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Nithin Kamath
Nithin Kamath
Co-Founder & CEO, Zerodha
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Nithin Kamath on startup moats, differentiation, and business risk

📅 Jul 03, 2026 Rainmatter by Zerodha 9 MIN 353 VIEWS 22 SEGMENTS · 2 SPEAKERS
In this conversation, Nithin Kamath shares his insights on how early-stage startups can approach business differentiation, navigate unpredictable market risks, and maintain a personal routine to handle entrepreneurial stress. We discuss three critical questions that every entrepreneur starting a business or navigating the early stages of a startup needs to consider: Question 1: How should early-stage founders think about differentiating their business? Question 2: As a founder, how much time should you spend thinking about risk and disruption? Question 3: In a high-stress startup environment...

What Nithin Kamath said

Written from the verified transcript and checked against it. Every figure links to the moment it was said.

Nithin Kamath, CEO of Zerodha, discussed how differentiation and risk management have evolved for his company. He said Zerodha's early differentiation was low cost and a referral model because they lacked tech and money, then shifted to better products around 2015, and to credibility and trust from 2018-19. He noted Groww differentiated through advertising, while Zerodha avoided acquisition costs. Kamath said his primary job is thinking about risk, citing losses of 50 crores when gold dropped and 30-40 crores when crude oil went negative. He described a personal tipping point in 2016-17 when he set aside personal funds in a fixed deposit, changing his risk approach. He allocates 50% of capital to working capital and 50% across private, public, and gold, treating private investments as potentially disappearing. He also shared his morning routine of workouts and yoga from 5:30 to 7:30.

Key takeaways

  1. Kamath's primary job is thinking about risk, with a 10% capital buffer as a watch from day one.
  2. Kamath lost 50 crores when gold dropped and 30-40 crores when crude oil went negative.
  3. In 2016-17, Kamath set aside personal funds in a fixed deposit, changing his risk mindset.
  4. Kamath allocates 50% of capital to working capital and 50% across private, public, and gold investments.

Numbers and commitments

FigureWhat it refers toTypeAt
50 crores Loss when gold suddenly dropped metric 4:40
30-40 crores Loss when crude oil went negative metric 4:40
10% Capital buffer as a watch from day one commitment 4:40
50% Capital blocked for working capital metric 6:30
50% Capital divided across private, public, gold metric 6:30
2016-17 Tipping point when personal funds set aside timeline 0:00
2015 Shift to better products as differentiation timeline 1:56
2018-19 Shift to credibility and trust as differentiation timeline 2:08
5:30 to 7:30 Morning routine for workouts and yoga other 7:47

Chapters

  1. 0:00Differentiation evolution at Zerodha
  2. 4:40Risk as primary job
  3. 6:30Personal risk tipping point
  4. 7:47Morning routine and work-life balance

Questions asked in this interview

4
  1. 0:37Obviously there's no one-size-fits-all, but what do you think somebody who's younger starting up today should think about differentiating themselves as a business?
  2. 3:15Is it a daily activity to think about this?
  3. 6:25Does it come naturally to you, this making peace with the worst case outcome?
  4. 7:47So are there things that you do that you really enjoy which is outside of work that you can't go your day without?
Nithin Kamath 0:00 ↗
What a founder needs to do all the time is to figure what is the differentiator. If you want to ask me what is my primary job, it's to think about the risk. If you want to win, you have to bet. If you lose all your chips, you can't bet. The tipping point in this journey was 2016-17.
Interviewer 0:19 ↗
Yeah.
Nithin Kamath 0:19 ↗
When I took out some money that I think is enough to sustain my lifestyle out of business and put it as a bank fixed deposit.
Interviewer 0:37 ↗
Nathan, thanks for doing this. Obviously you've been doing this with a few founders. So I'll ask you two simple questions basically to get people to think about some of these directions as they are building companies early on. The first question is around differentiation. We keep asking some of the startups we meet what differentiates them. Obviously there's no one-size-fits-all, but what do you think somebody who's younger starting up today should think about differentiating themselves as a business?
Nithin Kamath 1:03 ↗
I don't want this to be sounding like advice, but what I can tell you is what worked for Zerodha.
Yeah. Back when we started, the first thing we didn't have tech, we didn't have money.
Interviewer 1:14 ↗
Yeah.
Nithin Kamath 1:14 ↗
So we were going out there and saying come trade with us for a low cost. And because we didn't have money to advertise, we had to pay referral fees. You know, we created a referral model. So the first 3 to 5 years was spent with that as a differentiation. And luckily for us, back when we started, people didn't really think the pricing model would really work.
Interviewer 1:40 ↗
Correct.
Nithin Kamath 1:40 ↗
Right. Because brokers were really stuck in an offline way of working. Yeah. But they were online. So we kind of broke the mold and we said we'll be both online in the way we operate and the way we work also.
Yeah. Around 2015, once we got the tech, then it became about better products.

9 more exchanges in this transcript

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Cite this transcript

APA, MLA, BibTeX
APA

Kamath, N. (2026, July 3). Nithin Kamath on startup moats, differentiation, and business risk [Interview transcript]. Rainmatter by Zerodha. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1058784/

MLA

Nithin Kamath. "Nithin Kamath on startup moats, differentiation, and business risk." Rainmatter by Zerodha, 3 Jul. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1058784/.

BibTeX 
@misc{kamath2026_1058784,
  author       = {Nithin Kamath},
  title        = {Nithin Kamath on startup moats, differentiation, and business risk},
  howpublished = {Interview transcript, Rainmatter by Zerodha. CEOInterviews.AI},
  year         = {2026},
  month        = {jul},
  url          = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1058784/},
  note         = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}