Lalit Keshre of Groww on being far-sighted, intuitive and absolutely obsessed with your customer
First Principles
Introduction
Lalit Keshe Ray discusses the skepticism faced in the early stages of Groww, including their unique insights and contrarian approach to delayed monetization and customer focus.
The full transcript of this episode is available here.
You've probably heard of Groww. It is a financial services platform, last valued at $3 billion.
This year, the Groww team travelled to a bunch of tier-2 and tier-3 cities in South India to talk to users of its products. In fact, so far, they've been to 100 such cities.
In this conversation with Rohin, Lalit—the co-founder and CEO of Groww—describes what typically happens during these visits.
Take a city like Indore, for example. Hundreds of Groww users travel really long distances just to talk to the Groww team. They want to know things like how to use the app for something as simple as investing in an SIP that has actually changed their lives.
Lalit tells Rohin how the same people have told so many of their friends and family members about Groww. They're excited, grateful and most importantly, emotional, says Lalit.
And then he says there's just one word that can describe what's happening between Groww and its users…and it is love.
Love for customers, love for the product, and love for good financial services…
You'll see how this is a recurring theme in this conversation. Customers are at the centre of Groww. Customer obsession, Lalit says, with no uncertainty, is the thing that will make an employee succeed at Groww.
Lalit is a man who is sure of many things—like he's good at hiring or how to build an effective direct-to-consumer product. He knows the first principles for solving complex problems like the back of his hand.
And what he's unsure of, he's not too worried about. He tells Rohin how he was raised in a way that makes him a bit different from other founders.
Everything will pass, he says. Every problem will be solved. And he explains how this keeps him going, keeps Groww going.
In his stoic, cool manner, he goes on to talk about:
- Why financial services is a basic necessity
- How to create delight with your product
- Understanding the difference between what your customer wants and what they will use
- Why "discipline is overrated"
- A simple process that Lalit uses to hire the right people
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Chapters:
03:01 - What we talk about when we talk about financial services
07:19 - Democratising financial services
09:41 - Supply and demand of financial services
10:51 - How Groww grew
16:33 - How to find future customers today?
20:09 - The one metric Groww watches
22:21 - What customers say is not what customers do
30:37 - What makes people love a financial services brand?
35:16 - Lalit’s career ladder
40:08 - The seeds for Groww
46:31 - “Not old & wise enough to give advice, but if there was one thing…”
53:14 - Cracking delayed monetisation
55:28 - The only thing that guides Groww
1:02:31 - “Discipline is overrated”
1:05:38 - A simple process to hire the right people
1:08:23 - What does Lalit read?
1:14:36 - A weekday in Lalit’s life
1:16:25 - What kind of people succeed at Groww?
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Also, tune in to the latest episode of Daybreak—The Ken's podcast which breaks down one significant business story thrice a week—to learn about the talent exodus at Niti Aayog on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts!
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