Want to know how to talk to your kid about money matters? Here's Kidvestor to the rescue

Founder-CEO of Kidvestor, Meenu Anooj, is paving the way for financial literacy in the country
Kidvestor founder-CEO Meenu Anooj | Pic: Courtesy of Meenu Anooj
Kidvestor founder-CEO Meenu Anooj | Pic: Courtesy of Meenu Anooj

Have you ever felt insecure while discussing money matters with your kids? Or felt that it isn't something too important to discuss with the whole family? Let me tell you right now that financial literacy is a life skill that every one should have, including children. So, if you don't know how to go about it, check out this perfect solution from Kidvestor, a company that will accompany you on your journey to educate your child about all things money. We caught up with Meenu Anooj, the founder and CEO at Kidvestor, to understand the origin of the idea and how they aspire to become the leaders of the financial literacy mission in the country. Excerpts from an enlightening chat:

1. What was your initial motive behind setting up the company? 

I am very passionate about things that have to do with finance and management. Often at home, we have discussions pertaining to these as my husband is also in the same sector. We also give financial advice to a lot of our clients as well as friends. So it was during one such interaction in 2019, when my husband was dealing with a client, that the idea of financial literacy came up. We pondered over that idea and how it would be beneficial for kids as well as their parents to develop such a knowledge at an early stage in their life. It would give parents a chance to let their children know about the failings on their side so that they don't repeat them. That was our initial vision and objective behind setting up the company.

2. Why did you think that this idea will connect with people?

It is a fact that most people in the country are not technically literate in the financial sense. This passes on to their kids as well who do not have any programme in school that addresses this gap in knowledge. I realised this after researching the existing resources in schools. At the same time, there is the ever increasing threat of cyber frauds and crimes. So, we thought we should come up with a programme that addresses the root cause of this issue. In 2020, we got a real breakthrough when our idea was selected among the entries for NSRCEL at IIM Bangalore. We got a lot of inputs there as to how to run a business idea. We got clarity in our line of work and then we registered the company in December 2020.

3. What are the ongoing operations at Kidvestor looking like? 

What we started at first was a basic face-to-face workshop with parents and kids together in 4-8 sessions as per their requirement. What we then inferred from these interactions was that the lessons should be implemented in their real lives somehow. Another thing that we learnt was that finance is a very dry and boring subject to teach kids, especially in the conventional face-to-face manner. We then tried to gamify the components so that it would pique the interest of young children. Right now, the programme that we offer consists of four components. Firstly, we have learning modules based on different age groups. Secondly, we have gamified money activities that teach lessons to kids. Thirdly, we have the concept of virtual money and imaginary accounts so parents can, without any fear of actual money being lost, overlook and enable learning of money matters. Finally, we are developing a Kidvestor chore app where children can get rewarded for the chores that they do and earn virtual money for it. This would teach them the value of money as they would have to work and earn it.

4. What are your plans for the future?

We really have set high goals for ourselves to achieve. We intend to become the leading financial education company in India by the year 2025. In the next three years, we plan to reach out to over one lakh students. We intend to expand our team by hiring new employees, especially in the tech department since we are increasingly incorporating gamified components in our service. The booming of the EdTech sector over the past two years signals a bright way ahead for us.

5. What are the challenges that you have faced along the way?

Due to the pandemic, we have not been able to meet physically and move into our new office in Kochi. We are still waiting for that since it would lead to greater collaboration among our team members. Another challenge has been to keep pace with the increasing number of people that are registering with us. We need to hire more people for that and that is easier said than done because we need to identify the right personnel for the job from the immense number of individuals available in the job market right now. That is a big task indeed.

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