Finology On Sales, Profits, and Funding

We don’t work with predefined targets. Actually, we do, but they’re more like a guide; they exist for inspiration. Nothing happens if we don’t meet them, and no particular individual is made a scapegoat.

Why We Don’t Have Sales Targets at Finology

We don’t want to sell to people who don’t want us, and customers who want us will buy from us anyway. Our job is to create wonderful products that solve problems and to ensure that potential customers know about what we have to offer. We think that everything else, the customer should decide for themselves without them feeling like we are sitting on their heads to give us their money.

Now, because of our approach, we often face questions and statements like these:

1. “Why Not Sell Aggressively?”

We simply flip this question to, “Why sell aggressively?” After all, we don’t even need to!

• We are bootstrapped.
• We have always been profitable at the group level.
• We don’t have a large team.
• Our distribution is free, and word of mouth is good.
• We don’t have an exit plan.
• We work from Raipur; our expenses are limited.
• We are not desperate for growth at any cost.

All these factors allow us to focus on just doing what we do, doing what we are good at, day in and day out, without worrying about the competition or a VC fund.

“You can afford this because you have a sizable social media presence”, is what you can say.

We have it because we have worked on building it for the last 6 years; it didn’t happen on its own; we were not born with it. So yes, it is our strength, but only because we have worked hard for it. If we can build it, so can you.

2. “You will never be a unicorn.”

Agreed, to be a unicorn, you need validation from the public or private markets. You need to take funding at a certain valuation, dilute equity, give up board seats to outsiders, and your company becomes more about satisfying the investors and people on the board than about solving customer problems.

So yes, we will never be a unicorn, not because our growth will be limited, our growth will certainly be slower, but I don’t think there is a limit to it, just because we refuse to take outside money. 

Anyway, we will never be a unicorn because we will probably never raise funds. Without that, price discovery doesn’t happen, as no 3rd party has given any validation to your valuation. So we will never be a unicorn, because we will never go to the market asking for money.

Also, for us, it’s more of a vanity metric. Just because you have reached a billion-dollar valuation, why should it be treated any differently than, say, someone at 999 million or at 950 million? Why such an obsession with a particular number?

3. “What’s the harm in being well funded and using it to be a loss leader if it creates wealth?”

Three simple reasons:

• We believe wealth and money should help you buy more freedom, not more stress.
• The more the valuation, the bigger the hustle to justify it, provide an exit, and get more funding for future growth.
• Company culture gets ruined, everyone starts chasing numbers, and customer experience gets compromised.

And that's it. At Finology, we want to build products that make us proud and our customers happy. We don’t want to win, rule, or capture the world. We don’t want more of your wallet or attention. We just want you to use our wonderful products, at a reasonable price, to earn financial freedom.