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Moneylicious: Relish The Taste of Money Through This Retail Focused Financial Services Platform
Jay Prakash Gupta - Founder and Director
With an objective of creating a platform that equips and enables clients in selecting the best in class financial products & services, Mr Jay Prakash Gupta flagged the inception of Moneylicious on 30th July 2012. Since its inception, this innovative broking start-up from Mumbai has been setting up a new benchmark for quality services for its retail clients based all across the country
Mr. Jay, the Founder, and Director of Moneylicious, brings in life his vision of a company that understands the need from an investor's perspective and then offers the best available ethical financial solution. He holds over 17 years of experience in the financial market including the expertise in setting up retail broking networks when Fintech was nonexistent in India.
A known name in Commodities broking and financial services industry, Mr Gupta has been awarded as India's Best Research Analyst 2013. He has also won Zee Market Excellence Award under Commodities Fundamental Category in 2016
To know more about Mr. Jay Gupta and his venture, the editor of The CEO Magazine, Puja Bhardwaj spoke to the visionary, here are the edited excerpts.
I landed up in Mumbai for my studies, my city of dreams. I got my first job with an MNC firm, the largest derivatives trading house in India then. Life is said to be fast in Mumbai and the pace took me along and I went on climbing the organizational ladder from Indiabulls to Karvy to Mangal Keshav group.
From a Management trainee to Country Head in a span of 8 years, the corporate journey was rewarding and enriching. It was during Sub-Prime crisis when pessimism was all around in financial and housing markets, I could sense an opportunity in Retail Financial Services space.
Retail Investors were underserved with no company around who were offering the quality advice and service to retail investors. The idea germinated during that time and took the shape of a sapling in 2012, when Moneylicious was born! On Personal side, I love reading. I am a sports enthusiast, an optimist, and an entrepreneur by choice.
For me, dynamic leadership is not just about leading a team it is also about creating leaders under you. You need to create a second layer in the organization. And, the second layer has to be as smart as you are. Leadership cannot be just about inspiration and vision but also be about getting results.
Money is always delicious. I and my wife Ronita were thinking of names and shortlisted a few. It was while having dinner, the thought came to my mind that if food can be delicious why can't earning money be termed delicious! That's how "Moneylicious"
The next day in the morning, I called my auditor and asked him to check whether this name is available. He checked and confirmed it was available. And, we decided to keep this name and with a tagline, "the taste of money".
Stock broking business was highly working capital intensive, as business started growing, we felt the pressure. Growing client base and trading volumes demanded larger amounts of working capital. As Moneylicious was a bootstrapped venture I had limitations of fund and stock broking was not a preferred sector for lenders
Finding the right manpower was another challenge. People did not want to join a startup. Today, the entire idea of the startup has changed but in 2012 a new company Meant lesser job security for employees. Gradually, when we started Gaining traction in terms of business and client acquisition, things started becoming easier.
Making people trust my brand was another big challenge for me. Generally, people start comparing you, with large players, which is good in one way that you are compared with the leader in Industry from day one
Our idea was retail-focused; we were serving the retail sector especially. People had very bad experiences with small broking houses so there was some kind of skepticism.
We decided to do a series of investor awareness programmes in non-metro towns and cities. Such efforts resulted in a flow of businesses being referred by each satisfied client of ours. And that's how we have grown.
Research plays a key role in our organization. Financial service is knowledge-driven. Quality research and the right financial models help in studying markets and stock better. It helps our clients make informed decisions.
Technology has disrupted the Industry and the only way your business can remain viable is by embracing the right technology. As a financial intermediary you don't have to be physically present in any geographical location to serve your client, which used to be the case when we started.
Moneylicious is broadly into two kinds of businesses namely stockbroking and Financial consulting., which includes Human Resource consulting, Merchant banking intermediary, and third-party product distribution. We are already in the process of moving the broking business into a technology-driven model. While the consulting business needs more customized and tailor-made solutions, we would have a physical plus digital model. To change the way, you are going to operate, it is important to take both employees and clients into confidence. We approached it through one-on-one communication with employees and could make them visualize the larger picture successfully.
Success is subjective. Each individual has its own definition and benchmark for success. According to me Success is being happy with whatever you have achieved so far and aim to surpass your own achievements every year.
We are planning to reorganize our broking business and make it completely technology-driven. The consulting piece would be a combination of human plus digital model.
Be a good communicator, read a lot because knowledge gives you power. You need to have a vision and have perseverance. It is important to learn and adapt to changes around you, what brings you here won't take you there.
A Gold Medalist in PGDBM (Finance), Ronita Gupta is the director of Moneylicious. She has about 15 years of working experience in the financial sector. She started her career as a Trainee for Advance against Financial Assets in CITI Bank and graduated as a Private Client Group Relationship Manager for Refco Sify Securities Pvt. Ltd. She has worked with ICICI Bank, Standard Chartered Bank and was part of the Liability product group with HDFC Bank prior to co-founding Moneylicious.
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