E3: The Goldfish

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Sandeep Jethwani  [0:27]  

Hi Radhika, and thank you for doing this for insider investing, super thrilled to have you on the show.

Radhika Gupta  [0:33]  

Thanks, Sandeep, thank you for having me.

Sandeep Jethwani  [0:35]  

So, when I was talking to you earlier, one big things stuck out to me, which is the fact that our different your journey is from mine. I have been after B school, worked with ifl for almost 15 years. And then started out you had a very different journey. You started out first work, ran forefront for five years. And now seven or eight years maybe with Edelweiss?

Radhika Gupta  [1:04]  

Yeah, it is it is seven and a half year it.

Sandeep Jethwani  [1:07]  

Wow. So how, how is it turning entrepreneur to a professional? Or is it still very much the same?

Radhika Gupta  [1:16]  

It's an interesting question. You know, so the when I when I did the move from entrepreneurship to an F realise I was very young when I did entrepreneurship, right? So 2324 You don't even have any idea of what is going on. Right? So but when I did the move, and when we sold the business to Edelweiss people sort of made me feel like it would be a very big difference and I got told things like they will eat you alive and "Saari company to LA company or hoti hai" and that kind of language was there and it is was especially there because everyone knew that I had not lived in India have worked in India, right? My work experiences the US and I've grown up abroad. So I heard a lot of this when I when I moved and when we were selling the business, etc, etc. And I have realised having done both stints is actually not that much difference in my head actually, in the way I operate. I don't wake up thinking, Oh, I'm an employee, or I'm an entrepreneur, like it just doesn't work that way you don't operate that way. I run Edelweiss AMC as if I own the business, and obviously I'm incentivized that way. And I read forefront as if I run the business. So I think if you're building a good quality business, and if you have your soul into building the business, I don't think it's linked to how much ownership you had or whether you were the co founder or the CEO, I think, I think entrepreneurship is an attitude. It's a state of mind.

Sandeep Jethwani  [2:39]  

No, absolutely. I think the question is who you are answerable to write. So at some level, as an entrepreneur, as a leader, you're answerable to yourself before you're answerable to anybody else. Right. But you're not utilised as a listed entity. At some level, you know, there is external stakeholders involved. Whereas in forefront you probably had a lot more latitude in terms of how you could do things so and plus it's a mutual fund, which is, which is a whole different ballgame compared to an AIFor a PMS structure. How did that work out?

Radhika Gupta  [3:09]  

Okay, so I've come to the mutual fund bit separately, because I think there are two nuances to the question. The first nuance is about who you're answerable to. And the second is the stakeholder bit. Now Apple to Apple, I think, you know, people always say that if you are an entrepreneur, you are your own boss, and you know, etc, etc. I've heard a lot of that. I don't think that's necessarily true. Firstly, I think in this day and age in the world of asset management, we're not in the proprietary trading business, our first bosses clients, always has been at forefront I think, even if I didn't have a boss, I was very answerable to distributors, I was very answerable to investors, and you're always answerable to the regulator. So in fact, I think in an entrepreneurial setting, because your day on day salary depends so much on those customers and distributors, I felt more answerable to them than I ever felt on the second day. So I think one of the reasons that we chose to sell the business to Aden and people always think business sales are about valuation. And while that is important, was culture so it is that way, is a very, very free culture. We have budgets, we have compliance rules, we have oversight, but we really have any freedom to do what we want. You know, I probably haven't shared this before but many people know that an AMC We were the surprise winner of the Bharat 1 mandate. Me and my immediate boss knew about that paracord mandate. I think Rashish got to know about it on the day we won the mandate, and I told him and that is the kind of freedom and flexibility and he was all supportive and I called I remember telling them from daily that listen, we wanted this mandate. You're going to read about it in the video. And he was in one of our offices. I think and he was announcing it and he was celebrating it. But that that's how we've always been as a culture. We've always been given a lot of freedom and flexibility to operate, which is why I think eight years has happened because I don't think when I when I was joining Edelweiss I don't think I planned or thought that eight years would happen. Now, there is a second important one, which is a mutual fund point on mutual fund has a very large degree of stakeholder management on if I was running it standalone, it would be the case and if I was running it here, it is a public business. And you want I was we have a programme called CEO for a day for our teams and we nominate some people. And so you know, some of my employees from branches, etc. They were asking me a question and this and they were like, so what do you do all day, so fascinating. And I said, you know, a lot of it is stakeholder management. So you are answerable to a board, you're answerable to trustees, you're answerable to consumer, you're answerable to distributors, you're answerable to the media, you're answerable to your employees, and everything is disclosed. I mean, just everything is out there, right. Your navs are public, they circulate on WhatsApp, your positions are public, your compensation is public. Now where you're going to have it everything is out there in the public eye. So it is you're managing public money and you know, you are answerable to the public and anything. So that is a huge level of responsibility that I have to say is is a very large level of responsibility. But I have received many reviews, I'm also very happy for that, because it gives you a lot of exposure in the CEO role at a very young age. I don't think many industries and financial services give you this level of exposure. 

