nlot about building product um you know\nat YC predominantly a lot of it in the\nUS has been B2B but you've built a\ngenerational consumer fintech company\nand so I want to focus our conversation\non how to build really good consumer\nfintech um but let's rewind the clock a\nlittle bit um you know how as you were\nperhaps the age of some of the folks in\nthe audience today what was going\nthrough your mind like what made you\nwant to build a company was that always\nyour your vision\nYeah. No, first of all, uh John, thank\nyou so much. Uh we owe a lot to YC and\ngreat to be here and such a great energy\nand special hello to all the grow\ncustomers out there. So, uh so yeah, so\ncoming back to this right so I think um\nif I uh if I got it correctly like how\ndo we think how do how I started\nthinking about startups and so on. So I\nuh I grew up in a uh small city in in\ncentral India and um uh my my\ngrandmother always wanted to wanted me\nto become an is officer. Uh do you guys\nknow what is an IS officer right? So uh\nin fact she coined a blessing. So when\nin India you touch the feet of your\nelders when uh every day basically we\nused to touch and she coined this term\ncalled is bhava basically become an is\nright so it's like that so I think a lot\nof people here will have that context\nand I was in that frame of mind and I\nthink somewhere I got to know about uh\nApple about Steve Jobs right and that\nkind of uh kind of wired my brain very\ndifferently but somehow I did not know\nabout startups at all. Right? This is we\nare talking about year 9798 and so on.\nSo startup was not the word that I knew\nabout but then I came to IIT Bombay and\nthat [clears throat] was the time of 99\nor 2000 right you know that was the com\nboom and everybody around me was doing a\nstartup right maybe somebody is printing\nsome t-shirts and shipping to customers\nand so on and I was like yeah this like\nyou know being independent doing your\nown stuff this this sounds fun so that's\nhow I think that seeds of startup kind\nof uh uh I mean startups got exciting\nfor me.\n>> When you first started was grow the\nfirst kind of iteration of the idea or\ndid you were you guys sort of tinkering\nand and building other things? How how\ndid that evolve?\n>> No. So uh grow uh it's lot of tinkering\nand that's something that what we have\nlearned like you know lot of times when\nyou start you have some very broad idea\nin your mind but you know how do you\nkind of arrive at that by the way grow\nis not my first startup it is my second\nstartup and if you count my student\nstartup it will be like a third startup\nright and all of them failed before even\ngrow the first idea that we started with\nactually failed which was uh something\nvery different from what you see grow\ntoday, right? And uh what we started\nwith was like a robo adviser, right? In\n2016, robo advisor were getting very\nvery popular in the US, right?\nWealthfront, betterment and so on. And\nuh when we uh when we uh in 2016 when we\nstarted thinking about this problem, we\nsaw that you know in a country of\nbillion plus people\nand uh even what at Flipkart where were\nwe are like hundreds of millions were\nkind of buying online and the number of\ninvestors was like low single digits\nright 20 less than 20 million investors\nand it did not make sense. So we thought\nokay let's do a robo advisor for all\nthese customers and lot of customers\nwill come and so on and guess what it\ndid not work out uh and uh and then the\niterations started okay what is what\nwhat actually works and what we realized\nis that when customers use the product\nthey would always ask why this product\nwhy not that and so on and that led us\nto kind of thought process of selection\nwhich is like what Flipkart stands for,\nright? You go to Flipkart, you choose\nall the things that you want, full\ntransparency and so on. And that's how\nlike the new\nthe the the grow in the current format\nis came into being.\n>> Yeah.\n>> And and I think that's particularly\ninteresting. Um you know, obviously I\nknow the robot advisory products well.\nUm but but it's particularly interesting\nin this case because you made a decision\nvery early on that maybe was somewhat\ncounterintuitive um when people were\nbuilding consumer products or maybe even\nsome of the advice that you got early on\nat YC which is you opened up the\nplatform like you showed people\neverything and you you know full\ntransparency. Um, I'm curious, you know,\nwhat led to kind of that that initial\ninsight, but also why were you leaning\ninto it so hard? Because I think that is\na bit counterintuitive, right? You want\nto charge the customer and get get, you\nknow, and with the recognition that you\nmight not actually have revenue for some\nperiod of time.