Building Wealthy – Part 1

A few days back, Aditya Agarwal (Adi), woke up to a text message that makes him want to go to work every day;

“Itni meri salary bhi nahi thi jitni maine Wealthy ki wajha se banaya”

(The amount of money I made because of Wealthy is more than what I earn at my job)

And that is just one of many messages from the hundreds of wealth advisors working with Wealthy.

But there is a backstory to this; there is a backstory to becoming Wealthy.

The backstory

Born in a typical Rajasthani business family in Udaipur, Aditya Agrawal had a humble yet robust beginning that would serve him well in the years to come. On completing his high-school education, Adi managed to achieve the dream college of every Indian engineering aspirant, IIT Bombay. But IIT for Adi was not only about engineering and education. During his four formative years in college, Adi was mostly organizing stuff, from college fests to competitions, he’d want to participate in everything. Being a part of student committees and various other teams, Adi realized he was not the type to work alone. Building, collaborating, and creating with a team got engraved in him in those four years.

Once out of college, Adi ended up joining the Monitor Group as a consultant. The path to becoming a consultant has been different for everyone, however, for Adi, it was a journey to learn the playbook of how businesses are really done.

After nearly five years of working as a consultant, his firm offered him an option for a sponsored MBA program at a business school of his choice. As great asthat sounded, it made Adi think about the road ahead.
The road had two distinct paths, either become a Partner at a Consulting Firm or jump into the world of entrepreneurship and build something of his own that he was passionate about., He ended up choosing the latter.

The Homecoming

IIT Bombay Techfest Team; Aditya – Third from top right

Confident in his decision, Adi decided to go home and help his dad with the family business, a small marble and granite trading enterprise. Adi had worked with some of the best in the business and thought it might be a good opportunity to apply his learnings in the real world. As he got deeper into learning about the family-run business, things weren’t as rosy as he thought they would be. The business was in a bad shape and things had to be changed.

Rolling up his sleeves, Adi wanted to make an impact.

However, bringing a change is not so easy, and in the long run, Adi ended up learning certain lessons that he still holds on to;

1. Building Trust

*Granite and marble storage unit* *where Adi started his entrepreneurial journey*

The first project that Adi took up was to have a marble fountain constructed for an upcoming mall. The project according to Adi was simple; The client pays 50% upfront – Adi gets the fountain constructed – after completion of the fountain Adi receives the remaining 50% payment.
To craft the fountain, Adi couldn’t find a craftsman around where he lived, so upon researching, he found one about 100kms away. Adi drove down to meet the craftsman and the craftsman agreed to do the work. But the craftsman wanted 100% of his payment upfront before he starts anything.
To gain the trust of the craftsman to work with him, Adi told him that he’s a graduate from IIT Bombay, however, that was not enough for the craftsman to trust him.
So Adi made him sit in the car, went to an ATM 100kms away and gave him cash.
This exercise repeated for a while until the paying terms became more favorable.

Lesson learned: Trust doesn’t always come from credentials, it needs to be evidenced.

2. Building a company is not a sprint, it’s a marathon

Udaipur is famous for granite and marble so it wasn’t surprising for Adi to see that his family business had a lot of competition. However, the businesses around his shop had trucks lined outside, and it appeared that the competition was thriving. But why he thought?
Confused as he would be, Adi asked his dad why this was happening.
His dad stated “Agar tum 100rs ki cheez, 50rs mai bechoge, to line to lage gi” (If you sell something worth 100rs for 50rs, it is obvious that you will have a line outside your business)
As months passed, Adi saw many such businesses boom but eventually shut down.

Lesson learned: Build a business that is sustainable. Price your product the price it deserves.

These were just some of the lessons that Adi learned while working in his family business, but he knew that there was something bigger brewing out there. The wave of technology had just started hitting the Indian coasts and Adi was bullish on it.

The Startup ecosystem

Going back to remembering his days at Monitor, where Adi was making presentation slides that stated that India’s GDP is about $800 billion, today it’s about $2.5 trillion. In the last 15 years, a lot has changed and he wanted to be a part of this.
Before venturing into his own startup, Adi wanted to learn more about the ecosystem from the fence. He started doing this by being an early-stage investor and mentor to startups such as Housing, Chaayos, and many others.

The Co-Founder

Enter Prashant, an old college friend of Aditya, who joined as a co-founder of Wealthy’s dream. Both were in agreement that the fin-tech space is teeming with potential. Aditya says, “India was starting to look like a developed country, where people will have more money to save and will want to invest them in financial products as opposed to physical assets.” and Prashant strongly believed in this and wanted to make investing more accessible – the big question was, how to do it?

Stay tuned as next week we release the journey of Wealthy; from an idea to the execution