Most of the time like you would not build what customer is [music] directly asking but you read between the lines okay you know what so customer did
not say okay show me all the products and then show me all the products in transparency and make the payments frictionless and so on. When I learned
about grow first, you were in the winter 18 Y cominator batch and um you guys sort of had a pretty
simple vision and it's one that you know it's actually one that I resonate with uh pretty significantly. You and I built similar along similar visions
which is to enable everyone in India to be able to invest right and you know fast forward to today uh you know you've experienced astounding growth
and in November um you went public uh you're now a public company um what an amazing journey um I I
guess I want to open you know by saying that this what part of what we've learned a lot about building product um you know at YC predominantly a lot
of it in the US has been B2B but you've built a generational consumer fintech company and so I want to focus our conversation on how to build really
good consumer fintech um but let's rewind the clock a little bit um you know how as you were perhaps
the age of some of the folks in the audience today what was going through your mind like what made you want to build a company was that always your
vision Yeah. No, first of all, uh John, thank you so much. Uh we owe a lot to YC and great to be here and such a great energy and special hello to all
the grow customers out there. So, uh so yeah, so coming back to this right so I think um if I uh if I
got it correctly like how do we think how do how I started thinking about startups and so on. So I uh I grew up in a uh small city in central India
and um uh my grandmother always wanted to wanted me to become an is officer. Uh do you guys know what is an IS officer right? So uh in fact she coined
a blessing. So when in India you touch the feet of your elders when uh every day basically we used to
touch and she coined this term called is bhava basically become an is right so it's like that so I think a lot of people here will have that context
and I was in that frame of mind and I think somewhere I got to know about uh Apple about Steve Jobs right and that kind of uh kind of wired my brain
very differently but somehow I did not know about startups at all. Right? This is we are talking about
year 9798 and so on. So startup was not the word that I knew about but then I came to IIT Bombay and that [clears throat] was the time of 99 or 2000
right you know that was the com boom and everybody around me was doing a startup right maybe somebody is printing some t-shirts and shipping to
customers and so on and I was like yeah this like you know being independent doing your own stuff this
sounds fun so that's how I think that seeds of startup kind of uh I mean startups got exciting for me. >> When you first started was grow the first
kind of iteration of the idea or did you were you guys sort of tinkering and building other things? How how did that evolve? >> No. So uh grow uh it's
lot of tinkering and that's something that what we have learned like you know lot of times when you
start you have some very broad idea in your mind but you know how do you kind of arrive at that by the way grow is not my first startup it is my
second startup and if you count my student startup it will be like a third startup right and all of them failed before even grow the first idea that
we started with actually failed which was uh something very different from what you see grow today, right?
And uh what we started with was like a robo adviser, right? In 2016, robo advisor were getting very popular in the US, right? Wealthfront, betterment
and so on. And uh when we uh when we uh in 2016 when we started thinking about this problem, we saw that you know in a country of billion plus people
and uh even what at Flipkart where were we are like hundreds of millions were kind of buying online
and the number of investors was like low single digits right 20 less than 20 million investors and it did not make sense. So we thought okay let's do
a robo advisor for all these customers and lot of customers will come and so on and guess what it did not work out uh and uh and then the iterations
started okay what is what actually works and what we realized is that when customers use the product
they would always ask why this product why not that and so on and that led us to kind of thought process of selection which is like what Flipkart
stands for, right? You go to Flipkart, you choose all the things that you want, full transparency and so on. And that's how like the new the the grow
in the current format is came into being. >> Yeah. >> And and I think that's particularly interesting.