\n>> Yeah. So, um, uh, I think that's always\na question, right? How, so one thing was\nvery clear, Robo Advisor is not working.\nNow the next thing is what will work and\nthen you create a hypothesis. Okay based\non the customer signal which is like\nokay customers are always asking like\nwhy this why not this and then customer\nasking about a specific product like\nthat product is not on the app but they\nare talking about it and so on. So one\nhypothesis was okay let's put the put\nthe product that customer customers are\nasking and now if you have like\nthousands of customers they asking all\ndifferent products. So let's put all of\nthem and then we also try to connect it\nwith what we have learned in the past\nright customers Indian customers care\nabout uh choice and they care about\ntransparency and then uh are almost\nalmost after an year of starting so we\nstarted in 2016 uh which was April 20\nMay 2016 we'll become just completing 10\nyears now uh the the the grow product\nwhich what you know was launched in May\n2017 so like exactly 1 year later and\nthe with this hypothesis that let's open\neverything with full transparency and\nand very seamless payment very seamless\nonboarding and we launched it we thought\nokay u like if we get like 100 customers\nin this month we I think we will be\nhappy and then we got 600 customers so\nwe got a very strong feeling about this\nPMF what is product market fit right\nthat I think customers are liking\nsomething and then you dig deeper on the\nfact what they are liking and keep\ndoubling it down and it's like an\niterative process and the more you keep\ndoing it your customer acquisition cost\ngoes down your engagement goes up your\nretention goes up and then customer love\nwhich is like NPS score NPS stands for\nnet promoter score so basically you ask\ncustomers out of 10 uh you know how much\nu how what is the kind of you know how\nmuch would you to promote it to your\nfriends and then what what do they say\nand we got like crazy crazy customer\nlove like it started word of mouth\npeople started talking about it and so\non there was only one question mark\nwhich is about monetization and and that\nis the biggest lesson that I have kind\nof learned that in a startup there will\nalways be uh multiple question marks and\nif you can reduce it to like one\nquestion mark I think that's like\nreducing risk and especially in consumer\nbusiness and this advice is specific to\nmore consumer business that uh you know\nif uh if there if there are no question\nmarks then then I think it's kind of not\nuh you know it's not like a consumer bet\nI feel yeah I I love the the early days\num and and this early sparks of\nconviction that it gave you was a very\nfew set of customers um I'm curious is\nwhat kind of what are what did that feel\nlike for you to just see a very small\ngroup of customers? Were you sort of\nthinking about oh we got to we got to\nnow get more of them. Were you thinking\nabout hey we got to really do the\nunscalable thing and and talk to those\ncustomers? Curious how you guys built up\nfrom a very very small base. So one\nthing is like um uh we used to talk to\ncustomers like a lot like so we created\nlike lot of WhatsApp groups uh we would\ngo in Kora Kora was very popular at that\ntime in India we would go to like you\nknow sometimes me and my co-founders\nwill go to like uh movie theater before\npeople are watching movies right talk to\ncustomers there so I think customer\nsignal if if you have like 20 20 people\non your apps it's very tough to kind of\njust get insights from those 20 folks.\nSo you need to kind of expand your\nhorizon and then as soon as customer\nsigns up you put them into a personal\nWhatsApp group so that you are\naccessible and then kind of continue\nchatting and then try to get some\nsignals from there. You know most of the\ntime like you would not build what\ncustomer is directly asking but you read\nbetween the lines. Okay, you know what?\nSo customer did not say okay show me all\nthe products and then show me all the\nproducts in transparency and make me\nlike you know uh make the payments\nfrictionless and so on. But then you\nhave to kind of understand that that is\nthe actual elephant in the room. That's\nthe thing that you need to need to\nremove and all.