At BrilliantRead Media, our aim is to bring to our community some of the unique and compelling stories from startup ecosystem. As part of this endeavour, we invited yet another passionate entrepreneur – Sayali Rai for an exclusive interview with us. She is a Leader, Analyst, Entrepreneur, Business Consultant and Founder of FinCocktail. Her startup aims to provide financial tools and empower women to take charge of their financial futures. Let’s learn more about her exciting journey, her background and her advice for our growing community:
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with Sayali:
We are aware of your contribution to the ecosystem, talk us through your background and your journey as a women entrepreneur, please;
I am Sayali Rai, and I graduated from the NYU Stern School of Business where I got my BSc in Marketing and Finance. I also then went on to get my MBA in Finance from Babson College, a university well known for its entrepreneurship program.
Even though I studied in different parts of the world, I was always drawn towards home eventually. So after my MBA I came back and worked for about 2 years at Citibank as an investment banker. It was the dream job for someone like me, and I ended up hating it! Towards the end of my stint at Citi, I realised how stuffy and male-dominated the field still was to this day.
Finally, after almost a year of pondering over how to begin, I started FinCocktail in August of 2020 when I realised the insane statistics about women and investing and the amazing opportunity that awaited before me.”
You are always positive and motivated, what keeps you going?
Honestly, it’s something everyone calls a cliche! You have to have the right attitude. To tell you the truth, nope. I am not always positive and motivated. There are days when I feel low and completely disinterested especially in work.
The key, however, is realizing this and understanding this is when you have to keep going and pushing through. You’ll be surprised how many things get done even if you just show up!”
The more you show up, the easier it gets. You eventually get into the habit of powering through. The moment this happens, you learn to motivate yourself and keep going! And once you keep going, the positive attitude follows!
What attracts you towards entrepreneurship instead of a corporate career?
The age-old question! Honestly, it was the beginning of my corporate career that truly made me realise it wasn’t meant for me!
Only after I spent those two years at Citi, almost at the brink of a shiny new promotion with a fat paycheck and year-end bonus did I realise, that was not the path for me. I had to venture out on my own and feel like I was doing more than just what I could in that corporate job. I wanted to do more and contribute to society in some way.”
‘Fincocktail’ is such a unique name; please share more about it and what kind of problem are you solving with the help of your startup?
We’re living in 2020, the year has been hard on all of us, but one thing we can be proud of is that there are more and more women taking on the workforce and breaking glass ceilings every day! Women are being confident, making smart decisions and truly putting themselves out there and taking control of their lives. However, one aspect we seem to have forgotten is personal finance.
In November of 2019, an article was published that stated only 33% of women do their own investing and only 11% actually do it because they understand investing! The rest do it out of necessity.
FinCocktail aims to bridge this gap between women and finance. The name FinCocktail was inspired by the fact that Finance as a term can become too scary, daunting, overbearing! We want to help women across all ages to shed their fears and embrace personal finance. We hope women will take charge of their own money and we aim to help them mix the perfect finance cocktail that will help them towards a bright and secure financial future!”
During this covid-19 crisis, what are the measures you have undertaken to continue your business without disruption?
Our journey of FinCocktail began right in the middle of this lockdown! So we really haven’t seen life outside the COVID-19 crisis as an organization. But we have learnt from some of our fellow women entrepreneurs and have adhered to their guidelines. We avoid close contact with our clients or as a team internally.
Moreover, technology has really helped us meet these proximity guidelines. We host webinars online. Hold most of our sessions either on Zoom or Google meet. We have one-on-one calls telephonically or through Facetime or Whatsapp calls.
This crisis has really caused a lot of damage to a lot of industries but has helped a lot of us get some time off from excessive travel and work hours away from home. It has given us the gift of time and helped us reflect in some ways. FinCocktail has also been blessed because a lot of our clients have come to us because they had the time to give their Finances so much thought in the lockdown. They realised they had the time to learn and to make changes to their financial plans. So it really has been a dual-sided circumstance for us!
How do you manage yourself and keep on going despite the challenges? What drives you?
It’s a realization I had a few months ago. It’s the realization that I am helping. I am helping more than just myself. I can through FinCocktail enhance the lives of women and help them take charge of their financial futures. When I get the feeling that FinCocktail is bigger than just me, it really drives me to work harder, stay longer and fight stronger for all of my clients and all the women entrepreneurs out there.
Given the rapid pace at which the world is changing, what are the leadership traits that are necessary for success?
You said it right there in your question! Being adaptable is one of the most important leadership skills necessary today. Being able to be open to hearing ideas of change from your team and embracing them when you learn that those ideas will be more effective for your business.
Other than that, I truly believe that a business is only as good as its weakest member, and a leader only as good as his most neglected employee. So as a leader, you have to make sure you lead not from the front, but from behind carrying your entire team forth ahead with you.
Please share with us – What has worked well for you so far?
It’s been a short while since we began FinCocktail, but honestly, what has worked well for us has been our tenacity, persistence and our knowledge. We are in the business of finance and for us to be taken seriously, other than putting in the hours and effort we have had to constantly improve and be on top of our game and stay up to date with all the financial world news to provide the best advice for our customers. So I guess tenacity, persistence and constant willingness to learn and improve!
In your opinion – What is more necessary: an idea or a good team for a successful startup?
I don’t think you can do justice to the business if you lack either one of the two! You may need a fabulous idea to begin your journey, enforce that confidence and get the momentum going, however, a business is only a good or a great one if it is sustainable. And sustenance does not come without a strong team backing you up. You can only travel alone so far. Your ideas run out, you get exhausted, and you can only do so much with a singular perspective. So I would say they are two sides of the same coin and you must invest in coming up with a great idea and building a great team to be successful.
We would love to know your advice for all those starting out as an aspiring women entrepreneur?
I would like to say to them what my mother told me when I was starting out. Don’t be scared. We as women have been conditioned on a lot of circumstances throughout our lives to be afraid to speak our minds, do as we please, do something different, pick an unconventional career path and just explore ourselves freely!”
We are supposed to fit into a model that society has made for us which is meant to contain our force. But let it go, be free and unleash your power because when you are not afraid, you can be so much more! It’s amazing how strong women are emotionally, spiritually and physically. We just have to stop doubting ourselves and be confident that we can do this!
BrilliantRead is committed to bringing stories from the startup ecosystem, stories that reshape our perspective, add value to our community and be a constant source of motivation not just for our community but also for the whole ecosystem of entrepreneurs and aspiring individuals.
Note: If you have a similar story to share with our audience and would like to be featured on our online magazine, then please write to us at [email protected], we will review your story and extend an invitation to feature if it is worth publishing.