Sandeep Jethwani  [6:39]  

Absolutely. think I would be among the youngest, if not the youngest, AMC CEO in India, at least at this scale and size. So that is incredible. But let's go back to the forefront time, right? I remember 2009 or 10. We had this and back then at ifl wealth, we were a small outfit. And in a small tight conference room, you and I think knowledge was also very important concept to us. And it was like, Wow, man, finally hedge funds are coming to India. This was right after the I think 2008

Radhika Gupta  [7:15]  

this was right after 2008.

Sandeep Jethwani  [7:17]  

How was that? How was setting up forefront right after the global financial crisis. And in a new asset class. Investors are probably shocking away all of this is mumbo jumbo. Like, you know, those kinds of things happen right after a big crisis plays out. So how did that work out for you?

Radhika Gupta  [7:35]  

So I think when we were starting over and Sandeep, as I said, we were so young, that we didn't overthink the journey. And frankly, we had no good or bad days, we had no idea of what is going on in India, I remember when we were taking this decision, the decision to move in itself from the US was such a large one, right? You've never lived in this country have never worked in this country. Funnily enough, by the way, our first dream when we wanted to come back was to run a mutual fund. And then we looked at service capitalization requirements. And we're like this is not going to happen. So back then I was thinking that, you know, we want to run a mutual fund one day, that was the original wish. Back then there was also no AI. So we settled upon PMS. And then we started and I have to say the folks at SEBI were super helpful. Even when we were in the US. We were asking them questions on how to set up etc. And then we came back and we met them and they were so encouraging. They actually made it. They made it feel like it was going to be super easy to get a PMS licence. And we actually the timing said 21 days, we got ours in 16 days. That's how it was unbelievable. So I think we were you know, we didn't think financial crisis, we didn't think meltdown. In fact, we were starting a PMS business. And on, I think one of the first months, my father in law made us meet a very senior ex financial services CEO. And he told us two prominent MCs had shut down their PMS business. And my father in law thought this would discourage us and we didn't care. We just had this thinking just by Karna. I think at that agent stage, you don't care. So you don't think all these macro thoughts that I probably would think if I had to do this today.

Sandeep Jethwani  [9:17]  

Amazing, but let me actually let you know that it's interesting. You said you never lived and worked in India now I to set up a new entrepreneurial venture for India. How did that happen? Like? I think so. Summa cum Laude at Wharton, like the top dollar payouts probably on Wall Street. Why would you come to India?

Radhika Gupta  [9:39]  

You know, because young people are hungry to do something. I went to a school to I'm the daughter of a government official and Alan's father is a professional. Incidentally and I don't know what drove us to come back to India. It was a lark you wanted to do something. I know when I reflect back on time, a lot of my clothes It's industrialists from wharton you know you you know many of them, perhaps that and at that point A lot of them were coming back to India now comparison is the stupidest thing to do in life when I realised later you should not do it. But in this case it worked out well. Perhaps that drove the instinct This was also remember 2005, six, there was a whole bull market and bricks euphoria in India, euphoria, and people will ever it just felt like the place to be right. So I think all of these things put together. And then, you know, my father had in a couple of passing conversations after I'd graduated from Wharton, he said, someday now appears, you know, you can't do brain drain of India, you have to come back. Now, none of no one explicitly told us come back. But I think some of these things feed your subconscious. Right?