\n>> Yeah. And and so how long did it take\nyou guys to sort of reach a moment when\nyou think oh this is like this is\ngrowing this is going to work.\n>> Yeah. One year. So as I said like 2016\nMay 2016 we started in 2016 17 May 2017\nwe launched the product and I think\nwithin like 10 15 days or so we got this\naha mean aha kind of feeling yes this is\nworking because you could you could see\nthe like you know the buzz you you could\nsee customers talking about you and then\nin so organic growth which is like when\nyou don't need to pay to acquire\ncustomers right when customers are\ncoming themselves That is like the\nproduct market fit and when you see them\nretaining over day over day uh and then\nengaging more and more talking about you\nI think that then you kind of get a kind\nof\n>> Yeah, I think this is a really important\npoint like how how many how much of your\ngrowth early on was people talking about\nit with other people versus you having\nto go out there and sort of spend\n>> almost almost 100%.\n>> Wow.\n>> Right. It was like full fully on by the\nway even today for example. Right. Most\nof our growth is organic growth. Most of\nit is word of mouth. Like all the folks\nwho raised uh hands like if you ask them\nhow did you come to know about grow most\nof our customers we'd say they were kind\nof uh recommended by their friend or\ntheir you know their cousin or their and\nand and some of them like you know uh\nsome of the older folks their kids\nrecommend them. Right. I think we've\nseen uh earlier talking to um to Harsh\nfrom Razer Pay, you know, there there's\nin regulated industries that we work in\nin sort of investments and fintech,\nthere's often these really, you know,\neither good or really bad sort of\ntailwinds, right? Or headwinds. And\nsometimes you really have to be nimble\nenough to catch it. And I think you guys\ndid. I'm curious how you navigated all\nthe different regulatory change over\ntime because you know and again like I\nthink folks may may not remember some of\nthe the stuff uh from uh from a while\nago but but I'm curious how you put\nyourself in that position um to to\nreally leverage that.\n>> So so we make we made some very uh\nstrong strategic choices early on and\none of them was that we will play only\nin regulated zone. So basically now when\nyou talk about regulations there are\nsome areas which are not regulated at\nall. There are some which are regulated\nand then there's a gray zone. Gray zone\nand not regulated is like 40% of the\nthing maybe. But we thought okay let's\nplay in regulated zone that means going\nand taking the license and then doing\nthe business right. So I think with that\nmindset uh once you have that kind of so\nand that's what I believe like when you\nstart you should have some very strong\nchoices because uh basically removing\nthe variables right and once you remove\nthe variables then kind of it becomes u\nuh like you know the decision making and\nthe and the execution becomes much\neasier and over time as you grew I'm\ncurious you know you had left this sort\nof pin monetization\nHow did that play out?\n>> So uh so by so I'll I'll tell you about\nmonetization right. So when we started\nwe started with uh mutual funds and\nthere we used to get some commission\nactually uh which is like you know which\nwas not very high but then we saw\ncustomer demand again another one\nimportant pivot that we made on our\nWhatsApp groups customers started asking\nwhy uh so grow is a very good platform\nvery beautiful UX and all but why\nregular mutual funds uh why not direct\nmutual funds which is like zero\ncommission mutual funds and all these\nwere power customers\nAll these are very vocal customers. They\nwould talk about you and so on. But the\nproblem is if you have uh if you move to\nzero commission then how do you make\nmoney right? And then uh this is how we\nthought I mean back uh many years back\nthat you know uh if we look around the\nworld and if you look about uh look at\nall the consumer products if a product\nhas very low uh CAC which is like almost\norganic zero CAC you can say if it has\nvery high retention if it has very high\nengagement and very high customer love\nand and other thing is if you are moving\nlot of money right it's kind of very\nhard to find a company that does not\nmake money. So we took this bet for\nfirst four years we were like a zero\nrevenue company and then again there was\nlot of customer demand that you know\nthere are mutual funds why not stocks\nand that was the that unlocks the\nmonetization lever for us.