Founded in 2018, MoneyPlanned is a Fintech based SaaS company that is simplifying and transforming the space of online goal-based financial planning.
Nikhila and Sameer are the Co-Founders of MoneyPlanned and a happily married couple on a quest to build the next-gen financial planning solutions for India.
1. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey as an Entrepreneur.
Sameer, Founder:
I am a BITS Pilani Alumni with a deep passion for technology, innovation, product development & management.
From a young age, I enjoyed building and developing anything unique and innovative; the kind that made a full-fledged graphic video game for a 10th class project.
I enjoy reading various genres; science, technology, entrepreneurship, quantum physics, finance and spirituality.
During my internship at Tata Motors, I was exposed to design and business processes that piqued my interest. After my graduation, I worked for Reliance Industries.The day I received my first paycheque, I began to look for various options to plan and invest my money.
To my disappointment, in the financial planning landscape, the UX was archaic and lacked synergy.
I decided to delve deep into this problem and explore personal finances. My passion for innovation eventually led me to build MoneyPlanned.
As the Founder & CEO, I strategize innovative digital solutions to simplify the financial lives of our customers.
Nikhila, Co-Founder:
“Why constrain yourself in self-inflicted one-dimensionality when you have infinite potential?” This is the epigram I proudly live by.
A persistent polymath at heart and an entrepreneur by choice, I bring to table what any startup needs; doing whatever it takes.
With a number of diverse interests mushrooming over time and an intense desire to prove my mettle, I kept grabbing opportunities in various avenues.
From leading a tribal village camp of 300+ girl students to spearheading a Rotaract Club of 600+ members, I kept pushing my limits to unleash my full potential as a leader.
It fills me with gratitude to have received several awards and accolades for my relentless contribution to organizations and forums I have been associated with.
Born to two passionate and hard-working bankers, I heard finances being discussed almost everyday, all my life. Despite pursuing engineering for undergrad, I’ve always been fascinated and intrigued by the realm of personal finances.
I read up extensively about Money IQ and went on to clear the Investment Advisory exam by SEBI in the first attempt. I was equally fascinated by Money EQ and underwent Money Consciousness coaching by world renowned teachers.
At MoneyPlanned, as the CGO, I am in-charge of the growth; marketing, design, innovation and sales. My passion for reinvention, my love for finances, and my belief in our vision have inspired me to shape MoneyPlanned into the awesome platform that it is today.
2. Why did you choose entrepreneurship over a job?
Sameer, Founder:
My father has shown incredible faith in my vision to build MoneyPlanned and has been a huge pillar of support throughout. He went out of his way to be there for me in my quest to live my dreams. I went from strength to strength because of my parents encouragement and belief in my abilities.
The ecosystem and culture at BITS Pilani fosters innovation in a way that naturally made me think out of the box.
Being in the hub of entrepreneurship gave me an opportunity to interact with founders of revolutionary startups. This further inspired me to learn from them, explore entrepreneurship and technological innovation.
I wanted to contribute to the world in a bigger and more meaningful way. To solve a personal problem felt like the best way to make the impact I wanted to see in the world.
My love for technology and design innovation set me up on a quest to create next-gen Fintech solutions for financial planning.
Nikhila, Co-Founder:
Since I was 10 years old, when asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said only one thing: “I want to be a Renaissance woman”.
I have an indiscriminate sense of passion for a variety of things; a kind of passion that cannot be contained in a corporate cell.
I wanted to expand my horizons, learn different skills, empower others financially, explore various aspects of business, and eventually make a dent in the universe.
My biggest, grandest, and boldest dream for myself was to create a lasting positive change in the world. In the grand scheme of things, a 9-5 job did not make sense at all.
Entrepreneurship was my choice; a mindful, conscious, and obvious one at that. I chose entrepreneurship and it chose me too.
3. What was the vision behind it?
MoneyPlanned was born out of a desire to provide a Genie in everyone’s life.
Imagine a readily-available service where you can just take out your phone, select your financial dream, big or small, and it will be achieved on time in the most optimal, fun, and efficient way?
Through MoneyPlanned, we want to empower our users to consistently hit their financial goals without any compromise on their lifestyle, while having a perfect balance of savings and enjoyment.
We envision our customers achieving every financial goal, be it big or small, with extreme ease.
We envision MoneyPlanned to eventually be the go-to app for anything to do with money.
We want to place the power of deep financial planning in the hands of our users and help them create a beautiful relationship with money.
4. Describe the services that you offer to your customers and how are they unique?
Nothing in our life is untouched by money, yet many don’t spend enough time planning, organizing, and managing their finances to optimize their goals.
Money is only a tool. What we truly care about is whether or not we meet our goals in life.
In today’s day and age, there is an increased awareness and desire among people to be financially fulfilled and free. Yet there is no comprehensive platform that caters to holistic financial planning.
There are a myriad of options for investments and other financial products.
However, juggling between multiple platforms to manage finances and meet goals is a major pain point.
Personal financial planning in India is unnecessarily complicated, fragmented, and extremely boring with 20-page complex reports, outrageous fees, archaic UX, and so on; the list of problems is endless.
Imagine!
What if finances could be fun? What if planning your financial goals is as easy as online shopping?
