
Getting early users for a consumer finance startup is not easy, much more so with Generation Z users, those born from 1997 to 2012. They are not millennials and have very different interests and outlooks about savings and investments.
But for Manish Maryada, an ex-HSBC, Koinex, and Flobiz alumnus, and Shourya Lala, a computer science engineer with expertise in building financial tools for global institutions like BlackRock, this was a huge opportunity, too big to miss – India is a very young country, with a whopping 27% of the population who are Gen-Zers.
They left their cushy jobs, joined Entrepreneur First Bangalore where they met, and decided to take the challenge head-on to build India’s first gaming and finance application, Fello. The duo recently took their early success up another notch with a new product launch, registering more than 100,000 new Gen-Z sign-ups in the first 6 days.
The success of their launch, however, was no fluke. Manish and Shourya were extremely clear that they had to meticulously and rigorously research their customers right from the onset.
“We set out knowing we were going to delve into the finance space, but as to what exactly to build, what problem sets to solve, we knew it had to start from getting solid market feedback,” said Manish.
“We wanted to build a truly customer-centric solution for our customers.”