As part of our ongoing interview series with promising womenpreneurs, we spoke to Shruti Agrawal this week, Co-founder/Director at CAGRfunds. Her startup CAGRfunds is a personalized financial planning company that helps you manage your finances and grow your wealth. Let’s read more about her journey and her advice for women entrepreneurs!
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with Shruti:
Tell us a little bit about yourself and your startup, please.
I am the Director and Co-founder of CAGRfunds, a financial planning company and I am the only woman amongst the three co-founders of the company. A CFA and MBA by qualification, I have extensive experience of understanding the role of psychology and biases in decision making. My area of interest has always been Behavioural Finance. Having interacted with over 12,000 individuals personally, I have been able to enrich my understanding of this subject and have a strong grip on helping individuals understand why they behave with their money in a certain way.
Our company, CAGRfunds is a personalized financial planning company that helps you manage your finances and grow your wealth. It was established in 2015. Our unique edge is that of a personal touch. We interact with every customer so that we can understand them better in terms of their pain points, needs, preferences, risk profile and short term and long term goals. This helps to create a tailored plan for every investor as no one size fits all when it comes to savings.
Being one of the very few women involved in financial planning in the country, I have been actively working on ideas to encourage more women to be a part of mainstream financial decision making. As an active member of multiple women-led communities, I run an initiative called “CAGR for Her” which focuses on creating awareness around why women need to take the front seat, alongside the spouse/father while driving the family finances. I have also been involved in conducting women-specific workshops across corporates. Having personally experienced a limited role of women in financial planning for the family, I target to impact 10,000 women in charting out their journey of financial independence over the next 3 years.
How do you find the industry/niche that you’re in?
Financial investments have been an under-penetrated industry in India. Thanks to technology and various forms of media, the share of financial investments in domestic savings has now been on a rise. The way to look at the industry is two-fold – Distributors of financial products have been around for decades. And with the advent of technology, now there is no dearth of platforms to invest in a mutual fund. However, the gap that remains to be addressed is that every individual whether or not an existing investor still has unanswered money questions on his mind. And this is the niche that we play in. The reason we chose to remain in a client-centric model was to ensure that we can solve problems and not just offer products. When we are solving problems daily, it is an extremely exciting industry to be in.
What gets you out of bed in the morning i.e. what’s your source of motivation?
The core of our offering lies in helping people make the right financial decisions by establishing their financial goals. Having the ability to help people map their financial journeys and help them secure their lives in an organized manner is my passion and my main source of motivation. Also, the fact that so far we have had a 100% client retention ratio speaks a lot about the effort we put behind each of our clients. To upkeep that trust, every day is a new day.
What challenges/obstacles did you face in your journey so far?
Under-penetration of awareness of suitability of various financial products has been an obstacle as well as an opportunity. Rampant amount of mis-selling in the industry provides an opportunity to educate investors better but at the same time leads to dead ends in some cases.
What comes first for you – money or emotions?
How we act with our money is driven by our behaviour which in turn is driven by our emotions. So getting a grip on my emotions is the first step towards better managing my money.
How do you handle the pressure and manage stress?
> Make a To-Do List daily
> Break big tasks into small bits
> Meditate
What is one strategy that you believe has helped grow your startup/person?
Unlike a lot of funded startups in the space, we took a conscious decision to run our business as a bootstrapped venture. 2 years into the business, we realized that while having a seamless digital platform was a good way to democratize investments, clients were truly getting benefited by the advisory that was being delivered to them. A client relationship approach enabled us to understand the scale and depth of the client’s problems and thus deliver a customized solution basket. This approach helped us to establish a very robust clientele who are associated with our company for the personal human touch and a trustworthy wealth management experience. The strong client relationship reflects the fact that more than 90% of growth in our company has come through unpaid referrals. Not to mention, that the company boasts of a retention ratio of over 98% which is indeed a strong moat in an industry that is marked by mis-selling by agents and lack of trust.
In your opinion what are the keys to entrepreneurial success?
> Faith in your ability
> Client centricity – Do what is best for your client and business growth will follow
> Ethicality
> Earn your respect – Do not give out services for free
> Read a lot
> Network with known and unknown people
What advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs particularly women?
One way to go about entrepreneurship is to pilot your idea in a small way. Not only does it teach you a lot of do’s and don’t’s but also gives you the confidence to go out in a big way. Women are known for their hard work, diligence and discipline – with all this in place, the right execution and strategy is all you need.
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What challenges/obstacles did you face in your journey so far?