Sandeep Jethwani  [10:49]  

Right. And so much of that environment is very familiar right now with where we are, like, in just a bit, you know, at forefront you're evangelising, a new asset class, almost like people would push back and say, "Bohot exotic hai". And you know, even as wealth managers, you would think about that in today's environment with suddenly a new state of asset classes which wealth managers are struggling to wrap their heads around. So there is crypto there is NFT, and all of that stuff. But how was it? How was that experience of explaining and educating people about what an AI first to begin with is, and then the strategy of long shorts and all of that stuff? distributors get it where they open?

Radhika Gupta  [11:36]  

You know, I have until date, we haven't stopped even in my mutual fund role. We haven't stopped evangelising new things and I'll give you some examples. So that journey fundamentally continues today. I don't know why I become the evangelist. So Incidentally, and I'll come back to the longshot example when Bharat Bond launched. We were the evangelists for Debt passes, right and target majority farms. And I was just writing an article on this cut to two years later. And everybody is launching passive fixed income foreign to target maturity. And we're feeling very happy because we were the first ones to find this word target maturity to explain that concept at the time of birth. So the team is feeling really good about this. So I think evangelising, a new asset class has come the same thing with international investing. We started talking about this in 2017, because we inherited those funds from JP Morgan, and now everybody is launching international funds. So this evangelization of new asset classes has been I think, has never left us and maybe that's a good thing. I think then and now people do listen, I think now people are a lot more open then. Then there were very few people who were very forward looking so and also remember, as you correctly said, 2008 had just happened. People were very sceptical of things that were complicated. In fact, in that sense, I think forefront was a few years ahead of its time. So things like quant investing, you know, which was how forefront started or long short, which are all big things today, they appeared very, you know, suddenly it also depends on the one who it comes from, I think if a big brand goes out and endorses the same thing versus three young kids, you know, obviously you don't carry the same credibility. So you know, even today, and Edelweiss AMC goes out and does international investing versus the largest state owned AMC in the country goes out and you know, does it that lends a certain degree of credibility and it actually expands the market, which is all good for all of us. But I think people gave us time so what what would happen a lot then is people would listen to the idea they would see the track record. A couple of guys give us seed capital at the time, and I know who they are and till date, I'm eternally grateful to them because we started the business with 25 lakhs in a year which was the minimum at that time. And I you know, you collect all your friends and family money and that came to two crores and then friends and family stop. And I think about a year into it, we had two crores of a new one. And then one or two distributors came on board and they gave us a chance with a couple of their clients because they saw the energy and the enthusiasm they could afford to take a risk. And then the journey sort of took off. We also learned I think a lot about product structuring in the first few years. I think our first few products came with a lot of arrogance and inexperience of not knowing any consumer see, we are investment professionals. None of us had done a bit of sales in our life. The last few products of forefront capital and then finally what we built with Edelweiss when we started the business, but a lot more evolved. So I have learned product design on the ground. If you ask me the strength of even Edelweiss AMC today, it is product design. We think of products a little bit ahead of the curve and we think from a very consumer lens, I think that is come from six, seven years of really struggling with And the good thing about forefront is we had the time to go. So I was selling directly, right? So I would go to Calcutta for one hour event and our PMS is and meet 10 customers a day and like eat lunch and bada bazaar on the way and catch a taxi and like, be exhausted at the end. But that teaches you a lot, right?

Sandeep Jethwani  [15:19]  

Yeah, absolutely not even I deserve. You know, one of the things we are learning is, you just have to get the product out in the hands of the ultimate user. Yeah. And then they take over and start shaping it for you. Yeah, they become so much easier, and which is why getting the product out of the door is one of the first most important thing

Radhika Gupta  [15:34]  

and you have to get something I keep telling my team, you know, you don't have to build Taj Mahal and day one. I mean, even you know, we're building some digital products, and I was telling my tech team, it doesn't have to be perfect on day one, it fundamentally will not be perfect on day one is sort of monument, right? It's a work in progress. So that's something I keep today, it's important to ship. I started my career as a coder slash technology person, it's important to ship one version. I mean, just as when you're writing, it's important to write one version because then it takes a life of its own. But if you don't write one version, then nothing.

