Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath's journey to becoming a successful establisher of one of India's leading stock broker firms has involved a lot of hard work and persistence.
Prior to becoming the entrepreneur that he is today, Kamath had endure a fair bit of struggle and recently revealed how before his first ever trip abroad, he did not have a passport.
"I was 18 or 19, they (the call centre) sent me to London to work with the client, the vendor Stonebridge. Stonebridge is part of a larger insurance company called Aegon. I didn't have a passport, I had to make a passport. Went to London, along with five other colleagues of mine," Kamath said on "WTF is Bangalore" YouTube show.
Recalling his time as a call centre employee in London, Kamath said that he enjoyed his stint and revealed that he had started trading at the same time, at the age of 17.
"It was good fun. They used to pay us well. They would give us an allowance of £50 a day, which for somebody who earns Rs 10,000-15,000 salary at that point, when I was 19, that's Rs 4,000-5,000 bucks a day."
"So, did call centre, started trading at the same time when I was 17. By trading I don't mean some big thing. It's like in Rs 8,000 rupees, you have Rs 2,000 that you can save. Take that money and buy something sell something. Share Khan used to be around back then, I still remember I had a Share Khan account," Kamath said.
Kamath also revealed that a few of his friends, including Biocon founder Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, were working on planting 10,000 cherry-blossom trees in the city.
"I have a group of friends, who are like total Bangaloreans. We all catch up once in a while and we figure out how to make Bengaluru even cooler."
"There's like seven, eight of us and we're constantly working on projects to 'how do we make Bengaluru cooler in actual and cooler from a narrative standpoint?' So, we are planning to plant 10,000 [cherry blossom] trees in Bengaluru," Kamath said.
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