What if the audience you built is not the one you set out to reach? Shrerith Karkera, co-founder of Finception, started with long-form stock research for beginners and found that fund managers and analysts were reading it instead.
In this Builders Club Water Cooler conversation he walks through the pivot to the Finshots finance newsletter, the choice not to monetise it directly, and the launch of Ditto, an insurance advisory product.
How do you build a finance newsletter that scales? Shrerith Karkera’s core thesis
Shrerith’s view is that a newsletter can be a cheap distribution channel and a trust engine, even if it is a weak business on its own. Finshots stays free and sells financial products through Ditto, rather than relying on ads or a paywall.
He is candid that he does not see enough room to build a large standalone newsletter business in India. His own bet is a modest, self-sustaining company built on trust, with Finshots feeding a product people genuinely need.
- Test your audience assumption. The first readers were veterans, not newcomers, which forced a pivot.
- Simplify without dumbing down. A three-minute format scaled far faster than 12-minute articles.
- Choose monetisation that fits your values. Finshots did not take advertising it was uncomfortable with.
- Humans matter in trust-heavy products. Ditto invests heavily in advisor training.
How did Finception and Finshots start?
Shrerith was candid that he did not found a company out of a burning mission. He wanted to avoid the stress of campus placements, and a classmate offered him a way out with a plan to build in the stock market space. He joined with little finance background and a patchy record in finance subjects.
The founders first imagined an education platform that would lead into broking. They realised within about six months that people do not trade because of research reports, so they dropped that hypothesis.
- The first product was narrative-driven, 12-minute articles on stocks.
- The aim was to make dense research reports readable and entertaining.
- The format later widened to cover finance, policy and business, not just stocks.
Why did Finshots pivot to a three-minute newsletter?
Shrerith expected newcomers to read the long-form stories. Instead, he said roughly 80 to 90 percent of readers were market veterans such as fund managers and analysts, which made it a good idea for a niche audience that would not scale.
The three-minute daily newsletter balanced insight with ease of consumption, and could add around 10,000 subscribers in a week because people shared it. He warned that chasing engagement by diluting content is a tightrope, and the team still wants the writing to be insightful.
How does Finshots reach readers across channels?
The newsletter is delivered by email, on the website and in an app, and it also runs as a podcast and on social media. Shrerith said the podcast sits consistently among the top finance podcasts on major platforms. YouTube was the channel they still had to figure out.
He said the target is the college student heading for placements, who will soon have money to manage, rather than CXOs.
- Email newsletter and a free website.
- An app with over 100,000 users, according to Shrerith.
- A podcast on Spotify and Apple.
- Instagram and LinkedIn content made for those platforms.
Should a newsletter make money from ads or a paywall?
Shrerith decided not to monetise Finshots directly. The company is for-profit, but it chose to build trust and scale first and then offer financial products. He said a crypto brand once wanted to advertise, but the team was not comfortable telling readers to do something they would not do themselves.
He is sceptical that Indian newsletters can match US models like Morning Brew, because ad revenue is thinner. In his view a standalone newsletter can break even or be profitable with a tight team, but a content powerhouse needs a volume play or a product behind it.
Why did Finception launch Ditto for insurance?
The team first built a planning tool, but saw that many people were doing similar things in investing. Insurance felt more important, because protecting the downside matters before growing wealth, and he saw that few people can name their own health insurance policy.
Shrerith also noted that insurance is one of the few financial products where there is still money to be made, unlike payments, loans or direct mutual funds. Ditto was about six months old and had been selling policies for three or four months at the time of the recording.
Why Ditto relies on a human touch
Learning from Coverfox’s experience, the team concluded that insurance buyers want peace of mind that software cannot give. Ditto runs a month-long training programme for advisors, with call shadowing and language guidelines.
His takeaway: if your product depends on people, the people are the product. A basic website worked fine for months because the advice itself was strong.
Why did Finception raise funding from Rainmatter rather than VCs?
Shrerith said Finception is funded by Rainmatter, Zerodha’s initiative, which backs startups that add value to Zerodha’s customers. The team also spoke to venture capitalists, but he felt their narrative did not fit.
His reasoning was that VCs want founders to dream of capturing an entire market, because they back many companies hoping one becomes huge. A founder aiming for a modest, self-sustaining business will struggle to pitch that story, and he did not see that as the VCs being wrong.
What does he say about timing and keeping readers engaged?
Shrerith shared the Avanti Feeds story: a 2013 report predicted the shrimp-feed cycle well, but got the timing wrong by about a year. He used it to show why investing, and startups, remain a calculated bet. Finshots ends its stock pieces by reminding readers of that.
On retention, he said readers will always drift away, so the team keeps testing formats and channels. He also advised against forced sign-ups, which hurt deliverability and add cost.
- Do not force sign-ups before reading.
- Steer people to the channel they will actually use.
- Expect churn and keep experimenting.
Further reading and sources
Frequently asked questions
What is Finshots?
Finshots is a free daily finance newsletter from Finception that explains financial news, business and policy in a short read of about three minutes. It is also available on the web, an app, podcast platforms and social media. It began as long-form stock articles before the pivot.
How does Finshots make money?
Per Shrerith Karkera, Finshots itself is not monetised through ads or a paywall. The company aims to earn by selling financial products through Ditto, an insurance advisory product, to the audience it has built.
Should I start a newsletter as a business?
Shrerith does not see much room to build a large standalone newsletter business in India, though a tight team can break even or be profitable. A newsletter works better as a distribution and trust channel for a product, so decide how you will earn before you scale.
Conclusion
Shrerith’s story is a reminder that your first audience hypothesis is often wrong, and that a newsletter is strongest when it earns trust that a product can build on. Finshots and Ditto show that approach in practice.
If you are building a content-led startup, check who is actually reading, pick monetisation you are comfortable defending, and invest in the human side of any trust-heavy product.
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