Zerodha CEO Nithin Kamath recently drew a parallel between the journey of his brokerage firm and that of Jensen Huang’s Nvidia, highlighting the importance of timing and perseverance in the success of any business. In a post on microblogging platform X (formerly Twitter), Kamath said: “I was just reading about Jensen Huang from Nvidia, he survived in the business for 30 years until he hit the right place and time. For a long time, people might have questioned what he was doing until very recently.”In the post, Nithin Kamath explained that Zerodha’s story, too, was one of patience, compounding, and being in the right place at the right time. “We were present at the right place and time with the right products and initiatives. Any gyan any founder gives, eventually comes down to getting timing right, and this has got everything to do with luck,” he wrote.
Nithin Kamath says he started Zerodha with Rs 10 lakh investment
The entrepreneur shared that “we came from an extremely middle-class background and had no rich uncles”. He said that Zerodha began as a partnership firm in 2010, with minimal investment — about ₹10 lakh in total — and leaned on free or low-cost infrastructure such as the NSE Now trading platform. “So the money we have spent on Zerodha is maybe ~₹10 lakh, and that is all the money that has gone into the business till date,” he wrote.“Our rise coincides with India’s rise,” he stated, poiting to policies such as Zerodha’s “no spam, no tracking” approach. “I believe that the philosophy with which we run Zerodha will be our real moat as a business. It is very tough to stick to it as a public company,” Kamath noted.
Here’s the full post shared by Nithin Kamath
Someone on Reddit asked what does Zerodha do differently, how are we profitable, why don’t IPO etc. This is what I replied:Hmmm… so you forget that we have spent 15 years getting here. And maybe another 10 years, before Zerodha, I was involved in the markets in some form. So, 25 years in all. Things in business compound over time, especially if you like or love what you are doing and if you are lucky to be in the right place and time.When we started Zerodha, we started off as a partnership firm because the exchange deposit requirement was lower, Rs 90 lks compared to Rs 1.5 cr. The start was mainly enabled thanks to the NSE Now trading platform, which came free of cost if you were an NSE broker. For the backoffice piece, sending contract notes, maintaining ledgers, etc., we signed up with a vendor who basically gave it at almost 0 cost. This was provided that we tested out his platform.So the money we have spent on Zerodha is maybe ~Rs 10lks, and that is all the money that has gone into the business till date. Rs 2.5 lks for our website, Rs 5lks for our office interiors (we had an office before), and Rs 2.5 lks for miscellaneous. So, we came from an extremely middle-class background and had no rich uncles. 😀 Dad was a bank manager, and Mom taught Veena.Our rise coincides with India’s rise. We were present at the right place and time with the right products and initiatives. Any gyan any founder gives, eventually comes down to getting timing right, and this has got everything to do with luck. 😀 I was just reading about Jensen Huang from Nvidia, he survived in the business for 30 years until he hit the right place and time. For a long time, people might have questioned what he was doing until very recently. 😀Now that there is no pressure to give any exit to any investor, we can continue doing what is right for the customer, sometimes even at the cost of the business. For example, our no spam or no tracking policy. I believe that the philosophy with which we run Zerodha will be our real moat as a business. It is very tough to stick to it as a public company.