Sandeep Jethwani  [16:09]  

No, I have to confess one thing, actually, is that as somebody who's been in the industry for a long time, the weight of the reputation can be overwhelming. So how can I share? How can I release this product? How would it look for me? Yeah, you know, and sometimes, which is why for experienced founders, that gets in the way of getting the product out the door, but yeah, great advice. But you know, I'm going back, I think 2014 you decided to sell forefront to Edelweiss? What was that turning point where you said to Chalo Now, let me do is take this over? And I'll join in?

Radhika Gupta  [16:48]  

Okay, so I mean, it was a long process. We thought in thought about who we were going to sell the company to, we wanted a larger platform. And we spent a year making the decision. We met people bigger than it Edelweiss we met people smaller than it always I keep told Rajesh Venkat, I was very arrogant about not meeting Edelweiss at first because I said, these guys are too aggressive. That's the market reputation. And I told the banker, I was like, there's no way we're going to meet. But when we met, incidentally, I was like, wait, they're just like us, this is going to work. And I think see Ugf realises a financial services sale is very different from a sale in technology. All consumer products, in many of those businesses will buy or sell a good or a product or a platform and who is the founder exit in financial services, your business, our business, people are buying, in part, the reputation. So you aren't necessarily continuing as an employee for three, four years afterwards. It's true of most of these deals, certainly in money management. And so money is important. But cultural fit is equally important. And one of the nice things is, you know, Roger who did the deal at Halo, I said, it's it is very much a partnership, it will work. It's not an acquisition, acquisition is like, excellence, why it can't be like that. It has to feel like a partnership. And that's ultimately why we made the decision. And the fact that both Melina and I are here eight years later, I don't think you know, so people kept saying, Oh, you guys are gonna quit in four years, what's the duration of your own out you're going to quit in x years. Fact is, we are not was a four year duration. We are sitting here eight years later, right? So it wouldn't have worked if it wasn't cultural. And I've done enough m&a in life. We did the JP Morgan deal, which I ran m&a works if the cultural fit works.

Sandeep Jethwani  [18:37]  

Oh, you know, Radhika, let me just now go deeper into this entrepreneurial thing. And today as an entrepreneur, you're supposed to read blitzscaling by Reed Hoffman, grow fast. There is play because there is all of this stuff around accelerated growth. Right? And that's a really tough conflict, especially if management services, right, where you're managing people's money and you feel responsible for what you're doing with that. How, what's your advice to entrepreneurs on this whole, grow fast, fail fast break things? So story?

Radhika Gupta  [19:14]  

Okay, so before before I say anything, firstly, I'll say I am the most impatient person on planet Earth. I and I understand the hunger for growth. If you walk into the office of Edelweiss mutual fund, there is a big wall with money plants all over it that says growth. And I believe Indians and especially young Indians are born from growth. The only thing that is life is tough in India, but growth is exciting. In the US. We talk 5-10 percent growth rates in Europe. It's exciting. India has 50-00 multiples. This is a growth is a drug. So firstly, I love growth, I get growth and if you ask me my biggest weakness in life, and I can't say coffee, I'll say it's impatience. I'm extremely impatient. That's it. Um, I think you have to build a franchise that is quality. And if you could do it while growing really, really, really, really, really fast, then by all means do it. But you have to ask yourself in this rush for valuation what, imbedded to business when What are you creating, I wake up every day knowing that I run a brand that manages common people's money. I also happen to be on social media and reasonably known on social media. And I know the kind of messages that people write to me, I'm doing my forced pocket money investment investment and Bharat bond. I'm because I've read two of your tweets, and I trust you, I want to make an investment for my daughter. And believe me, I'm not saying it, I take that responsibility, and we as a licensee take that responsibility very, very seriously. So when we launch a product, we have a very thorough checklist of why we will and will not do something and we launch much fewer products than our peers, even at a time when NFL season is happening. Because we say that the product has to meet a genuine consumer need, it has to achieve a certain scale and size. And we have to be good at managing it because there are things other people in our competition do well like credit risk funds, which we are not capable of doing well. And we're very happy to say no, we also like to launch things where we have the opportunity to be a little different. So everyone's talking passive investing. But we want to find we don't want to be the 50th day launching a Nifty Index Fund in the country and what, why why should we do that? We don't stop there, what what are we doing? You know, so we have a very detailed checklist. And the consumer is very much at the heart of our vision statement is providing investment solutions, but solutions that deliver enduring value. And I think that's to your point that in this rush of growth, don't forget that concept of enduring value. Because you know, every business and we're sitting in peaks of bull markets is going to go through ups cycles and down cycles, and this frenzy will end. If you build a business that is sustainable, and grows sustainably, you will have a new lead a much less dramatic life. And that's what I've seen. So again, statistics I have not shared ever in the context of Illinois MC in the last four years, we have never had a month of negative net equity since never in the industry bled last year, we've had flat months, we've never had a negative month, we built a fixed income book because we never ran after liquid funds, that is very, very stable. So people keep saying our quarterly numbers are good because we raise stable long term money. And we forgot the fight for liquid funds. "Kya hua hai?", they were made to grow and someone gives us money in liquid and it's okay. But we focused on building something that is for the long term. And this year, we're having, you know, one of our finest years in terms of equity sales, but we haven't done an equity enough over the last three years.

Sandeep Jethwani  [23:03]  

That's amazing, actually, with 12-13-14,000 crores being raised for nfo

Radhika Gupta  [23:08]  

work and we don't want to and I genuinely believe if you do things that are right for the consumer. See there are things that bigger brands can do when they're backed by banks, and they should do them I'm not taking away but we can't do that right? We don't have the ability to raise 12,000 crores in an equity and afford today so we have to be the best version of what we can be and they have to cap everyone has to back to their strengths their batting to their strengths. We have to back to us

Sandeep Jethwani  [23:36]  

but nothing I think You make it sound much easier than it actually probably is at Edelweiss right because I put myself in the shoes of a sales guy in the mutual fund and yeah, although you're in another AMC is talking about oh I raised like 30,000 crores particular nfo combined couple of things and and then you know everyone wants that number on their CV it's like a hard communication task as well I'm sure

Radhika Gupta  [24:03]  

it hasn't been easy and I will tell you I mean and I don't like these words large MC small ANC etc. in our industry because league tables are such a big deal. In any case, the more emerging they are has a tougher in fact in 2017 when I started and you know today there's a lot of warmth about new MCs o x UMC is coming is going to bring a new approach and they want to be digital and they want to be passive and all this stuff is happening in 17 and I keep joking with I think humans we're all born to this when all of us was starting our journey there was no kind of hype in love When media and all around us we didn't get we didn't get this kind of debut now people are getting like style kid kind of debuts we're gonna have that kind of debut at our time. It's just a very vanilla debut. And we just came in and and i don't come from this industry, right? So in that sense, yes, it is not easy. One of the things is the composition of our team is slightly different. If you look at The people in our team, they're on average younger, and they come from slightly unconventional background. So, you know, a sales head has probably never been a sales head before his run zones. But he's not done that marketing head, he's ever done marketing because people come from slightly different and unconventional backgrounds. So, you know, we live a little bit in our own bubble, and that because otherwise you can drive yourself crazy. This is a very, very competitive industry, very fast paced, and everyone has every information about each other every day you know your competitors scheme by scheme, what is a qm is so if you want to compare, this is a lifetime of happiness. I mean, you can just drive yourself bananas. And some people also say the current state has not been automatic, I think we have made our set of grapples, mistakes and 17-18 we have figured out what we can do, we figured out what we can do. So not to say that you won't make mistakes again. But we have a little more self confidence key. This is what we want to do. And this is what we do. And I think success adds to self confidence also.