\n>> Yeah. and and as you've been\nexperiencing sort of a significant\namount of growth obviously um how did\nyou change\nwhat how you approached how customers\nreally love the product cuz you know I\nthink what's really inspiring about this\nis the core the central um thesis that\nyou guys had or the central execution\nplan was to make a product that people\nreally really love not just are okay\nwith not just that they have to come\nback to but\n>> really that they must love and how has\nthat changed over time as you've had to\nscale in the number of people.\n>> So, so we so by the way we have one\ncommandment. So we have 10 commandments\nbut one of them is obsess over design.\nDesign is very very important for us and\nuh although like um\nuh you can have n any number of\nframeworks to kind of uh think about\nproduct quality and so on. But one\nanother thing is that uh be the power\nuser of your own product. So Paul Graham\nsays right that if you're building a\nconsumer product uh build for yourself.\nSo so at least you will have one\ncustomer right even if you don't have\ntoo many customers. So uh so every\nrelease or every app that goes out like\nwe use it a lot. So personally I use\nlike my product more than 2 hours a day\nright and then around 2 hours a day I\ntalk to customers about who are using\nthe product and so on. So although there\nwill be QAs and there will be you know\nquality folks and so on but then the\nreal feeling comes when you are actually\nuser of your own product and then you're\nin direct touch with the customers and\nespecially the power customers. It's\nbetter to be in touch with like super\nsuper power customers right because they\ncatch things they they I mean it will be\nme. So one one thing that we look at\nwhen we launch any feature or something\nand I tell my team that I should start\ngetting uh two kinds of messages either\ntwo kinds of messages some people should\nsay oh this is just awesome I love it or\nthey should say this is terrible I hate\nit right both of these are okay if it is\ndon't care that is the problem right\nbecause then it means that customers\ndoes not care about what you launched\nthat's I I love that so even at the size\nthat you are now you are still talking\nto customers. That's insane. That's\nthat's fantastic.\n>> No, Paul Graham says right do things\nthat don't scale.\n>> Yeah, absolutely. And and that is no\nmatter how big you get, I think uh that\nthat holds true. So as as you look at\nthe new wave of consumer products um\ncertainly people are using AI a lot\nmore, some to to figure out what they\nshould invest and sort of make\ndecisions. How do you view competition\nor the competitive landscape as as\npeople are building consumer AI\nproducts?\n>> We uh I mean from grow perspective we\nare always paranoid because like some of\nuh younger folks sitting there they kind\nof understand their generation much\nbetter than us like we are getting\nolder. So so what we try to do is we try\nto be in the company of younger folks as\nmuch as possible. one of the reasons I\ncame here right uh and I think in\nconsumer world it's all about\nunderstanding the customer and it's very\ncounterintuitive that the more you worry\nabout the competition the more kind of\nyou go away from the customer and the\nbest way to kind of deal with\ncompetition is to like not worry about\nthe competition but focus on the\ncustomer and understand their\npreferences how they are changing how\ntrend are changing, how the tech is\nchanging, like how AI will impact the\ncustomer experience, how productivity\nwill go and so and that is how we think\nagain we might be wrong but uh we are\nalways kind of uh paranoid about uh\nabout disruption.\n>> Yeah. And and when we were talking\nearlier um you you're personally playing\nwith cloud code quite a lot. I think\nyou're I would consider a power user. Um\nhas that shaped your view on how you\nshould run the company or build?\n>> Yeah. So I I think I love playing around\nand uh and when you do it yourself, when\nyou dirty your hands, uh then only you\ncan imagine like that it's something\nsimilar to what we talked about talking\nto customers, right? So when you\nactually on the are on the ground and\ntalking to customers, you get the\nfeeling of how customer is thinking, how\nhow do how do they live, how do they\ntalk and so on. Likewise, if you're\ntalking about technology and you are far\naway from it, not directly dirting your\nhands, it's very difficult to imagine.