Empowering the Common Man to Access an Ocean of Wealth

THE START-UP WORLD

"I feel that the failures were necessary as the lessons from them made my vision clearer. I knew 'How not to do' things. After my market research I understood that there is a serious knowledge gap among people and businesses with regard to financial planning and financial portfolio building. Being a licensed SEBI equity and derivative research analyst, I embarked on creating a knowledge and investing platform where people and businesses can invest their money and learn in the process. The vision is to democratize investing,"- Abhishek Borah

Please tell us in detail about DSAB Finserve

DSAB Finserve is a one-stop-shop for all digital financial products. We basically bridge the accessibility gap between consumers and financial institutions. In other words, DSAB Finserve is a financial advisor and a one-stop marketplace for all financial products made digitally available by top banks, NBFCs, insurance companies, mutual funds institutions, and the capital market for the digitally savvy generation.

Our vision is to create an ultimate financial ecosystem that will empower the 'common' man to access that 'Ocean of wealth' which was only reserved for the elite. We are currently based out of Guwahati and Dubai. We have our client base across India, the Middle East and Canada.

What was the understanding/ insight or inspiration behind your entrepreneurial venture? I mean why did you embark on it?

My first inspiration for embarking on the entrepreneurship journey came from my parents. From them I learnt the core value of a business -'Relationship Building'. I have learnt from them that by building relationships with people over the years one can establish their base/home even in a place that was not originally their home. This lesson has helped me build solid relationships in business, which not only helped me during my tough days but also helped me grow as an entity and an individual.

Additionally, I always believed that my work should have a good purpose and impact on the greater good of society. Hence, I went to pursue my studies at the University of Greenwich, U.K which was an eye and mind opener for me. Working and studying with people of multiple nationalities and understanding different cultures (both professional and personal), enriched my perspective towards the world. As an entrepreneur, you always need to envision and believe in the 'Bigger Picture' as people want to believe in your story and get aligned and motivated to work.

After completing my stint abroad, I was fortunate enough to return to India and get my hands on small freelance projects like surveying, music direction and project management both in urban and rural spaces. This helped me understand and experience the different worlds that exist on this planet. I had even adopted a 'Penguin' with the help of WWF while doing such gigs. These experiences as an entrepreneur taught me to develop an 'Open Mindset' in terms of all good or bad experiences and 'Learn' from it

I also believe that pursuing MBA from Symbiosis International University, Pune was one of the best decisions of my life. The programme and the environment is so intense and unpredictable that you need to be at your best all the time and hence there I had learnt the three key important aspects 'Punctuality', 'Discipline' and 'Prioritizing' which has immensely helped me in my entrepreneurial journey

The key moment came when I met my partner Arvind Shekar, who was my ex-boss. His take and approach to work and life were so different and positive that after a global corporate stint of five years I jumped into my startup. Like any new startup founder, I wanted to 'Change the World' but sadly it 'Changed Me'. This was an important lesson as it taught me how to embrace failure and be resilient in my belief. I had initiated and failed in more than 21 ideas before I started DSAB Finserve.

Hence, I learnt the hard way. But I feel that the failures were necessary as the lessons from them made my vision clearer. I knew 'How not to do' things. After my market research I understood that there is a serious knowledge gap among people and businesses with regard to financial planning and financial portfolio building. Being a licensed SEBI equity and derivative research analyst, I embarked on creating a knowledge and investing platform where people and businesses can invest their money and learn in the process. Our vision is to democratize investing.

My partner Arvind Shekar was one of the first investors in the company and he truly believed in the spirit of empowering the masses with the right financial knowledge. He is helping the business grow across the Middle East. My marriage and my wife has given me a very important life lesson – we all need 'Support' and it is important to have great 'Team members' who are great 'Team Players' to build and achieve great things in life and business.

What were the challenges and milestones in your journey? What are your roadmap and vision?