Um you know, obviously I know the robot advisory products well. Um but it's particularly interesting in this case because you made a decision very
early on that maybe was somewhat counterintuitive um when people were building consumer products or maybe even some of the advice that you got early
on at YC which is you opened up the platform like you showed people everything and you know full
transparency. Um, I'm curious, you know, what led to kind of that initial insight, but also why were you leaning into it so hard? Because I think that
is a bit counterintuitive, right? You want to charge the customer and get, you know, and with the recognition that you might not actually have revenue
for some period of time. >> Yeah. So, um, uh, I think that's always a question, right? How, so one
thing was very clear, Robo Advisor is not working. Now the next thing is what will work and then you create a hypothesis. Okay based on the customer
signal which is like okay customers are always asking like why this why not this and then customer asking about a specific product like that product
is not on the app but they are talking about it and so on. So one hypothesis was okay let's put the
put the product that customer customers are asking and now if you have like thousands of customers they asking all different products. So let's put
all of them and then we also try to connect it with what we have learned in the past right customers Indian customers care about uh choice and they
care about transparency and then uh are almost after an year of starting so we started in 2016 uh which
was April 20 May 2016 we'll become just completing 10 years now uh the the grow product which what you know was launched in May 2017 so like exactly 1
year later and the with this hypothesis that let's open everything with full transparency and very seamless payment very seamless onboarding and we
launched it we thought okay u like if we get like 100 customers in this month we I think we will be
happy and then we got 600 customers so we got a very strong feeling about this PMF what is product market fit right that I think customers are liking
something and then you dig deeper on the fact what they are liking and keep doubling it down and it's like an iterative process and the more you keep
doing it your customer acquisition cost goes down your engagement goes up your retention goes up and
then customer love which is like NPS score NPS stands for net promoter score so basically you ask customers out of 10 uh you know how much u how what
is the kind of you know how much would you to promote it to your friends and then what do they say and we got like crazy customer love like it started
word of mouth people started talking about it and so on there was only one question mark which is
about monetization and that is the biggest lesson that I have kind of learned that in a startup there will always be uh multiple question marks and if
you can reduce it to like one question mark I think that's like reducing risk and especially in consumer business and this advice is specific to more
consumer business that uh you know if uh if there if there are no question marks then I think it's
kind of not uh you know it's not like a consumer bet I feel yeah I I love the early days um and this early sparks of conviction that it gave you was a
very few set of customers um I'm curious is what kind of what are what did that feel like for you to just see a very small group of customers? Were
you sort of thinking about oh we got to we got to now get more of them. Were you thinking about hey
we got to really do the unscalable thing and talk to those customers? Curious how you guys built up from a very small base. So one thing is like um uh
we used to talk to customers like a lot like so we created like lot of WhatsApp groups uh we would go in Kora was very popular at that time in India
we would go to like you know sometimes me and my co-founders will go to like uh movie theater before
people are watching movies right talk to customers there so I think customer signal if you have like 20 people on your apps it's very tough to kind of
just get insights from those 20 folks. So you need to kind of expand your horizon and then as soon as customer signs up you put them into a personal
WhatsApp group so that you are accessible and then kind of continue chatting and then try to get
some signals from there. You know most of the time like you would not build what customer is directly asking but you read between the lines. Okay, you
know what? So customer did not say okay show me all the products and then show me all the products in transparency and make me like you know uh make
the payments frictionless and so on. But then you have to kind of understand that is the actual
elephant in the room. That's the thing that you need to need to remove and all. >> Yeah. And and so how long did it take you guys to sort of reach a
moment when you think oh this is like this is growing this is going to work. >> Yeah. One year. So as I said like 2016 May 2016 we started in 2016 17
May 2017 we launched the product and I think within like 10 15 days or so we got this aha mean aha
kind of feeling yes this is working because you could you could see the like you know the buzz you could see customers talking about you and then in
so organic growth which is like when you don't need to pay to acquire customers right when customers are coming themselves That is like the product
market fit and when you see them retaining over day over day uh and then engaging more and more talking
about you I think that then you kind of get a kind of >> Yeah, I think this is a really important point like how many how much of your growth early on
was people talking about it with other people versus you having to go out there and sort of spend >> almost 100%. >> Wow. >> Right. It was like full
fully on by the way even today for example. Right. Most of our growth is organic growth. Most of it
is word of mouth. Like all the folks who raised uh hands like if you ask them how did you come to know about grow most of our customers we'd say they
were kind of uh recommended by their friend or their you know their cousin or their and and some of them like you know uh some of the older folks
their kids recommend them. Right. I think we've seen uh earlier talking to um to Harsh from Razer Pay,
you know, there's in regulated industries that we work in sort of investments and fintech, there's often these really, you know, either good or really
bad sort of tailwinds, right? Or headwinds. And sometimes you really have to be nimble enough to catch it. And I think you guys did. I'm curious how
you navigated all the different regulatory change over time because you know and again like I think
folks may not remember some of the stuff uh from uh from a while ago but I'm curious how you put yourself in that position um to really leverage that.
So so we make we made some very uh strong strategic choices early on and one of them was that we will play only in regulated zone. So basically now
when you talk about regulations there are some areas which are not regulated at all. There are
some which are regulated and then there's a gray zone. Gray zone and not regulated is like 40% of the thing maybe. But we thought okay let's play in
regulated zone that means going and taking the license and then doing the business right. So I think with that mindset uh once you have that kind of
so and that's what I believe like when you start you should have some very strong choices because uh
basically removing the variables right and once you remove the variables then kind of it becomes u uh like you know the decision making and the and
the execution becomes much easier and over time as you grew I'm curious you know you had left this sort of pin monetization How did that play out? >>
So uh so by so I'll I'll tell you about monetization right. So when we started we started with uh
mutual funds and there we used to get some commission actually uh which is like you know which was not very high but then we saw customer demand again
another one important pivot that we made on our WhatsApp groups customers started asking why uh so grow is a very good platform very beautiful UX and
all but why regular mutual funds uh why not direct mutual funds which is like zero commission
mutual funds and all these were power customers All these are very vocal customers. They would talk about you and so on. But the problem is if you
have uh if you move to zero commission then how do you make money right? And then uh this is how we thought I mean back uh many years back that you
know uh if we look around the world and if you look about uh look at all the consumer products if a
product has very low uh CAC which is like almost organic zero CAC you can say if it has very high retention if it has very high engagement and very
high customer love and other thing is if you are moving lot of money right it's kind of very hard to find a company that does not make money. So we
took this bet for first four years we were like a zero revenue company and then again there was lot of
customer demand that you know there are mutual funds why not stocks and that was the that unlocks the monetization lever for us. >> Yeah. and as
you've been experiencing sort of a significant amount of growth obviously um how did you change what how you approached how customers really love the
product cuz you know I think what's really inspiring about this is the core the central um thesis that
you guys had or the central execution plan was to make a product that people really love not just are okay with not just that they have to come back
to but >> really that they must love and how has that changed over time as you've had to scale in the number of people. >> So, so we so by the way we
have one commandment. So we have 10 commandments but one of them is obsess over design. Design is
very important for us and uh although like um uh you can have n any number of frameworks to kind of uh think about product quality and so on. But one
another thing is that uh be the power user of your own product. So Paul Graham says right that if you're building a consumer product uh build for
yourself. So so at least you will have one customer right even if you don't have too many customers. So
uh so every release or every app that goes out like we use it a lot. So personally I use like my product more than 2 hours a day right and then around
2 hours a day I talk to customers about who are using the product and so on. So although there will be QAs and there will be you know quality folks
and so on but then the real feeling comes when you are actually user of your own product and then
you're in direct touch with the customers and especially the power customers. It's better to be in touch with like super power customers right because
they catch things they I mean it will be me. So one thing that we look at when we launch any feature or something and I tell my team that I should
start getting uh two kinds of messages either two kinds of messages some people should say oh this is
just awesome I love it or they should say this is terrible I hate it right both of these are okay if it is don't care that is the problem right
because then it means that customers does not care about what you launched that's I I love that so even at the size that you are now you are still
talking to customers. That's insane. That's that's fantastic. >> No, Paul Graham says right do things that
don't scale. >> Yeah, absolutely. And and that is no matter how big you get, I think uh that holds true. So as you look at the new wave of consumer
products um certainly people are using AI a lot more, some to figure out what they should invest and sort of make decisions. How do you view
competition or the competitive landscape as people are building consumer AI products? >> We uh I mean from grow
perspective we are always paranoid because like some of uh younger folks sitting there they kind of understand their generation much better than us
