'Zerodha was not meant to be what it is today': CEO Nithin Kamath

Zerodha co-founders Nikhil and Nithin Kamath in an episode of 'WTF' podcast.

Zerodha co-founder and CEO Nithin Kamath has said that the online stock broking company -- the largest in India -- was not meant to become what it is today. In conversation with his brother Nikhil Kamath and other guests in a podcast, Nithin Kamath also shared he had realised during the initial days of trading that his Zerodha co-founder brother is a better trader.

Nithin Kamath made the remarks in the recent episode of Nikhil Kamath podcast ‘WTF is Health’. “I quickly realised that Nikhil is a better trader than I am because at that point of time we were trading money and I was also doing this side hustle of broking business. In 2008-09, I said if he is better at trading than me then why not he continue trading and maybe I can go to broking permanently," Nithin Kamath said.

Accordingly, the brothers started Zerodha which is now the largest online stock broking platform in the country. "It started off as… I mean it was not meant to be what it is today. I remember sending the first e-mail I sent saying that if we arrive at 10,000 customers, we have arrived in life… now we are at 1.1 crore customers,” he added.

The CEO brother had addressed the issue earlier as well. In a LinkedIn post, Nithin Kamath shared how they could build Zerodha thanks to his brother's profits from trade."Nikhil Kamath is a much better trader than me. When we started, the idea was he would trade and I attempt to build Zerodha. If it didn't work, I'd get back to trading. It did and Nikhil continues trading full-time. His trading profits in the first two years is how we could build without VCs," he wrote.

Read more: Zerodha's Nithin Kamath explains why 'trading is one of the toughest ways to make money'