Sandeep Jethwani  [26:05]  

But when Radhika says "Chappal ghiso", so how do people react to that? Like nobody wants to do that? It's like the age of dopamine, you want instant gratification. You want everything at your fingertips? How do you convince people that both within Eli's and then for their own careers because you're a social media style? How do you like that is the approach to go with your careers as well?

Radhika Gupta  [26:32]  

Yeah, and you know so Chappal Ghiso was become third as a popular, but is actually is like crap, I credit the line to my boss in two times is a good good one for entrepreneurs, I think in 2017-18. And some of these boardroom conversations. Everyone would ask me and my boss him at that point, what is your ancient you know, business sports love asking this question, what is your age and you're sitting here and thinking about is my edge products are commoditized by savvy pricing is comorbid. What is my edge, right? And so let's say at some point, anyone said, He's like, you know, I'm just guessing will just work harder than other people will go out and sell with more fervour, we'll design products faster, we'll file with SEBI quicker, we get our ad campaigns out sooner, we'll take customer calls, we'll work the longer hours, this will be our edge and I really believe execution can be our edge. And so in one of the town halls, we have quarterly town halls, I actually had a picture of a high heel and I love to wear heels that said Chappal Ghiso and that was sort of ingrained in the DNA of the organisation early. So Chappal ghiso is something that, you know, is very, very cold to us. And I actually in pre COVID time, so they've changed five chapels every quarter because I used to travel so much the chapel genuinely is a running joke that every quarter I run out of five pairs of heels, and my husband knows I'm going to buy them. So COVID is the period like I'm the classic customer for shoe stores. So that's how the narrative was shaped internally which when you're looking for an edge, you don't have bank distribution, you don't have some crazy digital presence, you don't have some crazy digital brand. But hard work can always be an edge. And I think gradually that is the narrative that people have bought. It was a lot easier, more difficult in 2017- 2018 gradually people have also realised within the organisation that if you work hard, you know things do start to move the rewards of hard work are not immediate, but they start to show up later that one if you had a conversation and then 17 who never gave you any attention may end up giving you 20 crore check when you're sitting there in 2020 we also provide our people a lot of internal growth that's a stated strategy. Every every role the first choice is an internal talent if we can so head of Bombay sales was a fake good on him in Delhi. Recently we had one person move out of a key account role moved in internal guy give a Bombay banking head role which is a very big role in a mutual fund to a very young guy who actually joined us from the agribusiness to three years ago gave a Chief Operating Officer role of an AMC to someone who has never been in the mF industry younger than me young woman who's younger than me. So that is our choice has always been use an internal talent even if they're 70-80% of the external talent because that's how you will get people to stay. And we've hired people of that DNA so there are certain places you know, there are certain people that come to us and tell us I work at XYZ How will I work here because at XYZ, you know, brand papers out there and I'm like yada yada, you know Japanese people anyway, so luckily, you will have to work really hard at everything and you won't have everything on a platter. So we attract a certain kind of people.

Sandeep Jethwani  [29:53]  

And that job is actually like an extension of this whole compounding thing, right? Like you keep doing it and it builds Over a period of time, and I think that is a very true sort of thing for investing. Also, recently I was watching this show I love it it's Ted lasso. It's about this is an Apple TV American football coach who's coaching in the UK. And he says to one of his, you know, players that be a goldfish, which is forget and I was like, Yes, I've heard this before. Like, I've read this before somewhere. And then I was because thought on we are goldfish investor. So what is your goldfish investor?

Radhika Gupta  [30:37]  

So I will tell you a goldfish thing. I am a very gold fish investor. I'm actually deeply a goldfish investor. But the goldfish thing that became popular Actually, I was reading Ruskin bond, someone had sent me some Ruskin bond books and I love to write so he had an I had great disrespect for goldfish, till I wrote that story because I had grown up in a culture where I thought goldfish was stupid animals, because they just roamed around the bowl and did nothing. And I read this Ruskin more thing about this goldfish and cat story and how a cat agitates a goldfish. And the goldfish doesn't get agitated, and the cat goes away. And he wrote, he's like, I respect the goldfish, because goldfish are never agitated. And then I realised how there's something to learn from everybody. Because in today's market, there are so many reasons to be agile in today's life, there are so many reasons to be agitated. Forget markets, there's news, there's media, there's social media, there's WhatsApp groups is this is that as an investor, you have 5000 reasons to be agitated. If you can just tone down, that'd be good. I'm actually a total goldfish investor. I'm a very boring investor. I do SIPs in a certain set of mutual fund schemes. In March 2020. I didn't even look at my portfolio because I know what is going on. And I'm also a very fiscally sensible investor. So I'm a total good fish.

