Gitika Merani is the Director and Principal Mortgage Broker at Your Finance Network in Sydney. She trained as an architect in Pune, built a career there, and then moved to Australia after getting married - only to find her degree unrecognized and her experience uncountable. What followed was a decade of rebuilding: a design firm, interior projects including Indian restaurants in Harris Park, a commercial furniture estimating role, a baby, COVID lockdown as an essential worker, and eventually a complete career change.The pivot happened when her husband Naveen asked one question: what was your end goal as an architect? Getting people into their homes. What would it be as a mortgage broker? Same answer. That insight became the foundation of Your Finance Network, which she started in late 2021 after doing the Certificate IV and working as a loan processor first to learn the industry from the inside.Four years in, the business has grown almost entirely through referrals. Last year, Naveen left Westpac after eleven years and joined as managing partner - handling commercial loans and SMSF while Gitika focuses on residential. They are also building a back office in India, combining both economies.A large part of her work is with the Indian and South Asian community in Sydney. She understands the cultural drive toward property ownership - "apna ghar hona chahiye" - and helps clients navigate a system that looks nothing like what they left behind. Grants, low-deposit entry points, equity strategies, guarantor structures. The myths and fears around investing. The mechanics of negative gearing. And one thing most people don't know: mortgage brokers don't charge fees. The bank pays on a settled loan. Consultations are free.There's a client story in this episode that stays with you: a single mother who had been forced to move three times in two years. Gitika got her a pre-approval, walked her to auction, helped her win. The woman invited her to the housewarming as guest of honour. "I felt so embarrassed," Gitika says. "But I was so humbled."We also talk about isolation when you first migrate, the Adelaide property market, the guilt of making content while the world burns, and a small-world moment: Gitika went to school in Pune with my sister Akanksha.Follow Gitika Merani on Instagram: @gitikavFollow Your Finance Network on Instagram: @yourfinancenetworkYour Finance Network website: yourfinancenetwork.net.auYour Finance Network on YouTube: YouTubeYour Finance Network on Facebook: FacebookYour Finance Network on TikTok: TikTokFollow Naina on Instagram: @nainaNaina's website: naina.coBe a podcast guest: naina.co/product/the-100-podcast

Episode 165 of The Naina Experience Podcast - and this one is very close to home, literally. I'm joined by Saurik Dheer, a young entrepreneur and creative director based right here in Adelaide. Saurik moved here in August 2024 to do his MBA, having never visited Australia before - not even when his cousin got married in Melbourne two years earlier, because he was too busy running his business in India to leave.We talk about his background in music - which he has studied since the age of 4 - and how that shaped the way he approaches filmmaking and creative direction. His process is unlike anyone I've spoken to before: he thinks of the music and the emotion first, and then the visuals arrange themselves around that in his head. It's not a learned technique. It's just how he's wired.We also talk honestly about what it's like to be a young Indian creative professional trying to break into Adelaide's industry. He reached out to every creative agency in the city - over 20 of them, multiple times - and didn't hear back from a single one. We both know that feeling. But then Adelaide Fringe found him at an event and came back two days later with a brief and a budget. It's a start.And he had an idea for a niche events company that I'm still thinking about - a Mexican luchador wrestling match in a boxing gym with taquerias and tequila. Adelaide is a blank canvas, he says. Someone just needs to paint on it.Connect with Saurik Dheer:📸 InstagramConnect with Naina:📸 Instagram🌐 Website🎵 Podcast on SpotifyWant to be a guest on The Naina Experience Podcast?🎙️ Book your spot here

Episode 164 of The Naina Experience Podcast - and this one has been a long time coming. I'm joined by Ravi Sagar, founder of SPARXSYS, a software company based in London. Ravi and I have known each other online since the very early days of Twitter - we're talking 2007, when there were so few Indians on the platform that you just kind of knew everyone who was there. But we had never actually spoken to each other until this conversation. Worth every year of the wait.Ravi dropped out of IIT Delhi after just 6 months, finished his engineering degree in Delhi, worked at a few companies, got an offer to move to the UK, and took it. That was ten years ago. He now runs SPARXSYS, which builds software products including apps that work within Jira - the project management tool used by teams worldwide. He also talked about how his company is now using AI to record and summarise all internal meetings, so you can ask it what happened in an entire quarter and get one clean report back.We also had a really honest conversation about what it's like to leave India and build a life somewhere else. Coming from Delhi, London can feel quiet - even boring - at first. He loves going back to India, loves the food and the chaos of Delhi, but after about three weeks he's ready to return to the UK. That push and pull between two homes is something I completely relate to as someone who moved to Australia a year and a half ago.And then things got very meta - Ravi asked me about my content workflow and I ended up explaining exactly how I use Opus Clip and Claude AI to turn a one-hour live conversation into short clips, transcripts, and blog posts. So this episode is also a behind-the-scenes look at how this podcast gets made.Connect with Ravi Sagar:🌐 Website📸 Instagram▶️ YouTube💻 SPARXSYSConnect with Naina:📸 Instagram🌐 Website🎵 Podcast on SpotifyWant to be a guest on The Naina Experience Podcast?🎙️ Book your spot here#TheNainaExperience #Podcast #RaviSagar #SPARXSYS #IndianEntrepreneur #IITDelhi #SoftwareEntrepreneur #IndianInLondon #IndianExpat #Entrepreneurship #AITools #StartupFounder #IndianPodcast #NainaRedhu