like we are getting older. So so what we try to do is we try to be in the company of younger folks as much as possible. one of the reasons I came here
right uh and I think in consumer world it's all about understanding the customer and it's very
counterintuitive that the more you worry about the competition the more kind of you go away from the customer and the best way to kind of deal with
competition is to like not worry about the competition but focus on the customer and understand their preferences how they are changing how trend are
changing, how the tech is changing, like how AI will impact the customer experience, how productivity
will go and so and that is how we think again we might be wrong but uh we are always kind of uh paranoid about uh about disruption. >> Yeah. And and
when we were talking earlier um you're personally playing with cloud code quite a lot. I think you're I would consider a power user. Um has that
shaped your view on how you should run the company or build? >> Yeah. So I I think I love playing around
and uh and when you do it yourself, when you dirty your hands, uh then only you can imagine like that it's something similar to what we talked about
talking to customers, right? So when you actually on the are on the ground and talking to customers, you get the feeling of how customer is thinking,
how do how do they live, how do they talk and so on. Likewise, if you're talking about technology and
you are far away from it, not directly dirting your hands, it's very difficult to imagine. And now so when I started using uh like you know all these
coding tools and I started coding myself I used to be a coder before but been many years and now again you get this uh tech where you don't have to
worry about lot of housekeeping stuff on the in coding and uh and then you realize oh this is possible
this is possible and then uh and then you kind of start promoting it within the company and so on right so I think uh that is uh that is a side effect
but the primary thing is you just you just kind of get like you know engaged. You kind of get addicted to something some solving problems. >> Yeah.
And I'm sure um folks in this room are looking at potentially building AI consumer experiences in
many different fields. Um having built a really successful one, do you think that building AI consumer experiences has changed? What what do you think
needs to change or what maybe stays the same? um for you. >> So what stays the same is understanding the customer need and want. Of course you can use
lot of AI tools to understand that but you have to nail that but then once you have figured out
what needs to be built the how part is now so like much easier. So earlier in our world like you know I call internet world as like past world our
world how would you build a product? You would hire maybe engineers. Let's say three engineers. Then you will hire a product manager who will tell
engineers what to do. And then you have to tell okay how should be the design. So you'll hire a designer
right and then uh if it is there's some operation involved then you will hire operations folks and then oh who will look at the P&L revenue cost and
so on. So let's have a business guy and so on. So by the like to just to build like a startup you have like 10 15 people and so on right but now what
happens like now one person who thought about what needs to be built he can sit down with some free
credits and then uh you know on cl like design do uh product management coding and write some automation task for operations and you're like you know
the barrier to kind of doing something has just gone down so significantly. >> Yeah. And and as you look forward um give us a sense of what's coming
up or what's next for grow. So uh I think now we are a listed company so getting bigger and bigger
trust. So what happened? So we have like millions of customers now. We are the largest in the country today and um and lot of our customers are kind
of becoming wealthy right so now they have lot more capital so what happens is that in a customer journey so when you start like a lot of younger
folks here they start with let's say buying a stock or buying a mutual fund or you know buying some one
product and so on and then as you kind of continue growing right let's say you are now uh you come on grow when you are let's say 25 now you are 35
right somebody came at 27 30 now they are 40 and so on so now you are you have lot more significant wealth is directly some you know somewhere
directly proportional to the age secondary grow customers are especially they are very prudent and they are
much like I say I like to think that they are very smart so they grow faster so their wealth is growing very fast and then once you are wealthy then
your needs also kind of change right so as a product in a product journey you need to continue evolving your product as the customers grow if you
don't do that then basically then there are like lot of smart folks building alternative products and so
on right so I think that is the most important thing for us right now so wealth management is something that we are very excited about and then on
grow side uh like um how to kind of make it uh very uh smart for the younger folks. So in India you can start investing after 18 years uh and um and
like how can we be like you know the most u um kind of exciting choice for them. Amazing. Amazing. Now
um I do want to shift gears and talk about something that maybe we haven't talked about yet which is um co-founders. Um uh you have a pretty unique
situation. you have three other co-founders, four of you on the team. You know, normally it's >> somewhat hard to get two people to align uh perfectly
in a co-founder relationship, but you have four and everybody that's worked with you understands that
you're always very well aligned and you know, you act as um with great urgency and consensus. So, I'm curious, how did you navigate that with four
founders? >> Yeah. So I think uh so number one thing is right I think um if you are going for a very long journey it's very important that your value
systems are aligned so what do I mean by value system so value system is like something written with a
pen right and then strategy can continue changing year on year like it's like a something written in pencil right but uh but if value system is same
so when we started we wrote down everything in a very big document. You know what do we stand for? What will we do? What kind of compromises we can
take or what kind of choices we'll take. So for example we the first line was we will always be
customer first customer obsess. So now if there are no conflicts in decision making for next 10 years 20 years I think you are good right? So that's
the so creating a very well- aligned value system so at least their conflicts don't happen. Second uh very clear uh clear ownership right you know so
who is uh who is owner for what now in a startup typically what happens is everybody does everything
like all four of us are someday products managers someday engineers you know operations one of like hers used to take calls like you know when c
customer he used to do customer support right he would do KYC sometimes Ishan is a finance guy but he used to code and so on right So it's it's and
they used to make content. I nobody has created content but they will you will see if you go to grow
channels and if you lick very old videos like 9 10 year old videos you will see very crappy videos done by us right so you do everything but it's
about taking decision about the ownership then you say okay for tech he is the uh owner means he will he responsible and accountable for doing certain
thing. Lastly, if there is a anyways, if there is a m if there's a very macro decision and if there is
a conflict, then who is the who is the owner, right? So, if you have like these kind of things well aligned, I think it has it has worked great. So so
far for us and I think we still like and okay another thing like you need to enjoy their company right you should you should feel like okay even today
like you know weekends like weekend is the only time when we don't get to see each other but still
like we have we are chatting continuously on WhatsApp okay what is happening and Monday you still feel like going to office Monday even if sometimes
you know in founders journey there are ups and downs and so on but if on Monday you still are going to somebody whom you love working with I think
that's like That's like the ideal co-founder relationship. [applause] >> Yeah, that's that's amazing
advice. And and yes, like you know, we get this question a lot obviously at YC about what to look for in a co-founder. It's always someone that you're
really excited to work with, right? Um because you're going to be doing it for a long time if things work. Um so one last question. Um as you look at
the crowd today, some folks are I'm sure thinking about building companies. What parting advice
would you give them? Like what actionable advice would you give them to get started? >> I'll give two advice. One is don't listen to older folks like
me when you do a startup because the world is changing just so fast and all the advice that is given is from the context of you know uh what we saw
but you know I think younger folks have much better context now and in spite of that warning I'll
again give one advice is like do something where you don't feel like doing work like you know if you're like doing something time should just kind
Time should be like a blur and it should be like you should enjoy. Yesterday I was in a meeting and somebody asked me a question key okay what
sacrifices have you done in doing while doing grow and then I started thinking and I thought you know that we
always enjoyed building grow right and I think I can't think about I I of course there are low times and so on but I mean everything was fun so I
think that's the most important thing having fun [applause] amazing well it's been such a pleasure thank you so Much everybody give it up for La
Kishray from Grow. Thank you so much. >> All right.