Billionaire Nithin Kamath's advice for entrepreneurs: 'Find a skill, get good at it and...'

Zerodha co-founder and CEO Nithin Kamath recollected his 12-year journey in the stock market before starting Zerodha and how it helped him sharpen his skills.

One of the lessons that Nithin Kamath has learnt as the CEO of Zerodha is that "before you cut wood, sharpen your axe." Sharing advice for budding entrepreneurs, Kamath said that before building a business for the sake of it, one needs to find a skill that they are competent in, or figure out an interest and learn a skill and then move towards monetising it.

During a chat show on YouTube, Kamath recollected his 12-year journey in the stock market before starting Zerodha and how it helped him sharpen his skills. "I keep saying this that before you chop wood, sharpen your axe because if you go with a blunt axe, it's going to take you a long time to chop the wood," he said.

Explaining the metaphor, Kamath added, "If I look back at Zerodha's journey, I think one of the reasons we are successful is that as a CEO the 12 years I spent before Zerodha in the markets."

Sharing another advice with young entrepreneurs, the 42-year-old said, "Entrepreneurship is extremely tough, and assuming that whole valuation process is over, now, you have to build a business where people give you money to consume your product or service. So, what will you offer which will solve a problem and get people to pay you money?"

Nithin Kamath added that out of a 100 new businesses that sprout in India, only about 1 per cent of it become sustainable and are able to survive.

Zerodha is currently India’s largest stock brokerage platform.