Ditto Sucess Story - Simplifying Insurance for Indian Consumers
📄Company Profiles
In the financial services sector, insurance is always an area that seems like quicksand for the people who lack proper knowledge. Besides, the insurance sector is one that has always been devoid of proper, credible advisors who would steer their clients to fortify their future. This is where the digital insurance advisory platforms are proven to be a huge boon. Ditto is one of the latest online insurance advisory platforms that was founded by the co-founders of Finshots in February 2021.
Ditto Insurance has been headquartered in Bengaluru and has already raised Rs 4 crore from Zerodha in an initial funding round, the latter also picked up a majority stake in it. With Ditto, the founders hope to reiterate the success they gained with Finshots, which was launched in 2019 and already boasts of a subscription of over 5 lakh readers.
So, let's check out Ditto, its Founders and Team, Funding and Investors, Challenges, Future Plans, Products and Services, Name, Tagline and Logo, Startup Story, and more.
Ditto - Company Highlights
| Startup Name | Ditto |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Bangalore |
| Industry | Fintech |
| Founders | Pawan Kumar Rai, Shrehith Karkera, Bhanu Harish Gurram and Lokesh Gurram |
| Founded | 2021 |
| Current CEO | Pawan Kumar Rai |
About Ditto
Ditto - Industry
Ditto - Starting Up
Ditto - Product and Services
Ditto - Founders and Team
Ditto - Name, Tagline, and Logo
Ditto - Business Model and Revenue model
Ditto - Challenges Faced
Ditto - Funding
Ditto - Recognition and Achievements
Ditto - FAQ
About Ditto
Finshots (The parent company of Ditto Insurance) is a 3-minute daily newsletter giving readers insights about all things economics and finance. Their vision is to create financial literacy among Indians by simplifying finance and financial products.
The core belief of Finshots is that financial literacy is like basic arithmetic every person should know. Everyone should understand what’s happening with the economy, or what’s going on behind a financial scam - but the news is often full of technical jargon, making it obscure to the layperson. Hence, their main aim is to simplify finance for everyone and give trustworthy information that people can rely on.
Ditto - Industry
Finshots caters to the Fintech industry. They don’t have a target market for Finshots. They want to build an inclusive community of people willing to learn and understand financial concepts. On the other hand, for Ditto, their target market is the working population looking for insurance for themselves and their loved ones.
Finshots currently has a user base of over 700K readers, while Ditto has helped more than 10,000+ people with their insurance queries.
The fintech industry has massive scope, since investments, as well as insurance penetration, is severely lacking in the country. Only close to 2-3% of Indians have invested in equities, and insurance penetration is a meagre 3%. So the scope for growth in the industry is immense.
Ditto - Starting Up
After completing their MBA course, Bhanu Gurram, Shrehith Karkera and Pawan Kumar Rai founded Finception in 2018. Lokesh Gurram, an IIT Delhi graduate, worked for Samsung in South Korea for two years before joining the venture.
They saw that financial news from major media houses was loaded with industry-specific terminology, as though it wasn't intended for the masses. And so, Finception delivered explanatory long-form stories for a year. The objective was clear: To simplify financial news for the masses.
In 2019, a separate brand called Finshots came about when the team realized that audiences suffered from information overload.
Finshots delivers only one news a day. Readers spend just three minutes each day but in a month, they would have read about 28 topics.
Finshots doesn't spend a dime on advertising. Finshots's subscriber base has grown to 500,000 just by the word of mouth. While Finshots educates people about the financial markets, readers are still left asking which financial product is best-suited to their needs.
Then they launched Ditto, the latest product under the Finshots brand aimed at simplifying insurance policies for people. This is one of the many ways Finshots intends to simplify financial products and financial planning for the masses.
Anagha S
Ditto - Product and Services
Finshots is a financial newsletter that one can read in no longer than 3 minutes. They also have a podcast that covers the same content as their newsletter. Their product tries to resolve the problem of lack of financial literacy among people by offering information in plain, simple, lucid English, which is their USP.
They started Finshots back in 2019 when they realised people wanted finance content simplified and this was a market gap they wanted to fill. They later launched Ditto Insurance, their latest venture which provides insurance advice. Ditto aims to help millennials make better financial decisions and they've started with insurance. They want to make a dent in the insurance industry by educating the masses so that people can compare policies, narrow down their choices per their requirements, avoid pitfalls and buy the policy best suited for them.
Ditto - Founders and Team
At IIMA, Bhanu, Shrehith Karkera and Pawan Kumar Rai were batchmates. At the time, Rai was working on a way to simplify stock markets for millennials. They say that millennials must be helped traversing these jargon minefields.
The founders were also a part of IIM Ahmedabad's IIMAvericks program which gave them a monthly stipend. Nevertheless, Karkera taught part-time classes at coaching institutes like T.I.M.E. and Career Launcher, so Finshots could hire more interns and grow.
Shrehith handles most of Finshots content, while Bhanu & Pawan handle marketing and sales. Lokesh manages product and tech.
Finshots have over 80 employees at present, working from home. But they try to create a work environment that makes everyone feel like they’re having fun in what they’re doing, rather than being crippled with piles of work. They also organise monthly activities to keep up team spirit.
When it comes to hiring, they look more at the enthusiasm and work ethics an incoming employee brings to the team, rather than their background and resume.
Ditto - Name, Tagline, and Logo
The idea of Finshots is ‘financial shots’ - think of it like coffee shots you take in the morning. That’s exactly how they want people to consume financial information, one shot at a time.
“Our philosophy behind naming our insurance advisory as ‘Ditto’ is that we want to tell people what kind of policy we would buy if we were in their shoes. We want to tell them exactly what we would do, and they can then make a decision based on that. “
Ditto - Business Model and Revenue model
Finshots is completely free and they don’t intend to make any revenue off of it.
“That’s part of the mission behind Finshots - we want to democratise financial information, offering our content for free is part of it. “
Ditto, on the other hand, earns money through policy sales. They function as a distributor and help people with purchasing policies.
Ditto - Challenges Faced
The biggest challenge faced by Ditto was the fact that insurance is a push product. The industry practices include mis-selling policies and spam calling. The founders believe that a product like insurance has the power to make or break the financial strength of households and that's why their approach towards insurance is to research, give the right advice, and simultaneously ensure peace of mind to families.
On the other hand, the biggest challenge for Finshots was expanding the reach of the newsletter. It’s definitely not easy to make lakhs of people subscribe to and read your content on a regular basis. And there aren’t any viral marketing shortcuts here. So they mostly relied on good-old word of mouth marketing, social media and college partnerships. They sent college newsletters to students and got their first 1000 readers.
Yash Gupta
Ditto - Funding
| Date | Stage | Amount | Investors Name |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 2019 | Seed | Rs 4 Crore | Rainmatter, Zerodha |
Ditto - FAQ
What is Ditto by Finshots?
Ditto functions as a distributor and helps people with purchasing insurance policies.
Who are the founders of Ditto?
Pawan Kumar Rai, Shrehith Karkera, Bhanu Harish Gurram and Lokesh Gurram are the founders of Ditto.
How much funding has Ditto raised?
Ditto Insurance has raised a total of Rs4 Crore funding from Zerodha in Dec 2021.
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