\nAnd now so when I started using uh like\nyou know all these coding tools and I\nstarted coding myself I used to be a\ncoder before but been many years and now\nagain you get this uh tech where you\ndon't have to worry about lot of\nhousekeeping stuff on the in coding and\nand uh and then you realize oh this is\npossible this is possible and then uh\nand then you kind of start promoting it\nwithin the company and so on right so I\nthink uh that is uh that is a side\neffect but the primary thing is you just\nyou just kind of get like you know\nengaged. You kind of get addicted to\nsomething some solving problems.\n>> Yeah. And I'm sure um folks in this room\nare looking at potentially building AI\nconsumer experiences in many different\nfields. Um having built a really\nsuccessful one, do you think that\nbuilding AI consumer experiences has\nchanged? What what what do you think\nneeds to change or what maybe stays the\nsame? um for you.\n>> So what stays the same is understanding\nthe customer need and want. Of course\nyou can use lot of AI tools to\nunderstand that but you have to nail\nthat but then once you have figured out\nwhat needs to be built the how part is\nnow so like much much easier. So earlier\nin our world like you know I call\ninternet world as like past world our\nworld how how would you build a product?\nYou would hire maybe engineers. Let's\nsay three engineers. Then you will hire\na product manager who will tell\nengineers what to do. And then you have\nto tell okay how should be the design.\nSo you'll hire a designer right and then\nuh if it is there's some operation\ninvolved then you will hire operations\nfolks and then oh who will look at the\nP&L revenue cost and so on. So let's\nhave a business guy and so on. So by the\nlike to just to build like a startup you\nhave like 10 15 people and so on right\nbut now what happens like now one person\nwho thought about what needs to be built\nhe can sit down with some free credits\nand then uh you know on cl like design\ndo uh product management coding and\nwrite some automation task for\noperations and you're like you know the\nthe barrier to kind of doing something\nhas just gone down so significantly.\n>> Yeah. And and as you look forward um\ngive us a sense of what's coming up or\nwhat's next for grow.\nSo uh uh I think now we are a listed\ncompany so getting bigger and bigger\ntrust. So what happened? So we have like\nmillions of customers now. We are the\nlargest in the country today and um and\nlot of our customers are kind of\nbecoming wealthy right so now they have\nlot more capital so what happens is that\nin a customer journey so when you start\nlike a lot of younger folks here they\nstart with let's say buying a stock or\nbuying a mutual fund or you know buying\nsome one product and so on and then as\nyou kind of continue growing right let's\nsay you are now uh you come on grow when\nyou are let's say 25 now you are 35\nright somebody came at 27 30 now they\nare 40 and so on so now you are you have\nlot more significant wealth wealth is\ndirectly some you know somewhere\ndirectly proportional to the age\nsecondary grow customers are especially\nthey they are very prudent and they are\nmuch like I say I like to think that\nthey are very very smart so they grow\nfaster so their wealth is growing very\nfast and then once you are wealthy then\nyour needs also kind of change right so\nas a product in a product journey you\nneed to continue evolving your product\nas the customers grow if you don't do\nthat then then basically then there are\nlike lot of smart folks building\nalternative products and so on right so\nI think that is the most important thing\nfor us right now so wealth management is\nsomething that we are very very excited\nabout and then on grow side uh like um\nhow to kind of make it uh very very uh\nsmart for the the younger folks. So in\nIndia you can start investing after 18\nyears uh and um and like how can we be\nlike you know the most u um kind of\nexciting choice for them. Amazing.\nAmazing. Now um I do want to shift gears\nand talk about something that maybe we\nhaven't talked about yet which is um\nco-founders. Um uh you have a pretty\nunique situation. you have three other\nco-founders, four of you on the team.\nYou know, normally it's\n>> somewhat hard to get two people to align\nuh perfectly in a co-founder\nrelationship, but you have four and\neverybody that's worked with you\nunderstands that you're always very well\naligned and and you know, you act as um\nwith with great urgency and consensus.\nSo, I'm curious, how did you navigate\nthat with four founders?