On compounding money, skills and value: Nithin Kamath’s not-so-secret sauce to improving your odds

As with money, skills, too, blossom with time. If nurtured. 

Nithin believes that the one skill India needs to become both wealthy and inclusive is entrepreneurship. Key to this are decision frameworks on risks and rewards, and developing storytelling skills to inspire more people to become entrepreneurs.

The biggest lesson in understanding Zerodha’s journey is how a company can be built with humility and value. Key discussions from Zerodha’s early days that remain a constant even today have revolved around helping traders do better and make more money, as well as helping people do better with their money.

For founders seeking to create long-term value, an underlying lesson from Nithin’s discussion was a lesson in humility and stoicism: staying rationally optimistic, factoring in worst-case outcomes, and establishing clear expectations for everyone in a team.

It is even more critical to unlearn certain misconceptions. One such is valuation, according to Nithin. While some industry insiders and experts believe in external benchmarks such as valuation as key measures of a company’s worth, Nithin reiterates a simple fact—what might be right for an investor may not always be right for the customer.

“What is important to know is that valuation is an obligation. It is not money. Neither is it a benchmark to measure ourselves,” Nithin said. “Building a business with real value takes time.”