Our guest today is Shrini Viswanath, co-founder at Upstox, one of India’s most popular online brokerages. In this conversation, Shrini talks about the long haul of entrepreneurship — taking the company from a proprietary trading outfit to a rapidly growing consumer-facing tech company used by millions of people to invest in the capital markets.

(00:40) Intro to The Daily Tech Conversation

(01:00) Our Guest today — Shrini Viswanath, co-founder at Upstox

(02:15) Coming back to India and starting the company as a proprietary algorithmic trading business … “just the three of us”

(05:00) Self-funded in the initial years to 2012 when the retail business was launched

(06:40) NSE Now and an opportunity that not many other brokers saw

(08:00) The first plan on offer — unlimited trading for a flat fee

(09:50) Figuring out the big themes — building the company’s own software, and going mobile-first

(12:20) Rapid changes in the market due to multiple factors including Aadhaar and 4G and cheaper smartphones with better performance … “going all-in on mobile”

(14:45) How investing behaviour has changed; and changing from expert traders to investing on one’s own; changing demographics; changes in information to trade on

(17:45) “More people have more disposable income”

(18:40) Tech innovations at Upstox — enabling rapid information dissemination to creating communities and social aspects

(20:25) Still a growing number of traders and they want “smart tools” like “automated triggers”; and enabling easy trading in options

(23:55) Two ways of community building around common interests

(25:50) What the success of companies like Upstox means for India’s startup ecosystem — more product and design expertise locally, “building for India”

(29:15) Surging to 7 million customers and growing; 500 employees, many working remotely

(31:40) Ongoing funding and investors including Tiger Global

Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds