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PLUS
How Plus is building a 'Save now buy later' Gold app for the Indian home makers
Amit Singh: Hey, Veer. Welcome to Misfits Unfiltered. Thank you for your time. It's good to be talking to you again.
So, I was reflecting upon our last conversation, and the way I think about products is that the user is at the heart of it, even before the business comes the product and before the product comes to users.
Could you start with what your offering is to the user? How do you, if I'm a user, how would you pitch it to me? From there, we'll take up what the product is, what the GTM is, and other things.
Veer Mishra: Amit, as you rightly mentioned, everything comes from the user.
In our journey of building Plus, that is where we started. My wife, right then, my fiance, was usually making these scheme deposits with one jeweller of her choice. She went to a jeweller and saved some money every month with that jeweller.
Now, the problem she faced was that just before our marriage, when she wanted to use the savings to buy jewellery - especially my engagement ring - she did not like any of the designs with that jeweller. You cannot switch jewellers while saving in these schemes as a consumer.
When she shared this problem with me, and I witnessed it firsthand, the jeweller's side was very resistant to letting their customer go. Consumers need that flexibility.
That is when we started doing this dissection. Okay, how big is this market? And how are consumers doing it right now? To our surprise, these market savings and jewellery saving schemes were close to 1.2 lakh crore every year. That’s approximately 20% of golden jewellery sales in India.
Some jewellers have more than 40 % of their revenues through these schemes. So when we identified that, yes, it is a challenge. And obviously, I had that pressure to solve something for my wife (laughs). We decided that let us build a product to solve this problem.
And that is how the company eventually started.
Amit Singh: This is very interesting. However, I can sense a few assumptions. One is that you're assuming that these schemes are there to take, and you're saying that 20% of the market is there to take.
How is it playing out? Like, how is it happening? What was the process in which, or even before that, why did your wife decide to save with a jeweller? Why didn't she keep it with a bank or some peer-to-peer lending company? Because then you have control over your money and can decide what you want to do with it later on.
Veer Mishra: There's an unsaid belief in certain assets in India. Real estate tops it, followed by gold. And these two assets are being transferred as wealth generation by generation. And when it comes to women and entire households in the country, gold is considered one of the safest havens you can have.
When it comes to saving with jewellers, just like you have goals for savings, there’s a set of people who have gold saving goals and want to buy this much gram of gold every year. But they don’t have the flexibility or freedom to spend that money upfront. Since they know their behaviour and aim to buy gold or jewellery, they're very comfortable saving small amounts with these jewellers.
Jewellers started these schemes because they understood that what they sell is a high-ticket product. And Indian customers, are very price-sensitive and preplan their budgets before even the salary arrives.
We need to give them something more comfortable. For example, when a consumer goes to buy an iPhone, they have the option to pay in EMIs.
And that is how the jewellery market and the jewellers perceived it, saying, let us give them an option to save in advance. And then eventually offer some benefit because that solves two things. One is consumer upfront capital for investment, and the second is the jeweller’s working capital.
Amit Singh: So two questions emerged from this in my mind. One is that it makes sense from a jeweller's perspective. You can lock in the customer, and slowly, you will upsell or whatever. Those things can happen, but going back to my question for a user, I also understand this behaviour. I want to save money to buy this much gold at the end of the year or during Diwali or Dhanteras.
I don’t understand why the user goes to the jeweller to make these savings. Why not have control of the money themselves, leave the choice to themselves, and lastly, decide: Who is giving me a better assortment of the stuff that I want to buy or who is giving me a better price or service? Why lock your options since money is fungible?
Veer Mishra: There are two points to this question. First, a user wants to have certain flexibility, as you mentioned. But when it comes to gold and jewellery, consumers only save with their trusted jewellers.
It is a jeweller who has been there for generations. For example, my mom has been buying jewellery from one fixed jeweller in Nagpur and one in Pune. Now my sister is saving with them because she is like, “Is hi se khareedna hai (I want to only buy from this jeweller). All of my jewellery is from this jeweller only, so I know my money is safe.”
That is number one. Number two, many users between the ages of 25 and 40 can afford to buy jewellery, and they want the flexibility of not deciding on a jeweller right now.
But having said that, they want to save in gold and then convert it into jewellery and have the flexibility of converting this gold into jewellery with some benefits.
Amit Singh: But how do we reconcile these two things?
Because at one point, you're saying that as a user, I have a trusted jeweller, and I'm always going to that jeweller. At the same time, you’re also saying that the consumer wants choice. She didn't have that choice, and she was locked in. So either the user is saying, I want to buy from this because I trusted it or the user is saying I want choice.
How are these two things coming together?
Veer Mishra: See, the user wants a choice, but right now, he doesn't have it. Right now, that's the limitation the user is operating in. And that is the limitation that we are trying to solve. When I look at this entire savings market, the annual income group between 5 and 15 lakh constitutes more than 50 % of these savings.
Now, these are the people who are early in their careers and have a fixed set of income annually. And they want to have that choice, but they don't have that in the current scheme of things.
Veer Mishra: Yeah, that's why the user decides if there is no solution, I'll probably just stay with the jeweller that I've been trusting for a while. And that is why Tanishq has been the biggest name when it comes to trust.
Tanishq’s Golden Harvest savings scheme amounts to more than INR 7,000 crore annually. Because it's the unsaid trust people have with Tata, and this becomes a losing proposition for smaller jewellers. We want to solve for that trust layer in between.
Amit Singh: See, again, there are two things,. Would your mother who has been buying from one specific jeweller all her life, want an option that allows her to go to multiple jewellers? Because it's not like the market doesn't provide those options.
It's the trust that is lacking. So then the question becomes, how is Plus bringing that trust into the user? And, how do we know that this is the jeweller to be trusted versus some other jeweller?
Veer Mishra: So I think the first angle of bringing trust to the platform is completely connected to the kind of jewellers we have as our partners.
For example in Mumbai, every five kilometers, we have a jeweller partner. And these jewellers have decades of legacy. So when their customer walks into their store and they see that they have a “Verified by Plus” signage hanging outside.
The customer will ask the jeweller, Hey, what is the jeweller usually like in handing out our pamphlet saying, KS I'm running my savings scheme here. You can save here and get extra benefits.
Amit Singh: So in a way, you are trying to create a trust layer, which is like credentialing. This is a trusted jeweller versus some, but you're not Tata, you're just a startup today in the minds of the user, and the jeweller has been there for decades.
You are, coming out of nowhere and with a pop-up of yours. How are you giving credentialing, it could be like when Gold Council does it, or when some government authority does it or Harvard does it, or someone who has been testing it for years.
So how do you break into that?
Veer Mishra: "I believe we are on the path to establishing credibility for our platform. We are taking various steps towards this goal, such as featuring in events on television and creating a strong campaign that will also be aired on TV. We are planning to rope in popular brand influencers as ambassadors, which will directly increase trust in our platform. Our aim is to achieve this within the next six months. Additionally, before the end of this year, we are planning to have a celebrity as our brand ambassador/investor who will embody trust."
Amit Singh: From what I understand, startups are all about asking the right questions. If you keep asking good questions and keep pushing harder, you'll eventually find the answers you're looking for. However, not everything can be solved in one day.
Regarding the jewellery market, there are different types of jewelers out there. Some well-known ones, like Tanishq, have a loyal customer base. The question is, how can you build trust separately by curating and handpicking jewelers who are trustworthy and providing other value-added services under your own brand.
Similar to what has happened with Urban Company, where a plumber working with it is viewed as more trustworthy and market rates are slightly higher even when not coming directly through the company, people will eventually start to recognize brands that they can trust.
Let's assume that you have earned the trust of your mother. Now, when your mother wants to buy something, she can say, "I don't need to go to the jeweler I've been trusting all this while because he doesn't have all the choices that I want."
However, when it comes to buying high-value products like jewelry, it's a bit more complicated. There are years of training and interest that have gone into certain jewelers, and for a newer age audience, it may be a little easier to trust newer jewelers. But this is also a generational thing.
But let's take a step back and break it down into two or three parts.
Firstly, the success of your investment in gold depends on the success of the gold category itself.
Secondly, there is a gold buying and saving scheme run by jewellers, and if it gains more market share, it could be good news for you.
Thirdly, you need to consider how you can layer your product on top of these existing factors and take it further.
You mentioned real estate and gold, both of which are big markets deeply rooted in our culture, religion, weddings, and even the gold standard. While we understand the significance of gold, I personally have never bought into the idea of investing in it.
Now when I was thinking about it, one thought that occurred to me was that, see.
As Misfits, we recognize that the world can exist without us. However, we believe that we can make a difference and create something valuable. Therefore, we have decided to pursue this opportunity. We see ourselves as an investment product, as do our users. We understand that investing in tech startups is a risky endeavor, but we believe that it can lead to significant rewards.
Gold, on the other hand, is a safer investment option, as it is more stable. Real estate is in a similar league in Indian society. Interestingly, there is a duality in gold - it can be both a purchase and an investment.
Like when we buy a car, they say that you come back from the showroom and it has lost some value. Whereas, for something like gold, the value usually appreciates.
So it's like I have my cake and can eat it too. So I can fulfil my desires that, okay, people should feel, I should feel good that I'm wearing good jewellery or flaunt it a bit.
At the same time, it's an investment. So, in a poor country like ours, it's a beautiful thing. It solves for you that you need to look good, to feel good, but it is a very prudent thing. So, I understand that Indian consumers are very savvy. So that's what kind of gave me confidence when we were talking because it was very contrary on the other side of the spectrum for us.
But when you think more about it, this is already factored into the market. This is not something you are changing. This is already happening. And because it is factored and so deep, it becomes like there are many ways to solve it. The trusted jeweller we talked about. Now someone like Gullak is doing it their way.
Banks are also selling gold. And you can just buy Sovereign Gold Bonds if you want to invest in gold. How do you compare what a jeweller scheme is versus what ICICI bank is offering versus what Gullak is offering or what are the other options that someone like your mother has and let's say it is about saving only?
Veer Mishra: So I think if I have to compare, let's say in my understanding, there are like, three options that my mom will always have. One is the bank, one is the jeweller, one is the Dabba. Because Dabba is usually the most preferred saving mechanism for a homemaker.
The cash in the Dabba, under the pillow, is always there. Concerning the first channel, which is the banks, the problem with banks is that the bank is never reaching out enough to this audience. That's the biggest problem. Banks are selling their gold right now by directly selling it to the jewellers.
These desks provide gold monetisation loans (GML) to jewellers who approach the bank. The jeweller then has 180 days to repay the loan. However, one issue jewellers face with GML is that they must repay the loan in gold, plus 4% interest. This can be problematic if the price of gold increases during the loan period due to events such as religious celebrations or market changes. In this case, the jeweller must pay the bank back with 3% extra plus 5% interest, which amounts to 8% working capital.
In comparison, when a jeweller takes money from a consumer, they only pay a 2-3% working capital. However, they give away this money as discounts on their making charges, which are usually between 12% and 18%. In some cases, such as with Tanishq, it can be as high as 25%. Due to the lack of outreach by banks, my mother only has two options left when it comes to gold: jewellers and dabba.
And when it comes to gold, my mom doesn't know Gullak exists. My mom doesn't know if a Jar exists.
For this particular audience, communication will take place through their family and their jeweller. This is why we believe that jewellers are the backbone of our business. While we want to provide flexibility to our customers, we understand that the primary discovery will take place at the jeweller's centre. This is how we aim to move forward.
We plan to become the largest heterogeneous savings scheme in the country for jewellery, where users can save with us and make purchases from any of our 300-plus partners. Additionally, we will also be operating jeweller schemes, where users can comfortably save with their jeweller, and the jeweller will be part of our platform.
Amit Singh: I understand that the jewellery industry has been running a school and scheme in an unorganized manner, but a savvy and organized player with a large market share has also proven that it can be done better.
Companies like Titan or Tanishq are better equipped to handle this since they can provide proof of payment, reminders for future payments, and other small details that regular jewellers may not be able to provide.
Now, theoretically, there is a case that what Shopify did - some kind of a marketplace, some sort of a platform comes in and says, let me give you a stack, which enables the scheme to run more professionally.
But simultaneously, you are also trying to be true to the user. And to the user, you're saying, “Oh, you have been buying jewellery from jeweller A. You can also buy from this other one, B, who is as trusted.”
So, in that sense, while you are creating a nice tech layer for the jeweller, you are also opening the market by giving a choice to the user, which goes against the lock-in that the jeweller would want.
Veer Mishra: Yeah. I'll tell you, a jeweller already has an audience saving with us.
We are not taking away that audience from them. We are just saying that we will give you more customers. And for users, we are saying that you will get more flexibility. So when I say that I'm not removing the customer from the jeweller, I am simply saying that jeweller A’s customers are saving with that jeweller only.
Once that user saves with that jeweller, he doesn't have the flexibility. But if that same customer, apart from saving with that specific jeweller, wants to save in another plan, they will always have that flexibility with Plus.
We want to be that neutral platform, such as what Zomato does with restaurants. It is a discovery platform. Whereas the customer decides, we are a platform allowing users to save in gold, which is withdrawable as gold coins or bars if they want, if they are not sure.
But if they want to decide on the jeweller, they can select it upfront. Or they can choose it during maturity.
Whichever way works for them.
Amit Singh: See, you talked about Zomato. Zomato has put cloud kitchens next to the best fine-dining restaurants. And on the app, you cannot differentiate, so that is what the restaurant, the fine dining restaurant, which has built that credibility over the years and is paying for that.
They felt different, and they're not on the, they're not the happiest people working with Zomato. Zomato has conquered the market and is collecting a toll in some sense, having said that Zomato never went to the restaurants directly and said, give me your users.
So now somewhere you are saying that. Jeweller will be instrumental, so you need to keep them happy as well.
Let me just ask a different question. How will you acquire users? And will jewellers have a role to play in that? If they have a role to play, then there is a conflict. If there is no role to play. See, if you're giving me new users, then I'm fine.
I'm doing my business. You are not taking my business away. You're not taking my customers away but giving me new business. So you are acquiring users elsewhere and giving me that. So I like you. But if you start giving my user a choice.
Now, if the jeweller asks, “Okay, why don't you install the Plus app and then do it?” And then the user says, “Okay, this is great. I will do this. But why should I do it with this jeweller? I should do it with any other jeweller.” So, while you are building that tech stack for the jeweller, you’re also creating that choice for the user, and then that's the dilemma I'm talking about.
Eventually, some answers will emerge, and you will have to take sides. But today, what are you thinking? How is your user acquisition, and how does it play out?
Veer Mishra: Our journey started similarly to Zomato's, as we knew that jewellers would not entertain us directly.
However, we had a huge customer base, so we began listing the jewellers on our app, just like on Google. Based on the inquiries we received, we started calling up the jewellers and asking them what kind of discount they could offer to customers who wanted to buy a particular kind of jewellery. Even before launching the app, we enabled sales worth close to 4 crore for some jewellers in Mumbai.
When the jewellers understood that we were helping them get more customers, they started directly engaging with us and we began signing contracts with them. They agreed to get listed as verified partners on our app, and users could contact them directly. When a user contacts a jeweller, they receive a WhatsApp message with the customer details and directions to the store.
We made the decision to remain neutral when we were a platform. We cannot influence the user to say yes or no as we have to be impartial with both parties. The end customer must be given the choice to decide.
Our go-to-market strategy primarily focuses on reaching out to households thinking of saving. We plan to tap into this audience through various digital channels. Our target audience is a father in his early forties who is planning for his daughter's marriage, a brother who wants to give something to his sister, or a husband waiting for his anniversary.
Our core strategy is enabling existing customers to pay the jeweller through our app and continue saving. If a jeweller hosts their scheme on our app, their users can pay through our app, and their savings will be redeemable only at that jeweller's store.
However, if they want to create another saving on our app, they are free to do so. As a platform, we allow our customers to operate based on their preferences while enabling them to pay the jeweller through our app.
Amit Singh: Yeah. So I get that. It’s just that somewhere, these things will emerge. And it becomes tricky because it's a two-sided market. So it's not unique to you though.
Every two-sided marketplace faces the challenge of determining its primary and secondary customers. While there are various ways to solve this issue, it's important to identify who your primary and secondary customers are. In the case of Uber, they declared that their drivers were their secondary customers, which resulted in strikes and controversies.
But then customers didn’t like it when they introduced surge pricing. It is always a delicate balance. So it's not that those businesses don't exist or cannot be created. If we know maybe we can design it slightly differently or we don't misstep because the moment you misstep your branding is there and then you're going to lose trust.
But anyway, let's move on. What I didn't understand was what are Gullak & Jar doing. How are they different from you because they're also savings?
I can understand your eventual goal is different from theirs. But regarding the core proposition, they also seem to target a similar user base. Is their modus operandi different from yours?
Veer Mishra: Firstly, there's nothing against those platforms; they're doing great business.
The founder of Jar is a good friend, and we used to be roommates in Delhi back in the day. The kind of agenda that Jar has is to be that first savings app. They want to be in the penny savings market.
That means two rupees, five rupees for every transaction or 10 rupees at max for every transaction. You require huge amounts of money backing you to capitalise on such small transactions. For example, for every 10 rupees you transact in digital gold, you're losing two.
So there are multiple barriers there. So I think that market is tricky to be in.
I would classify Jar as a gold savings app. They are trying to get into the entire fintech thing and to be honest, they launched their jewellery chain also. So right now Jar has introduced their own online jewellery web store. And if they want to do a savings scheme, we'll probably host them as well.
Hence, Jar is in a very different market, whereas, Gullak is backed by a common investor. Yes, and one of the things that we realised that is very different in Gullak is that Gullak also started with that penny savings market, just like Jar.
The name suggests that.
And when they went into YCombinator they realised obviously through certain studies and exercises, they realised that it's frugal to tap into the penny savings market. Let's go into the bigger market. And that's why they created Gold Plus, which is what you can say, a leasing product where the user gets around 3.5% extra on gold every year.
Amit Singh: It's like peer-to-peer, but here, at the backend, it is gold, which is much more trustworthy. So they're saying if you trust gold and want to have a fixed-income instrument, you can use us.
Veer Mishra: Yeah. So this is what it is. This is an interesting instrument.
In our system, the backend infrastructure remains mostly similar, but the end consumer benefits twice as much. In Gullak, our users used to receive a maximum of 5% extra, but with Plus they receive 10% due to the discounts we offer. For every 10 grams saved by the customer, they receive an additional gram from us.
Amit Singh: Yeah, but it has to come from somewhere. The way I understand this and correct me if I'm wrong, is that Gullak is just a savings product and the intent is not that at the end of it, I will go and buy gold.
They're just saying you want to earn 10% or 12% - this is one of the ways to do it. And probably this is safer than maybe some other liquid loans or that kind of product. What you are saying is your customer is going to buy gold.
Veer Mishra: If the customer is not interested in buying jewellery, but is only interested in earning income, they have the option to walk away with their savings in two ways. The first is to have a gold coin delivered to their doorstep, and the second is to receive cash directly in their account. In this sense, it is similar to other investment options.
Amit Singh: So the way I understand it is that you have added an extension to the next level, wherein you are letting users buy gold. But that changes the audience in my mind.
Because that is an investment product, how many investments do we make in our lives? Like very few. So decision-making is very different and hard. But we are buying all the time. And this is at least how I understood it: it's not an investment product.
It is: I want to buy gold and I'm getting it at a discount. It's a very easy mental model to play with, but that changes your audience completely. That's an investment-savvy audience. Your audience is very different when you move from savvy to less savvy, you may open up this market.
But then the question comes, who is the user? How are they using it? Are they native transacting? So they may be sending good morning messages on WhatsApp, but are they transacting on the app?
Veer Mishra: I think it's a really interesting question because that's what we craved to understand in the first four months of operations. And when we built the app, we built it for that tech-savvy customer - who will understand the integrities of KYCs, etc. When that product was listed on the App Store and Play Store, the users from our initial target segment shied away. It was very difficult to handhold them and ensure they transact on the app.
During that exercise itself, we realised this audience doesn't need a fancy UI with the proper email notification or an automated call. They're always comfortable studying a pamphlet from a jeweller about the savings scheme, a simple table that says - “Is mahine mein itna milega” (You will get this much in each month). And that is how, when we are redoing our entire UI before our Shark Tank telecast, we have redefined the entire experience.
We don't ask users to sign up on the app. When users log in, when they download the app, they will directly experience it. They will see what benefits they’re getting, play around with the app and just before they want to make a purchase, they will just enter their phone number and the entire thing will be done.
And that is how we want to drive trust because this audience is used to trying before buying. So you want to give them that flavour and obviously, we are making it multilingual. And if the data suggests going forward, we may even make it what you can say voice-assisted, but that's the step maybe after.
Amit Singh: I'm largely done. Let me just get into the questions that we have received. Some of them you might have touched upon so we can be very quick about it.
First one - isn't it difficult to convince customers to keep their savings deposits with you?
Veer Mishra: Yeah, I think, one thing that we ensure that the customer knows is that this is a 24-karat BIS-certified gold.
This is kept in a government-regulated vault. So let's say tomorrow as a startup, we die. That gold is still there and they will be sent that gold to their registered KYC address. It is a regulated asset kept in a regulated manner.
Amit Singh: Got it. And just on the aspect we discussed earlier. Are the users looking for this flexibility?
The jeweller they're currently in the business with is in proximity and is somewhere hyper-local to them. And there's a family-like connection with them. Why should they shift? This we already, somewhere touched upon, but if you want to add something to that.
Veer Mishra: So I think it's a good question.
What I will suggest is the users who are comfortable with their family jewellers are right now in the age group of 48 to 50. People who are in the age group of 25 to 35 or early in their career, are more or less very flexible. They only get Saturdays and Sundays to spend time with the family.
So they are not looking to go out to multiple jewellers to understand the scheme. So they're looking for that flexibility and that is the TG where we are trying to operate.
Amit Singh: One thing we're seeing in other categories, like D2C brands and all - is that the new generation doesn't want to use their parents’ brands.
I don't know if it is true for jewellery, but jewellery also is modern. I don't know as much about the jewellery market, but I think traditional jewellers right now are selling jewellery designs that they usually have.
Veer Mishra: But they have tailor-made services where you take a picture of a design you like. So they just charge you extra, but obviously, they get it done.
Amit Singh: Deepak has a question - Is the Plus savings scheme, customer onboarding agnostic, or it is coupled with jewellery brands?
Veer Mishra: So it is agnostic. It's completely agnostic. Like we have, we want to build the largest agnostic scheme.
Amit Singh: And there's another question from Atul: what would be the split between brands? versus individual jewellers in terms of futures.
Veer Mishra: If I manage Tanishq and Malabar now we have Kalyan and others also in the pipeline. It's gonna be like, I think 60-40.
60% of people will go to Kalyan and the bigger brands like PCJ and PNG. But trust me, no jeweller is small.
Amit Singh: So what is your split going to be? Are you more focused on onboarding large brands or small independent jewellers?
Veer Mishra: Sorry. I think if I have to list down the bigger jewellers, it's hardly 10, 20 or 30 bigger jewellers. It's usually a one-store, two-store, three-store type of jewellers who are going to be our partners. And these are also legacy jewellers. Doing 1000-2000 crore rupees in revenue a year.
But one of the limitations that we have is the jeweller's store must be beyond 2000 square feet or else we don't onboard. And so that's a trust/credentialing thing that we are talking about.
Veer Mishra: As a platform we make commissions, which are done on the savings.
