The startup media ecosystem is buzzing with the news that Groww has beaten Zerodha in terms of total active userbase.
Fair enough. Let’s revisit the numbers with some context.
| Groww | Zerodha |
|---|---|
| Userbase: 66 lakh | 65 lakh |
| Revenue: 1,294 cr | 7,000 crore |
| Profit: 73 crores | 3000 crores |
Unlike Zerodha, Groww doesn’t charge for account opening / maintenance – and hence also attracts a lot of casual investors which also shows up in the revenue/customer number for the companies.
Startup metrics of Funded vs. Bootstrapped companies
This is a typical conundrum in the startup ecosystem – if you are well funded, you can absorb a lot of customer acquisition cost and also, show growth in metrics that may not be important (though, a lot of kudos and respect to Groww for building a profitable business and rise against a super strong incumbent).
When you bootstrapped, you need to create value and most importantly, extract value – this ensures you have serious customer base and which is why Zerodha ends up charging for account opening/maintenance; while when you are funded – your metrics are to show growth – at any cost.
What’d be interesting to see if the casual investor of Groww start to convert into serious ones and start transacting on Groww- that’ll be a real challenge to Zerodha. And ofcourse, hoping that this battle grows the market.
What’s your take?