Finshots: Financial Literacy, One Shot at A Time

Are you one of those people who just can’t get your head around financial jargons? Do you find yourself juggling between Google and the finance article itself while reading one? Well, if it makes you feel any better, you are not the only one. Despite having a degree in MBA (with Finance as a full blown subject for 2 semesters), I was almost on the same page. The struggle was so real that I would always lose the context of the article in the middle and give up every time. At one point, I also thought of buying a financial jargon glossary so that I could refer it each time I was trying to study. I wish someone could just simplify the finance and business news. Don’t we all? Enter: Finshots. A platform that was born with this very aim.

The Story Behind Finshots:

Like most Indian Startups, this story also started out of fear of getting caught in the rat race of 9 to 5. Founders Bhanu, Pawan and Sherith conceived the idea in the second year of their IIM at Ahmedabad. Finshots began with the idea of a daily three-minute newsletter, that would share business and finance news in a language that a layman can comprehend.

Yet again, their journey through this noble cause wasn’t easy at all. Recently, the founder Bhanu Harish Gautam shared a post on LinkedIn that quotes:

“Back in 2018/19, we used to apply for every B-plan competition out there hoping that we could win some grants and afford some more resources.

And, we were rejected in all of those and this is just one of them. We never won any B-plan/ startup competition as no one believed in the idea of simplified financial news (Finshots). Finally, we stopped applying to save our time 🙂

Glad that these rejections never became an impediment in our journey. Rejection is one of the first things that you actually learn during entrepreneurship.”

“After all your liabilities are taken care of, it’s mostly about whether you’re ready to lead a simple life while all your other batchmates are going on fancy vacations on their 20-25 lac salary packages.”

To fund the startup in their initial stages, all the founder members took up part-time jobs teaching CAT aspirants at TIME and career launcher. They would simply set aside some money for their survival and chip in the remaining into the startup.

Popularity and How to Access?

Within a couple of years of inception, Finshots had a massive following of about 2,00,000 subscribers. Soon enough they also came up with their Android and iOS application. The application became a huge hit with 1,00,000 downloads on the playstore and a rating of 4.9 with 10k+ reviews. Finshots can be accessed through their website as well.

However, my favorite medium to consume Finshots would be their podcast that is available on Spotify, Apple Music etc. I always had a hard time, waking up and going for a walk. However, thanks to Finshots, I simply plug my headphones and listen to the episodes lined up.

Like all good work is somehow discovered, Finshots was recognized by Zerodha and they soon partnered with the application to push their content through their own app. In case you don’t know about Zerodha, it is India’s largest stock broker 19% market share in this industry.

How do they Make Money?

Some blogging inspiration right here folks! Turns out, even after soaring popularity, they don’t plan to monetize their platform as of now. There are no ads whatsoever on the website, the apps and the podcast. The reason quoted behind this is that a lot of their userbase is young and naïve investors who are learning finance. So it would just not make sense to charge them on their journey to financial freedom.

Their next project is Ditto which aims to simplify insurance for general public. Finally, they plan to monetize this platform by eventually selling insurance. However, as of now, even this platform is absolutely free to use. As a matter of fact, you can simply Whatsapp them for any insurance related query and you will end up talking to a person and NOT a bot for your answer.

My Favorite Finshots:

Still not convinced? Here are some of my best finshots reads till date. The insanity is explained so intricately, you’ll fall in love with it.

While we keep on blabbering about the petrol prices in our nation and rightly so. Here’s the logic behind the ever increasing prices.

Also, do you know how we keep on talking about politicians parking their black money in Swiss Bank? Also, how Modi Ji promised to give all of us 15L? Here’s how the problem might be very different altogether.

Here’s a crazy idea you didn’t even know you needed an answer to: What if we abolished income taxes?

Madness intensifies with this one! How a grammatical mistake might cost our government a whopping 50,000 crores.

And finally, our recent favorite meme. But what is the math behind it? The Suez Canal conundrum.

Conclusion:

So what are you waiting for? Go flaunt your financial expertise. Trust me, these Finshots make an excellent dining table conversations. Who knows you might end up getting fit as well if you make Finshots as your morning walk partner.

Also, if you plan to give it a shot, please share your favorite shot with me. (Ah! Unprecedented Wordplay!)

Got questions? Want to take it to the next level? Reach out to me using your preferred platform from the links below

Until next time..

This blogpost is in association with Blogchatter’s #BlogchatterA2Z Challenge. I write about a fintech platform everyday (except Sundays) in this challenge for the month of April. Other posts can be found here.