Transforming The Fintech Space – BW Disrupt

Indian startups saw their business boom in recent years, fueled by an Internet revolution and a tech-savvy public open to experimentation.

This helped our nation unlock the achievement of becoming the world’s third largest startup ecosystem – home to over 100 unicorns worth over USD 300 billion.

In the midst of such financial abundance, businesses tend to become extravagant. And this can lead to overemployment and unnecessary expenses without a focus on profitability. As a rapidly scaling startup, this phenomenon led to two important challenges for our company. At first we stayed away from the rent and fire policy. Our focus was building the best product with a lean but capable team, even as other startups kept hiring and firing for no reason.

The second goal was to keep costs in check without hampering our growth momentum. When funds are plentiful, reasonable spending returns, but we didn’t let that happen at StockGro. All business decisions were made with sustainability in mind.

What are your expectations from 2023? Will any of the growth drivers kick in again or will it continue to be a cautious year as well?

The world has rebounded from a black swan event that disrupted human life like never before. And while we are experiencing some economic fallout, Indian markets have been quite resilient in 2022.

Our economy is well insulated from economic shocks like inflation and interest rate hikes and this is reflected in the strong momentum in Indian equities. Benchmark indices have maintained their rise and enthusiasm from private investors remains strong.

Even the wider fintech space is rapidly transforming, driving the advancement of key areas such as finance, payments, financial education and inclusion.

As the macroeconomic situation continues to stabilize, the fintech industry will receive support from investors and end users, whose lives will be simplified and secured.

The ever-increasing retail contribution to stocks is also a testament to the impending growth in the investment sector. We believe that 2023 will bring greater optimism.

Please share more about how 2022 turned out for your company in terms of revenue goals?

In 2022, StockGro witnessed rapid growth in user base, partnerships and revenue. The estimated turnover was around 10 million dollars and we should be able to reach the target as planned.

What are some of your plans for 2023 and the areas of interest/investment in the coming year?

The StockGro team plans to expand its offerings to include various new asset classes, including currencies, commodities and bonds. We intend to add passive investment options like gold, and build exciting new features to make profitable investing hassle-free and easy.

With the aim of making personal finances more accessible, we will reach out to women and empower them with financial skills.

Our goal is to grow at least three times each successive year. We are committed to expanding our educational and corporate partnership diversity – a plan that is in action. The StockGro team will continue to make investing social by building a robust community of financial enthusiasts and experts growing together.

As a leader, what were some of the things you had to do differently in 2022, especially given some of the external challenges of the year that ranged from founder issues to restrained investment and large-scale layoffs?

As businesses grappled with a new world order, markets were filled with noise. Under such circumstances, it was important for me to cut through the noise and focus on the product we were building.

We did this by acquiring high-caliber talent and maintaining a laser-sharp focus on business needs. In acquiring talent, we prioritized quality over quantity and diligently filtered through the vast pool of inbound interest.

Each member of the team was made familiar with the noisy market conditions, and this helped them separate rumors from fact – a strategy that allowed the team to build better, faster and stay calm.