Nithin Kamath on Bootstrapping in a low margin highly competitive market

Building it Up with Bertelsmann

How do you thrive in low margin super competitive cohorts? What do you do when your startup is up against really established players -those that are really institutionalized or well-funded or have been in the business for a really long time?

“2010 was the worst year ever for the broking industry. That’s when we started.”

When Zerodha was started, no VCs had ever invested in a stockbroking firm. Yet, this did not stop the team from building India’s largest stockbroking firm, successfully navigating a market with poor financial knowledge and well-funded competition. They bootstrapped and built their product focusing on the customer rather than what will please the investors. All this with minimal spends on advertising and marketing.

In a startup world obsessed with speed and growth hacking, co-founder Nithin Kamath believes that growing at their own pace helped them build a great product. Tune in to this episode of Building It Up with Bertelsmann to find out how Zerodha built a massive business and lived up to the meaning of its name which literally means “zero barriers”.