To date, we have around 60 lakh rupees in savings on our app. And based on that, we have a 2 % commission, which is as good as pre-revenue right now, because it's been just four months since the launch. But I think we are on track to touch a hundred crore by the end of this year because we are launching gold as an asset.
Certain television events (Shark Tank) are happening and that's going to help us.
Amit Singh: There was a question regarding your recent launch and the funds raised. You had raised 2.5 crore rupees and are planning to raise another round of 3-5 crore rupees. Could you share where that money came from and how it was utilised?
Veer Mishra: When we raised our first round, it was just Raj and me conceptualising what we wanted to build, building a prototype, and launching it with just one jeweller. We did some campaigns during that launch and acquired 2-3000 users.
With those customers, we realised that the users were looking for options. Users were not comfortable saving with just one jeweller. They wanted multiple jeweller partners as redemption partners. That kind of gave us a reality check that we need multiple partners to enable our users' flexibility and freedom. So we decided to pause, return to the field and acquire more jewellers. And that is when we started taking customer calls, connecting to jewellers, enabling some discounts.
And that is the journey through which we onboarded these jeweller partners onto our app.
Amit Singh: What do you mean by when you say that you have onboarded jewellers? What have they committed to?
Veer Mishra: Yeah, so there are three things that the jeweller does on our Plus platform. One is getting listed as a verified partner where the users can redeem their savings.
And when they sign this contract, they say yes, up to 50,000 rupees worth of jewellery, I'll give a 2% discount. And in the 1 lakh to 5 lakh rupee range, I'll give 4% discount. That is a discount slab that the customers sign up for. The second feature jewellers sign up for is selling their gold coins on our platform.
Because a lot of customers want a gold coin directly. They don't want to save or anything. The jewellers can sell their gold coins on our app at our price, not their price. Which is discounted in a way, from the market. So let's see if you get a one-gram gold coin on Tanishq right now, it will be somewhere close to 7,200 or 7,300 rupees.
On our app, you'll get it for 6,700. So that's the difference. And that CAC is borne by the jeweller. The only condition is that the delivery doesn't happen. The user needs to visit the jeweller to collect that coin.
And the third thing is hosting their savings schemes. So these are three things a jeweller signs up for.
And to completely answer your question while onboarding these customers. This is what we were experimenting with, like building the team, building the tech, and onboarding these partners. Because that is where the money was majorly utilised. And we’ve hired a very high-pedigree team. So I need to pay them something. That is where the money got utilized.
Amit Singh: There's a question from Avinash.
If the user trusts the jeweller, there will be no need to use Plus other than the ease of access to technology. But if the user doesn't trust the jeweller, then they will not trust the whole ecosystem that Plus is creating.
They will join the program or app as an entry-level user. And once their understanding improves, they might move out of this and get into a direct program with the jeweller. What is your view on both?
Veer Mishra: Yeah, that's going to happen. I think when a customer is comfortable saving with the jeweller.
We just want to present that flexibility to him/her. As I said, we don't want to take away the customers from the jeweller. We want to present a flexible option to the jeweller. So here if the user is already saving with the jeweller, as you rightly said, we are a technology platform enabling him/her to make sure that they don't have to go to that jeweller to deposit the money monthly.
Amit Singh: I understand. See, these are classic problems. See some of the questions we have discussed: disintermediation, two-sided marketplace, and conflict of interest.
Those are classic problems with most marketplaces. And that has a play in the sense that not every consumer comes to you. You lose certain customers. You create that conflict that plays out in different ways. Sometimes, you try to please one side. Sometimes you try to please the other side.
Having said that, these kinds of companies get built around this. My understanding is, and I'll try to recap for everyone, that gold is a big deal in India. It's one of the safest ways to invest.
And what is more interesting is that it is, while it may be you, it's the duality of it, that it is an expenditure, which makes you feel good about it. At the same time, it's an investment that is appreciated. And that's why the Indian household has taken to gold like nothing else.
