There is nothing in the world that you cannot do, but it’s you telling yourself that you’re not designed for it.
Sharan Hegde is one of India’s top finance content creators and is known for his fun and informative content. He goes by the name ‘Finance with Sharan’ on the internet, making finance easy and accessible to all corners of the world.
Whether it may be with regard to personal or corporate finance, everyone should be able to manage their own finances with minimum complications because ultimately, the world does indeed revolve around monetary assets. Financial concepts needn’t be so challenging and tiring, which is why Sharan has the ultimate goal of simplifying the perceptible complexities of the financial world.
In addition to this, learning financial management can quickly get boring and there’s a high chance you’d doze off seconds after watching informational videos about it. Sharan makes use of lighthearted comedy to take away your drowsiness and substitute it with lots of fun. After all, the F in finance stands for Fun. [Just kidding!]
With over 2 Million followers on his Instagram, it is his primary source of education where he posts fun, concise and informative reels about all things finance– insurance, taxation, cryptocurrency, real estate, etc.
He also has a YouTube channel with 1.5 Million subscribers where we get to see longer and more highly detailed videos. “I create engaging personal finance content with a blend of comedic flavour and cosplay on Instagram and YouTube. I also write down highly action-oriented posts on LinkedIn and Twitter for those who prefer to read it instead,” he says.
His Journey with Money Management
Sharan, born in Mangalore, was born into an upper-middle-class family. He grew up in a controlled and frugal environment when it came to money. Every single hard-earned penny was valued to its core and consequently, Sharan had to conform to spending the least amount of money that he possibly could.
In an interview with Ankur Warikoo, he said, “They [his family] really made me understand the value of money. Every time I asked for money, they actually made me think about whether I really really needed it and whenever my dad used to take me to a toy store, he used to say, ‘you can’t buy anything more than 100rs.’”
Additionally, this was around the time when Beyblades had started taking over the world, and obviously, Sharan wanted to have one of his own. To his surprise, it cost 299 Rs and he, sure, had to fight for it. After a little bickering, he ended up getting his hands on them.
These experiences cumulatively impacted his perception of money to the point where little Sharan made it his goal to become the richest man on the planet! “Money has been a very big motivator for me since childhood to be the best version of myself,” he says.
Education and Career
Growing up, he was indoctrinated into thinking the smarter you are, the more money you’d make and hence, Sharan was always one of the brightest minds in school after he’d been incentivized by money!
After his schooling days, unprepared and unsure about what he’d want his dear future to hold, he went with the flow and joined R.V. College of Engineering, and has a mechanical engineering degree.
He got inclined towards pursuing management consulting when he joined an academic club in college where he was promoted to the position of CFO [Chief Financial Officer]. Hence, he worked as a Management Consultant with financial companies and banks for quite some time before fully focusing on finance content creation.
The Beginning of ‘Finance with Sharan’
You must be wondering what contributed to the instant shift from engineering to finance content! Well, it all began when he started collecting every single penny that was gifted to him on his birthdays and other special occasions.
By the time he was around 21, he had accumulated over 50,000 rupees and planned on making the money grow further. With no prior knowledge as to where to invest his patiently collected money, he had to conduct intensive research related to finance all by himself.
This instilled a gradual thought in his head. Talking about this very thought, he says, “It’s so important to learn about these things [finance], but the content available right now is so boring and dull that 99% of the people are not even gonna watch it, but it’s such an essential life skill. Schools are not teaching it, and people are not gonna learn about it even after they start working.”
Hence, during the pandemic, in order for people to stop fearing crucial life skills and to make finance fun and accessible, he set out to make engaging YouTube videos during the pandemic, precisely in December 2020.
He then switched to making witty and enlightening Instagram reels and they took off almost immediately. This was the beginning of the journey of revolutionizing the way we think about finance. Today, Sharan is keen on being financially independent in his mid-30s and would also like to work on being a part-time financial advisor.
In addition, he absolutely loves to voyage around the world and has travelled to around 8 countries so far. He’s also built India’s first personal finance community which has over 8K paid members. On top of that, he is an angel investor, writes and acts on TV ads, and is Linkedin’s Top Voice.
Feeling less than, and dealing with it.
“There are so many people who are better than you, the world is a tough place and sometimes even if you put all your hard work into it, you might still not come first and that is difficult to accept,” says Sharan while talking about self-acceptance and competition.
No matter where you go, you are going to be surrounded by people who you think are undeniably better than you in some way or the other, and I think we’ve all been there at one point in our lives.
But sometimes, all we need is a tweak in perspective and it might help if we stop attaching a hierarchical order to our individual differences, and instead, learn to embrace them. Sharan broke free from this limiting mindset which led him to rule the financial kingdom today.