Sandeep Jethwani  [31:59]  

But tell me Radhika, how does that bear with being a hedge fund? fund manager? Like, isn't that an odds with it, because there you're looking for like immediate short term opportunities. And here is a very different approach.

Radhika Gupta  [32:12]  

So I haven't managed money for years one, but even in my hedge fund days. And, you know, the myth around hedge fund strategies is that we largely do intraday trading and very short term stuff, even what we do in the hedge fund side, incidently, and this has been a conscious choice. we've experimented with everything on the hedge fund side also, is a lot more long term. So we are doing long term equities with some amount of shorting fundamentally broken companies. And it's not companies that are broken on one day versus companies that are structurally broken over three years, we are doing pre IPO work, which is fundamentally long term, that brand one of the things that we decided we consciously don't want to do is very short term hedge fund investing that liquid plus Vala debt plus market, we just don't do that anymore. So even on investing in most things is become long term. I mean, as I said, My fixed income book is long term. In an industry when largely people do short term fixed income. I think life is better when there's less volatility.

Sandeep Jethwani  [33:10]  

And so if you had to give like one piece of one insider tip to people who are not from the investing space about their portfolios, what would it be, ah,

Radhika Gupta  [33:21]  

I think, do what works. And this is the most boring, it's, it's a total goldfish tip, but do what works for you. Because there is such a former tendency and tendency to do something because someone else is doing it today. In today's social media age, he is buying index funds, so I should go buy index funds, he is buying international funds, so I should go to it. My brother's asset allocation is like this, my friend recommended this. I think investing is very personal. And it has to make sense for you. And you will know if it makes sense for you. You are a good investor, if you can be a goldfish with your investments, if you don't need to look at them every day. If March 2020 happens, and it's causing you a huge amount of stress. It's changing your lifestyle. It's causing fights at home, it's causing a fundamental shift, then you probably have made some mistakes in asset allocation, and risk appetite. But if you're living through that, with some discomfort of a goldfish, maybe a little gasp, okay, it's March 2020. But if you're able to get through that comfortably, then I think you've done your allocations, right. So I think that is that is my advice. And most people I see are fairly agitated. I will I went to a session interestingly yesterday on mental health for children because a lot of my friends have kids when they're teenage. And a lot of household problems. Funnily enough, the doctor was saying have come in the COVID period from financial problems in the family that have percolated down to bichara children and that is

Sandeep Jethwani  [34:55]  

that is the lasting impact in some cases right. Deep

Radhika Gupta  [34:59]  

Impact. You know, you plan money badly, you don't allocate, right you have business losses compounded by investment losses, they cause stress in the family that is leading to mental health issues at home. We don't realise the sort of lasting ripple effects that these things have an odd having. And it's an eye opener. So really do what gives you a good night's sleep. My favourite product on earth is well known to be balanced on the farm and till date people ask me why I'm a long term equity investor, What is this nonsense about bath? I don't need to know all that. I don't need no volatility. The fact is, life is pretty high volatility. There is a space for a low volatility sort of existence in life.

Sandeep Jethwani  [35:45]  

Yeah, no. So we tell people right here, the portfolio, that if it falls, x percentage, you can live with that. Yeah. And then decide what the portfolio allocation should be. So what Radhika, thank you so much, very few times do we have a CEO and entrepreneur, social media star, a content creator all at the same time in one show, and this has been one of those. So exceptional. Talking to you. We've learned a lot. I really take away the goldfish thought and maybe that's what we'd call this show them. Thanks so much. Thanks for doing this for us.

Radhika Gupta  [36:21]  

Thanks. That's the pleasure talking to you. Thank you.

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