Now there is a market, and there is a trend that we are seeing. Over the years, jewellers have started offering schemes because one way of doing it is that you can buy it in EMI. That doesn't work if you're buying an asset like this. It's better that you work on the other side that I want, I have only bite-sized money to pay you, but I would rather add it up and then buy rather than buy and then, pay interest on top of it.
So that way saving now, and buying later works better than buying now and paying later in this kind of asset class. It's an investment happening on the side. Now, this trend is happening at an organised level, and an unorganised level and you are trying to find a way to try to understand both sides of the users and see if there is a play.
Not everything is figured out as yet. But is there a play wherein you can build this layer on the trust of the users, on the trust of the jewellers, be that credit, trust layer, for the quality of jewellers you have? And then, over the years, with each iteration, try to make it more compelling.
We talked about competition and all that. Are there other investment products? You are a purchase and savings product. And to an audience, this may appeal better. Then something is and that's what your core bet is. If that plays out, then, everything will be good.
If that doesn't play out. So when that is happening. So there was this other question, which I remember now: It was not listed here that you also have a P2P option on your app. While I understand that you have Gullak, an offering, plus you also have that buy jewellery purchase offering. I think you can go all the way, or you want to go only this far.
But why have peer-to-peer? Because the whole thing about gold and the trust and everything suddenly is, peer to peer is a very different category and there's a, there's an audience for that, like I was talking to a FinTech founder who’s not a PhonePe or a Paytm and they're still doing 2000 crores in revenue.
Peer-to-peer has just exploded recently. There's nothing right or wrong. I'm not trying to judge that it's great that it is going that fast. But when you're doing gold, let's be true to gold. Why are you doing this? And creating confusion in the mind of the user.
Veer Mishra: I think I told you from day one that we wanted to be centric on gold. It was not that we didn't want to do that to build an offering of 10-plus-one that we wanted on gold to happen. There was no infrastructure available in the market to do that then.
The only way we were able to create that 10-plus-one product was through a P2P platform where users could get 10-plus-one.
Amit Singh: But that's today.
Veer Mishra: So as you rightly mentioned, our target user doesn't understand that.
And that's why all the savings that have happened on peer-to-peer will continue to be so, but gold is becoming the primary asset. No further investments will be happening in P2P from the 14th of Feb, which is when P2P will be removed.
I have trust in that, but users don't. So I will do what the users want. Absolutely.
Amit Singh: Does the app offer that distinction? Perfect. Perfect. Sounds good.
Veer Mishra: Oh yeah. It's distinctive to every user. You have anything? Like I think we captured most of the points. One thing that I would like to add about the team that we have.
Amit Singh: Perfect. Perfect. Sounds good. Is there anything more you’d like to add?
Veer Mishra: I think we captured most of the points. One thing that I would like to add about the team that we have.
And I think as investors, it's very important for you to know the people you're backing. So along with me, my co-founder, Raj, is an amazing entrepreneur, a hardcore operations guy. Built a company in the past, sold it to an international fashion giant, and worked with me.
He was the chief of staff and he led the entire business partnerships vertical. Along with that are techies like hardcore techies, who built startups, sold them in the past, and were working at like big4 cos.
These guys come in with a lot of experience in scaling products in the past. And that is what we are working towards. We have a very single mission, which is to build this interoperable scheme as large as possible.
Amit Singh: Very interesting. Now, we have a couple of minutes more. I'll just try to use it. How was your Shark Tank experience?
Veer Mishra: It was quite mixed, to be honest. We were able to pitch it very amazingly. The sharks liked it. There were some apprehensions around P2P as an asset, that is when we also mentioned that we are shifting to gold and we introduced our plans of executing it.
And that is why I think new people liked it and thus they backed it. It's something that I think every founder should experience because, in those two hours in the tank, you tend to miss out on a point that every investor is probably looking for, or at least a customer who is watching that show is looking to hear.
Amit Singh: Got it. Yeah, so it's a tough journey ahead for you. For every founder, you need to be just, just be relentless and brave. And it's the name that means that only. So hopefully, you'll be courageous and build something big for all of us.
Yeah. Thank you so much. Lovely talking
Veer Mishra: Thanks Amit. Bye.