EP 020 - The ZestMoney Story with Priya Sharma, Co-founder, ex-COO & CFO at ZestMoney

Priya shares her journey from being an engineer to becoming a founder and the challenges she faced along the way. She discusses the importance of partnerships and the role of risk-based pricing in the lending industry. Priya also talks about the evolution of ZestMoney's product and strategy, and how they stayed focused amidst various opportunities. She emphasizes the need to remain true to the company's vision and make decisions quickly. Priya also shares her approach to the CFO and COO roles and the importance of creating and growing functional departments. In this part of the conversation, Priya discusses the roles and responsibilities of a CEO and CFO, the importance of hiring for roles and evaluating functions, balancing short-term fires and long-term vision, maintaining and evolving company culture, advice for founding a startup, key successes and lessons learned at ZestMoney, crucial lessons for fintech startups, diversity and inclusion at Zest Money, making tough decisions in challenging times, and what motivates Priya to keep going.  

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“Finance is all about allocation of money.”

“Fire fighting is part of the game.”

“Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger.”

“If I look at Zest, then obviously we had the idea and we had the concept and we were the initial sort of seed behind it, but then whatever it became later on and a lot of the success, it was a team effort.“

“Investment banking… it's a different mindset. And I just thought that being on the company side would be more creative.”

“I had so much conviction on it… that was the biggest pull that then trumped every pros and cons list and everything… I couldn't get rid of that concept in my head.”

“The difference between developed markets and developing markets is that developed markets are more efficient at allocation of money and developing markets are less efficient at allocation of money.”  

“As a founder... keep the decision making fast. Don't dwell on it too much, or say yes or no quickly.”

“Everything sort of lags behind always a little bit in startups. I don't think anyone can say that, they're completely ready for the growth and the challenges that are going to come up.”

“Culture is always an evolving thing. And it's actually something you can't really control.”

“Ultimately culture has to be in line with your business objectives.”

“It's a marathon and a sprint at the same time. So pace yourself and keep your strength and keep your own cool and calm first. I would say that to me personally.”

“We've kind of been giving away a lot of our technology and our product for free and we need to be able to start getting into that mindset of capturing value.”

“As a founder, you believe so much in your vision and mission and you live it and you become it and you're own life and your purpose is defined by it.”