We had faced multiple challenges, especially because we started with a capital of 1 Lakh. The biggest challenge was to get the direction in which we needed to set sail. The other major challenge was the society- our society is essentially job centric and breaking the mental block and proving yourself was definitely a challenge. There were times, when we felt unrecognized, but such instances were a source of strength and inspiration to prove ourselves and that took us forward. Another major challenge that we faced (and face) is recruiting good local talents. There is a serious employability gap among the youths as people do not have the right mindset or the skillsets to perform in a corporate environment. I feel this needs to be addressed across the state.

One of the key reasons on account of which start-ups fail is the lack of funding. However, I was fortunate to have my youngest uncle pitch in with Rs 10 lakhs of capital when I critically needed the money. It is important to understand your company's finances well.

Specifically speaking for DSAB, our main challenge is creating awareness and breaking the notion that 'Investing in stocks is gambling'. Through our educative programmes we are managing to break this notion. We have educated more than 1000+ people across different demographies and our aim is to achieve 50,000+ people by 2024.

Such educative programmes have also helped achieve business for us as we are currently managing financial assets of over $1 million. We aim to achieve more than $10 million in assets by end of 2023.

Our vision is to educate and empower people on how they can think rich and generate wealth while protecting their assets and families.

What are the social objectives of DSAB Finserve? How do you envisage making a positive impact on the ecosystem in which your enterprise is operating?

We educate, support and enable more individuals on financial sustainability and help them to fulfill their and their family's dreams. We also equip them to protect their families from financial disasters and sustain through rough times like a recession, loss of employment, force majeures, or even situations where someone is rendered unemployable. We help people to secure second and third sources of income for the long run and build a corpus for a healthy retirement (especially because costs skyrocket and inflation is at an all-time high). We educate, support, and enable more businesses/institutions on financial sustainability, which directly contributes to the employee's development and job security. We also help businesses and institutions for securing and growing under-utilised financial assets and help them to develop contingency funds. We also aid with valid insurance covers which cover force Majeure events.

Our vision is to create an ultimate financial ecosystem that will empower the 'common' man to access that 'Ocean of Wealth' which was only reserved for the elite.

How important is mentoring and training for start-up entrepreneurs? Please elaborate your experiences with Assam Startup . How did you manage to get funding?

Mentoring and training are of utmost importance for any entrepreneur to make a successful venture. It helps set the direction in which you as a startup need to move forward. We never had that leverage in our initial days and hence getting incubated in Assam Startup under Cohort 3.0, was a game-changer for us. Their mentoring connections, training, investor connections and feedback have helped us in building the right team and helped us forge ahead in sales. The team in Assam Startup is pro-active and caters to any need that a startup might have. We have been able to scale our business 100x and grow it across boundaries to the Middle East and Canada with the right direction that we got from this ecosystem. Funding was only required during the initial phase as currently, we are profitable. We are now closely working with the Assam Startup team with their investor network to procure the next round of investment in order to democratise investing and serve more people and organisations.

Last but not least please explain the role of technology in your entrepreneurial venture. I mean technology plays a central role in your venture. So how much do you credit technology for the success of your business?

Technology plays a key role as everyone would like to ease the way they operate, and customers/clients are looking for transparency and tech enables this with ease.

We currently use multiple tech-enabled dashboards (web and app versions) that enable our clients to have a real-time view of what's happening with their investments. With the use of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning we have been able to make well informed decisions that enable us to curate and fish out the best financial products out of millions of financial products and help build a robust portfolio for our clients. We provide a lot of consumer education on various available financial solutions that can help them in their journey. With clients across the country and overseas, we are able to do this effectively with video consultation calls. We also provide customer support through WhatsApp-the quick responses to customers' queries through their preferred channel help in improved customer satisfaction and retention. We have also automated mundane tasks like invoicing. This gives our team members more time to work on important tasks and reduces human errors in billing, which sometimes can be an erroneous job.

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