That’s precisely what MoneyPlanned does.
From a complete newbie to an enthusiastic investor, MoneyPlanned makes financial goals easy for all.
In a nutshell, MoneyPlanned offers a seamless, end-to-end goal-based online personal financial planning service.
Be it any financial goal, big or small; buying a home, vehicle, retirement, child’s education, wedding, event, vacation, investments, electronic appliances, furniture, so on and so forth.
With 300+ goal-templates and high-customizability, we’ve got you covered for any financial goal in just 3 steps.
Here’s how this process works:
Plan – A simulation platform that gives users the freedom to explore various possibilities for planning all life goals.
Execute – Smart suggestions, intelligent recommendations and the best options for financial products and services to help optimize your finances.
Track – A powerful dashboard links your financial accounts to different goals with intelligent parsing and effortless goal-tracking in real-time
We are a unique blend of innovative, tech-driven methodology & modern, actionable philosophy.
As a bonus for our premium customers, we offer exclusive Money Mindset and Abundance Mindset Training on the MoneyPlanned App, further financially empowering them.
5. What difficulties which you have faced or you are facing?
The traditional financial planning space is filled with archaic experiences and long-drawn processes.
To transform that space and create an overarching and highly powerful technology was no cakewalk. Especially when you set out on a mission to radically simplify and transform the very nature of the entire process.
It took us several months of market research, customer feedback, skill building, & development to build MoneyPlanned.
Through sheer perseverance and passion, we have overcome all difficulties to create a powerful, highly-secure, and one-of-its-kind financial planning platform.
What you see today as MoneyPlanned in our app and our website is our labour of love and relentless passion for 2 years.
6. How do you handle the pressure and manage stress?
Money is among the Top 3 stress factors globally.
As makers of MoneyPlanned, a platform made with an intention to reduce financial stress, we have consciously worked towards eliminating stress from our own lives too.
MoneyPlanned is grounded in the philosophy of abundance, freedom, and mindfulness.
Both of us (Nikhila & Sameer) are huge fans of personal growth, self-development, and spirituality.
We have made dynamic meditation, creative visualization, and physical fitness an integral part of our daily life to control stress and pressure of any kind.
7. What is one strategy that you believe has helped you grow as a person/startup?
The strategy that helped us grow in our initial stages was to look at our service through the eyes, the mind, and the heart of our target customers.
At MoneyPlanned, we want to simplify financial goals for others. When we set out to build MoneyPlanned, we worked collaboratively with over 300+ niche customers (those who were already looking for what we were offering) to build a platform and app.
The MoneyPlanned one can see today evolved directly from the needs of real people to create something that is of relevance and significance to our customers.
In the process, we also implicitly and crystal clearly define our Target Group and Buyer Personas that resonate with the vibe of MoneyPlanned.
This further enabled us to direct our efforts in the right direction.
8. How is your company helping India grow?
Statistics by Economic Times reveal that:
- 81% of Indian parents don’t know the cost of higher education in the future
- 89% of healthcare expenditure is done out of pocket by Indians
- 71% of the required retirement corpus is what most Indians manage to save up
- 71% of Indians are willing to be weighed down by debt for children’s higher education.
There is a huge disparity between the dream index and the plan index of Indians.
MoneyPlanned wants to change that.
MoneyPlanned strives to increase the financial planning capabilities of individuals to help them meet their goals and establish a beautiful relationship with money.
We want to create a financially smart, financially abundant, and financially plannedIndia.
9. In your opinion what are the keys to success?
The key to success is to believe in yourself and fully commit yourself to your goals.
The biggest expression of commitment to your goals is to plan them.
Planning your goals empowers you to achieve them and reinforces your belief in yourself.
A goal without a plan is just a wish. Most people don’t plan to fail, they just fail to plan.
10. What advice would you give to someone starting out as an aspiring Entrepreneur?
Sameer: My advice to someone starting out as an aspiring entrepreneur would be to design a highly-scalable and inspiring vision for the company along with a concrete value proposition and a clearly defined TG.
In today’s day and age, collaboration and co-creation are the way to go.
Know the end goal of your service. What is it that people get out of using your platform?
If you have an answer for this (not an abstract one, but a definite, tangible, and comprehensible one), then you are good to go.
Nikhila: My advice to anyone considering entrepreneurship as a career would be to essentially find their Ikigai; their interests, strengths, and purpose.
If one has a “Why” (a strong, solid one at that), they can endure any “How”.
A job offers a regular income at regular intervals and many other benefits. Why do you want to let go of that stability and security?
Other than money, what is it that you truly want to achieve through your startup? How do you want to impact lives?
If you have a solid answer for the above questions and have an incredibly strong purpose, you are all set to dive into the startup game.
One thing to keep in mind is that entrepreneurship is an extra-full time job. If you want to excel as an entrepreneur, you cannot work part-time.
Albeit dynamic and unpredictable for the first few years, it is worth every bit of it, if you have implicit faith in your vision and if that is what you want to do.
Website: https://www.moneyplanned.com
For posts that feel like a breath of fresh air, follow MoneyPlanned on social media handles.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/moneyplanned
Twitter :https://twitter.com/money_planned?s=09
Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/moneyplanned.india
Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/moneyplanned/?hl=en
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