\n>> Yeah. So I think uh so number one thing\nis right I think um if you are going for\na very long journey it's very important\nthat your value systems are aligned so\nwhat do I mean by value system so value\nsystem is like something written with a\npen right and then strategy\ncan continue changing year on year like\nit's like a something written in pencil\nright but uh but if value system is same\nso when we started we wrote down\neverything in a very very big document.\nYou know what do we stand for? What will\nwe do? What kind of compromises we can\ntake or what kind of choices we'll take.\nSo for example we the first line was we\nwill always be customer first customer\nobsess. So now if there are no conflicts\nin decision making for next 10 years 20\nyears I think you are good right? So\nthat's the so creating a very well-\naligned value system so at least their\nconflicts don't happen. Second uh very\nclear\nuh uh clear ownership right you know so\nso who is uh who is owner for what now\nin a startup typically what happens is\neverybody does everything like all four\nof us are someday products managers\nsomeday engineers you know operations\none of like hers used to take calls like\nyou know when c customer he used to do\ncustomer support right he would do KYC\nsometimes Ishan is a finance guy but he\nused to code and so on right So it's\nit's and they used to make content. I\nnobody has created content but they will\nyou will see if you go to grow channels\nand if you lick very old videos like 9\n10 year old videos you will see very\ncrappy videos done by us right so you do\neverything but it's about taking\ndecision about the ownership then you\nsay okay for tech he is the uh owner\nowner means he will he responsible and\naccountable for doing certain thing.\nLastly, if there is a anyways, if there\nis a m if there's a very macro decision\nand if there is a conflict, then who is\nthe who is the owner, right? So, if you\nhave like these kind of things well\naligned, I think it has it has worked\ngreat. So so far for us and I think we\nstill like and okay another thing like\nyou you need to enjoy their company\nright you should you should feel like\nokay even today like you know weekends\nlike weekend is is the only time when we\ndon't get to see each other but still\nlike we have we are chatting\ncontinuously on WhatsApp okay what is\nhappening and Monday you still feel like\ngoing to office Monday even if sometimes\nyou know in founders journey there are\nups and downs and so on but if on Monday\nyou still are going to somebody whom you\nlove working with I think that's like\nThat's like the ideal co-founder\nrelationship.\n[applause]\n>> Yeah,\nthat's that's amazing advice. And and\nyes, like you know, we we get this\nquestion a lot obviously at YC about\nwhat to look for in a co-founder. It's\nalways someone that you're really really\nexcited to work with, right? Um because\nyou're going to be doing it for a long\ntime if things work. Um so one one last\nquestion. Um as you look at the crowd\ntoday, some folks are I'm sure thinking\nabout building companies. What parting\nadvice would you give them? Like what\nactionable advice would you give them to\nget started?\n>> I'll give two advice. One is don't\nlisten to older folks like me when you\ndo a startup\nbecause the world is changing just so\nfast and all the advice that is given is\nfrom the context of you know uh what we\nsaw but you know I think younger folks\nhave much better context now and in\nspite of that warning I'll again give\none advice is like do something where\nyou don't feel like doing work like you\nknow if you're like doing something time\nshould just kind Time should be like a\nblur and it should be like you should\nenjoy. Yesterday I was in a meeting and\nsomebody asked me a question key okay\nwhat sacrifices have you done done in\ndoing while doing grow and then I\nstarted thinking and I thought you know\nthat we always enjoyed building grow\nright and I think I can't think about I\nI of course there are low times and so\non but I mean everything was fun so I\nthink that's the most important thing\nhaving fun [applause]\namazing amazing well it's been such a\npleasure thank you so Much everybody\ngive it up for La Kishray from Grow.\nThank you so much.\n>> All right.",
  "transcript_chars": 27411,
  "ingested_at": "2026-06-17T04:31:53.252339+00:00",
  "source": "channel",
  "yt_meta": {
    "view_count": null,
    "like_count": null,
    "channel_id": null,
    "categories": null,
    "tags": null
  }
}