Article · About 4 min read

How Zerodha grew without Advertising

Nithin Kamath · nithinkamath.me Free Beginner India

The referral history, including the years incentives existed, the regulatory ban, and the striking observation that referrals stayed roughly flat once the incentives went away.

  • Zerodha ran a referral program from its 2010 start because it had no advertising budget.
  • Regulation eventually stopped them paying referral incentives, causing a dip around 2018-19.
  • With incentives now removed entirely, referrals have stayed roughly flat, which is the whole argument.
  • The precondition is offering products customers would talk about unprompted.
Open on nithinkamath.me ↗

The question it answers

  1. Why do operators like Nithin Kamath and Sridhar Vembu refuse to buy growth?

Read with it

  1. The whole mental model in one short post: not measuring acquisition cost and lifetime value is the point, not an oversight, and... Z-Connect by Zerodha Article · About 3 min read Why Zerodha doesn't advertise Nithin Kamath
  2. The clearest statement of the tradeoff in his own words: venture capital pushes spend toward sales and marketing and away from... Business Today Article · About 8 min read "If you don't invest in R&D, you won't have long term growth," says Zoho Corp's boss Sridhar Vembu Sridhar Vembu
  3. The present day proof that this is a policy and not a phase, with Mani Vembu confirming R&D spend still exceeds marketing spend... Forbes India Article · About 7 min read How Zoho is rewriting the rules of enterprise tech Naini Thaker
  4. Video · 51 min Sridhar Vembu (Founder & CEO, Zoho) | Ask Me Anything Session | Inc42 Sridhar Vembu
eChai Partner Brands The partnership →