Pranjal Kamra is one of the most trusted Finance YouTubers with videos ranging from house-buying tips to creating your perfect stock market portfolio and so much more in between. He is also known for being the co-founder and CEO of Finology Ventures, a fintech startup company.
He has also written a book with a self-explanatory title, Investonomy: The Stock Market Guide That Makes You Rich, which has turned out to be a national bestseller. I mean seriously, what hasn’t he done? Let’s delve into the life of someone with sheer determination and passion, a man with many ventures to his name.
Journey to Law School
Pranjal was born in Raipur, Chattisgarh and growing up, he was never really one to be the smart kid in school but he did have a fairly good command of speaking his heart out.
And as a result, he never shied away from participating in debate contests from time to time. This led his parents to encourage him to pursue law regardless of not knowing what could happen further along this journey. Hence, he passed his entrance exams and got into Hidayatullah National Law University, Raipur.
Interestingly, he immediately knew he wanted out on the day of his orientation when he found out that law wasn’t truly about speaking in the broader sense! He dreaded going to college but somehow managed to go through those hellish years.
What made him go through the entire 5-year course you ask? Well, to go to his dream college, NISM, which offered a post-graduate degree, he had to have an undergraduate degree and this was the motivation that kept him going.
Transition from Law to Finance
His interesting backstory of getting into finance began in his third year of law school when Pranjal started watching this particular show called ‘D Street Ka Don’ on Zee Business. Crazy impressed by the man on the show who would apparently know everything about every share in the market, he was determined to be exactly like him.
Funnily enough, a few years later when he was invited to be on a similar show on Zee Business, he knew it was all fabricated to fit into a lie. He says that he was indeed given a list of the anticipated questions a week before the show! The comical deception aside, the show really helped him to find what his heart was truly meant for.
Hence, he started investing when he was still in law school. He studied finance for three years along with studying law which made his grades drop substantially and as a result, he was very low on confidence.
Determined to go to NISM [National Institute of Securities Market], an underconfident and unsure Pranjal went ahead for the interview and to his surprise, he was told by the dean that he was the best candidate that they had ever interviewed in their 20 years of academic experience. Imagine the crazy amount of dopamine boost that he got that day!
YouTube Journey
After completing his post-graduate degree from NISM, he wanted to do something on his own, something different.
In June 2017, he uploaded his first video. 60-70 videos later in Feb 2018, he had 1,000 subscribers and struggled to gain traction on his videos.
After several tears of hard work later, his video about cryptocurrency suddenly blew up and this insane growth led to him having over 1,00,000 subscribers in May 2018 which kickstarted his journey to enlightenment! And today, he has over 4.95 Million+ subscribers.
Startup Story of Finology
Pranjal is like that stock market expert we never knew we needed. Emanating his love for finance and the urge to make sound knowledge available and accessible to all parts of the world, he founded Finology in 2017 with a clear goal- to make investing simple and rewarding for everyone.
“I’ve always wanted to create products,” he says. And today, Finology has 5 different products that melt into one solution to all your financial issues.
Finology brings the ‘logy’ back in Finance and makes use of scientific principles! If you’re unsure about the ABCs of investing, make sure to invest your time in Finology, as it offers you one of the best finance courses you’ve ever seen and if the ever-evolving universe of investing the stock market seems too complicated and dreary at the same time, Pranjal makes it worth your precious time and money with Finology.
You get access to everything from stock recommendations and analysis to expert-taught courses catering to your aptitude. Finology calls itself everyone’s financial superhero and a one-stop solution to all your financial problems.
Of course, with this monumental title, comes great responsibility. Whether you want to be a stock market expert or you wish to grow your hard-earned money, Finology helps you with that with ease.
Advice for the Youth
Pranjal feels that today’s generation is filled with condescension and says that there’s a recurring habit of college students laughing at other students who mess up sometimes. This turns a positive environment meant for nurturing, into a toxic space.
We all should learn to be a little humble. This realization sure stems from his aggressive behaviour in school where he would pick up fights with people around him. But he’s completely over it, I mean, can you really imagine Pranjal getting into a fight with someone today?
Another thing he’s passionate about is living life on our own terms. In an interview with Arvind Arora, Pranjal says, “Even if you’re the Prime Minister of a country, people are going to forget you in a few years’ time.”
I guess this goes to show that we often get so caught up in the idea of external validation that we forget to live life for ourselves. “No matter what we do, people are bound to forget us. We waste our lives thinking about what other people think of us,” he adds.
So why not do it for us? Why not risk it all for our own sake? Why not do things we’re meant to do? Hence, he asks the youth to do whatever they wish to regardless of the outcome and not care about what other people think in the slightest.
No one and I mean absolutely no one on this planet will remember how you made those stupid little mistakes you weren’t “supposed” to make while chasing that ever-so-special dream of yours. By not being afraid of messing up, we’d be able to risk our lives for good. What are YOU willing to risk it all for?
