Zerodha CEO Nithin Kamath recently shared his honest opinion during a Q&A on Tradinqna, the company’s trading community platform. When asked what he would do differently if he had to start Zerodha all over again in 2025, Kamath said that he wouldn’t go ahead with the same business in today’s time.
He explained that the online brokerage space is now too crowded. “The market is so crowded, and being another one doing the same thing wouldn’t work,” Kamath said, reacting to the question.
He pointed out that Zerodha’s success came from building its product slowly over the past decade. Starting the company from scratch today and trying to compete with the top players from day one wouldn’t make sense, he added.
Instead, Kamath suggested that he would look for a different kind of business model in the financial services space. He said that one option could be building a brokerage.
“I would have probably built a brokerage with some other moat probably,” he said. While this kind of business might attract fewer customers, he believes it could still be profitable. “Charge higher and offer a better research maybe,” he added.
It is worth noting here that when Zerodha started years back, the space was open for disruption with simpler pricing and better technology. But in 2025, many firms have already raised the bar in terms of platforms, pricing, and user experience.