Manish Chauhan - The Founder of Jagoinvestor on his Journey

Updated At: June 12th 2023

Tell us about your growing up. What were your interests in college? What motivated you to get into financial literacy?

I was born and brought up in a very small town in Uttar Pradesh near Varanasi. I did my schooling till 12th in Varanasi and college and post graduation in Pune. I am a post graduate in Computer science and was working with Yahoo in Bangalore till 2010. Teaching was always my passion since the start and when I saw ignorance in the area of money around me while working in yahoo I started Jagoinvestor with the intention of sharing knowledge about personal finance. So you can say it was my inclination towards personal finance along with a desire to spread financial literacy which led to this website.

Tell our readers about your journey with JagoInvestor? What motivated you to start Jagoinvestor and build the community of users?

I started Jagoinvestor.com in 2007 . There was very less quality content around that time in the area of money and I saw almost no website presenting things in a simple manner. So I made that my USP. Along the way, I met my business partner Nandish Desai who seemed equally passionate about spreading financial literacy and had a vision which inspired me to collaborate.

As I mentioned it was my passion to teach, coupled with my interest in personal finance which led to Jagoinvestor. Regarding the building of community, I didn’t do anything special for that, but over time the website become famous and due to its easy to understand language, readers returned everytime they wanted to learn anything related to personal finance.

What do you think are the biggest pitfalls first-time investors should avoid?

I think some of the biggest mistakes first-time investors make are as follows:-

a) Over Analysis – I have seen people over analysing things and hence not taking actions at all in their financial life. It's always a great thing to learn about things and analyze things, but most of the investors focus 99% energy on getting knowledge and to find the “best” and only 1% on taking the action. Loss of time is a big loss when it comes to money.

b) Buying products without thinking much – Most of the first time investors depend on the advice of someone close to a relative or someone in the family and often it's not a great idea because either the relative/friend mis-sells them something or the advice from family is not suited for this generation investors.

c) Getting into Deep debt trap – Most of the early investors get into too much debt which they can't handle and then waste most of their life paying a significant EMI without creating enough assets. Credit Card and personal loan debt are common examples.

While there are many mistakes first-time investors make, I have already done a detailed article on this topic in case it helps. Here is the link.

We have been asking this question to everyone we interview. We would also like to take this opportunity to ask, 'what does money mean to you?

Money for me is something which can give me enough freedom if accumulated well. I believe that while more money does not mean more happiness, surely lack of money can mean unhappiness in today's world.

So from that perspective, it's important to accumulate enough wealth so that you can do what you love and not get stuck into doing something which takes the life out of you in exchange for money.

How 'Change your relationship with money' (the book) happened?

I got an offer from CNBC to do a book when I was working in Yahoo, This was around 2009. I gladly accepted the offer as it was a challenging task to do a book at the age of 26 on personal finance , that too with CNBC as publisher. For next many weeks, I worked on the concept of the book and finally after 18 months delivered it :) . The book is well accepted and very highly rated on flipkart and amazon with great reviews. I did another book after that which is called "How to be your own financial planner in 10 steps".

I read somewhere you've been super responsive with your readers and have a structure where you reply each and every comment in details within 48 hours. Were there any question(s) that you haven't answered yet?

That’s true.

The only thing I noticed when I started Jagoinvestor was that most of the websites don’t care about its reader's queries and comments. There was a serious lack of conversation. Since day 1, I made sure that I reply to each and every comment so that our readers know that someone reads what they write and it's also important to for bonding between us. They feel a connect when someone replies them.

It's not important that you always need to have an answer, at times when we do not have an answer, we reply back saying – “Sorry, we don’t have an answer to your query” . Or just a thank you a message.

How do your family members manage their money? Do they ask for your advice or you have already made them a pro?

My Father manages his own personal finance and I do mine in my own way. My father lives in a small town on UP and frankly he does not understand too much of what we do at Jagoinvestor? If you are talking about relatives and friends, then I do not force my thought process on people close to me. I am a strong believer that one should not involve family/friends with work at all. At times, few people close to me ask me few things, which I reply adequately without getting too much pushy about my advice.

How do you take care of 'risks' while investing?

I am personally a risk taker. So when I make my investments, I take adequate amount of risk, however, I make sure that if things go wrong it's never going to impact me too badly.

Do you think Real Estate and Gold have been overrated?

Yes and No . Buying gold and real estate is not just a financial decision, but also an emotional one. Looking at every money decision from “returns” point of view is not correct. Mathematically real estate in a long run does not beat equities. This does not mean you can say – “Don’t buy house” . In the same way, people have emotional links with gold and jewellery and investing in those asset classes is justified as far as one is taking care of his overall financial life and planning for all the goals.

At the end of the day, I think you have a great financial life if you don’t regret your decisions. That’s the only parameter to judge.

What do you think of Indian investors love with 'guaranteed return'? Is it one of the biggest destroyer of retail wealth over last 10 years? Or fees laden insurance-cum-investment products are the bigger culprits?

Definitely, Investors are obsessed with “guaranteed returns”. My partner Nandish Desai says , for Indians Banks are the Temple. Every day one visit without fail ?Jokes apart, I think Yes, Everyone loves guaranteed returns, including you and me . There is nothing wrong in it. But with guaranteed returns come pathetic returns and this is what most of the investors fail to understand. The impact in the short term is negligible or I should say not visible to investors. Fixed deposits now give negative returns if you adjust it with taxes and inflation.

Insurance-cum-investments products are another culprits which are big wealth destroyers. However, I see a lot of investors who can now identify why it's not a good investment product and they are now making a gradual shift to equity and other asset classes.

Note that my above comments are more true for a young investor who has 2/3 decades more in hand for wealth creation. People who are near their retirement age will surely prefer guaranteed returns investment.

What's next? What motivated you to write good and engaging content?

My first 100 articles were not at all good by any parameter. Over the time, I learned how to create engaging and good content and I am still learning. My readers are the biggest teacher for me who have given constant feedback and helped me shape up as a good writer.

Because of the blog only, Me and my partner got a chance to write 3 books on personal finance with CNBC. We both are now working on our next books.