The Finshots Story | With 56 lakhs' education loan, do you think you will startup? These young IIM Ahmedabad graduates did!

Ever thought of witnessing TVF Pitchers in real life? We guess you didn’t. But what if we say there’s a similar story defining the next episodes of the web series? It is not often that you hear graduates from top B-Schools like IIMs giving up their well-paying jobs and a luxurious lifestyle to play with uncertainty in a high risk zone. But what these 4 students from IIM Ahmedabad did persuade many to revise their thought process.

Surrendering from an easy life with security and certainty, Pawan Kumar Rai, Bhanu Harish Gurram, Shrehith Karkera from IIMA along with an IIT Delhi graduate, Lokesh, decided not to do what others did - seeking jobs. Instead, with a huge burden of 56 lakhs loan and just 20k in bank, they decided to start their own business, Finshots, and then Ditto.

To understand what plans and apprehensions they had in their minds along with the rough patches they faced, Dare2Compete had a conversation with one of the co-founders of Finshots and Ditto, Shrehith Karkera. Read what this daring gentleman has to say on behalf of his team.

Inspiring Uncertainty!

According to Shrehith, it is crucial to understand that risk is relative. What might be risky for someone else might not be that risky for the other and vice versa. Any entrepreneur who is dabbling in an enterprise or start up is probably taking some amount of risk. Starting something from scratch, especially at a young age is definitely a bit risky. But what makes a person take that amount of risk can be understood either by his/her risk-taking abilities, appetite for adventure, insane urge to change something or something else. 

Shrehith says, “For us, we all knew we could not live a life knowing exactly how it would pan out to be. I knew if I go down the path of going through the placements, I’ll be probably get a well-paying job, be a salesman agent, a regional bank manager, maybe make it to zonal manager and climb up the corporate ladder, it seemed like one of those things that I would not want. We completely despised this alternative, it looked dismal. We were ready to do anything but go the usual way that everyone else was.”

Comparing his situation to a video game to make his point clear, he added, “There’s absolutely no fun in playing a video game knowing what is going to happen next. So, why not do something that is a bit more uncertain?”

The story of every home

Shrehith says the story was different for all of them back in their homes. For him, his parents had some reservations initially. His mother in the beginning used to push him to get a job saying things like, “You will live a good life, you will get a good salary”, but then he knew it was not for him. After two to three times of trying they finally came to terms with it and were okay with him going forward with their business idea. Although his dad had retired and his mother was a homemaker, but on the financial front, his family was comparatively better off than the others. Though he just had 20k in my bank account, he did not have to worry about the financial aspect.

Pawan on the other hand, had a huge loan burden, his dad had retired early and he had already maxed out two credit cards. They used to get calls from the bank each day. Being the sole breadwinner, Pawan took a much greater risk than all of them, the reason why he lied to his parents and pretended to have a job for a short period.

Bhanu had some savings from his previous job, which eventually burnt out as well. His brother Lokesh, an IIT Delhi guy, was a very smart kid who was really earning well but he soon quit to join the group. Their parents were not too worried about them, they knew both their sons were capable and were fairly confident that they would manage to do something or the other. 

And then there were four!

“Everybody reaches a tipping point, there is always a moment in time when you are looking back and questioning all your moves and decisions. But we all have been really close right from our college days and were always there to support and uplift each other. At no moment we felt we were giving up on each other or our business plan. If one was down, the other would be upbeat about the future prospects and show us the brighter side.” says Shrehith.

The four of them lived together, worked together, and were constantly in each other’s spaces that played to their advantage as they could check up on each other and ensure everyone was doing okay.

“Initial two years were not the easiest, there were just about 200-300 people reading our content per week. It can get a bit depressing to see a static graph, and it went on like this for a while. It was only in April 2019 that we started getting substantial readership. Our progress was really slow in the initial few years, it didn’t feel like it was going anywhere, but we knew as long as we keep trying together we will eventually figure out something.”

The voice of dissent

It is not to say that this group never had arguments and debates. For Shrehith, “...we argued a lot, but it was only in the context of what is good for the business, beyond that we have always been really close friends, we all have a very equal partnership. Disagreements in the context of making a business work can aid you and the business but it should not spill over your personal life where you start holding grudges just because someone disagreed with you.”

Then the magic happened!

People think of radical changes or subtle changes that are effective enough to get customer engagement. Nothing that these four thought was radical in that sense. But then what persuaded them to align with their business idea was the incremental changes that could offer additional value to the customers.

“Grand innovation, something that does not have a niche already is pretty difficult to find, it is not easy to chance upon things so unique and so extravagant like Oyo, Uber and Ola that you suddenly make a name for yourself based on this one thing. Being a pioneer of anything is a herculean task. What is important is to ask yourself, ‘Can I make some incremental changes that will help people do simple tasks better?’ Like with Finshots it was all about staying updated with the financial news without actually having to strain your brain.”

Words of wisdom

Ending the interview by giving some advice to young entrepreneurs, he said, “Firstly, I would like to say that I am too young to be giving advice to budding entrepreneurs, but as far as my experience goes, I have realised that to actually start up, you need to have some amount of craziness. You have to take risks and the degree of risk would differ for each individual. It is based on your circumstances, on your priorities and knowing what you are putting at stake. Not knowing your limit can actually prove to be counterproductive. So, yes, it is important to take risks, it is important to be a little crazy but do not go blindly into it without calculating your stakes.”

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