"Zero to Billions - The Zerodha Story" By Abhish B Book Review: Profile Traders
It is human nature that most people may be attracted to the tagline “Rags to Riches”. Nitin
Zerodha is one such story that made it to be a Unicorn. I’m sure everyone who has the zeal to make it big in life will be inspired by the Zerodha journey.
How Did it All Start?
Nitin, like the other kids in the town, joined IIT. If you were not into engineering in the late 1990s, you were considered to be doing nothing much in life.
Nithin’s interest in trading was drawn from his Marwari friends, who were already making money in their late teens.
His studies were affected by trading, and Nithin was an average student. He was more interested to make quick money through trading. His parents, however, never discouraged him from trading, and they had complete confidence in him.
Nithin was no stranger to initial gains and losses in the stock market. He too went through a tough journey of gains, losses, and costly lessons. By losing it all in the 2001-2002 market crash, Nithin joined a call center job. He would work in the night, save up, and start trading in derivatives again.
It was by chance that he started trading for a fellow gym mate. He was impressed by his trading performance they discussed it over a drink. Nithin’s client base grew and he eventually became a sub-broker to make it easier to trade in multiple accounts.
He had traded with almost 12 leading brokerage firms but wanted to give a shot to build his long-pending idea of building a brokerage firm himself.
It all Starts with Passion
To succeed as a business, you need to have a purpose behind it. A purpose is to solve a common man’s problem. That is what exactly was in the mind of the Kamaths' when they wanted to make the trading business barrier-free and convenient for the traders.
The journey began with a young trader, Nitin Kamath, who became a sub-broker. He realized the problems and limitations the newly aged traders faced and wanted to come up with a solution. That is when the right side of your brain is tickled to innovate.
Nithin wanted to build a brokerage firm that was a “Customer first” in the true sense. With lessons learned from trading himself and selling skills when working in the call center, he was ready for this new venture.
The Launch Pad
Nithin’s business plan and vision were all clear. He wanted to provide the best trading experience to its users and give value for money. His vision to provide no barriers to traders in trading resulted in the name of the company being coined “Zerodha”.
He started disrupting the brokerage industry with the transparency he brought to brokerage charges. Zerodha came up with a simple brokerage calculator to put up on their webpage.
This coupled with the flat Rs.20 brokerages, irrespective of the traded amount, was just the right recipe needed for Nithin.