NEWSROOM

The journey to becoming the number one business podcast in the US

8 February 2022

Simran Kaur is one half of the team behind Girls That Invest, a podcast that unpacks the complexity of investing into easy to understand basics. Since its launch Girls that Invest has had a meteoric rise and its co-creators have been featured in publications such as Vogue and have secured a book deal. How did someone who studied optometry as a University of Auckland student come to have the number one business podcast in the US, Canada and New Zealand?

University experience

Simran says that it was at university that she first became interested in investing. “My first run-in with investing was in my first year of university, however, I was very quick to shut it down. Back then I thought investing was too difficult, I had never met a female investor and I just didn’t think it was a space for me. I had parents with great financial literacy so I always had an interest in personal finance but never really investing. When I was a few years closer to graduating I realised that I was going to go from being a student to someone with a lot more money, so I wanted to make sure I was starting off on the right foot

Simran’s interests in investing stem from profound reasons. “Growing up I hadn’t understood how stocks and investing work, I didn’t know how people used money to grow their wealth and I didn’t understand the concept of lifestyle creep. I did however know that around me a lot of women were restricted in their lives due to money – money was the reason they stayed in abusive relationships, money was the reason they couldn’t leave their terrible jobs. Money was the reason they had to do a lot of things which they frankly didn’t want to do. It wasn’t the flashy cars or houses that made me interested in investing, it was the freedom that came from being financially independent.”

University was also where Simran developed her passion for advocacy. She was a student representative and volunteered for a number of causes. Simran says “I was very much an introvert growing up, but the more time I spent putting myself out there and joining clubs and extracurricular activities, the more I enjoyed learning about different people and their experiences. What makes me passionate about advocacy is creating spaces for voices that otherwise wouldn’t be heard.”

The same interest in equity inspired Simran to start her first media venture The Indian Feminist – a multimedia platform that shares empowering messages through social media platforms. It has over 300,000 followers including celebrities such as Mindy Kaling and Padma Lakshmi and has been featured in publications such as the BBC and the Times of India.

Simran says “The Indian Feminist started in 2016 as an idea I had to create a multimedia community where like-minded individuals could share their experiences growing up in the South Asian diaspora. I asked one of my closest friends Harsharin Kaur to join me in creating the brand. It was just something we did part-time while studying at university. Linking back to our experiences growing up, a lot of what we saw around me was injustice towards women. The patriarchal views and structures still prevail in pockets of the diaspora. It was a huge culture shock growing up in New Zealand and seeing the difference in the gender roles we faced as women. We grew up seeing how women were shamed for birthing girls instead of boys or being shamed for not giving dowries (despite dowries being illegal). 

“The Indian Feminist grew to a size we didn’t expect. Without The Indian Feminist I don’t think I would have realised the power of social media, and how you can quite literally reach millions of people a month sharing your message and mission. I also realised how much of our fight regarding the patriarchy was deeply rooted in financial inequity, which is where my next venture Girls That Invest began.”

Girls That Invest

Simran built on her experience with knowledge gleaned from completing an online Certificate in Financial Markets through Yale. Simran and her co-founder Sonya Gupthan started Girls That Invest to fulfil a perceived need. Simran says “Despite investing platforms being more accessible than ever, studies show that in New Zealand women are still not taking up financial literacy and investing. Only 14% of Kiwi women were investing in the stock market in 2018 compared to 22% of men. It comes from our deep-rooted belief that investing is just not for us, or that we are not capable enough to understand the complexities. The jargon used in the world of investing is overwhelming and often feels exclusionary.

“The truth is, the way money media has always portrayed the world of investing has often shown cis-white males in suits at the centre of what investors are expected to look like. There has been no space for women, people of colour or minorities to be represented. A UK study found the majority of money articles directed at women were about how to save and not splurge, yet the majority of money articles for men were about how to invest and grow their wealth.”

Simran and Sonya created Girls That Invest with the intent that it would have global relevance and appeal. Simran says “It was something I had wanted for myself when I was younger, and I had yet to find something like it existing. When you are your own target customer you understand your community very well and you know what they need and how to deliver it; from the tone, the branding all the way down to customer experience and community building. I believe our podcast and community became popular due to our laser-focused niche, our genuine connection with what we spoke about and our transparency with our community. We share what we invest in, we share how much we make, we share both the success and the failures along with the privileges we’ve experienced. 

“I think a lot of time people make business out to be this head-first ‘business is war’ mindset to succeed, or that you need to bulldoze over people to get ahead. Growing the world’s number one investing podcast didn’t need any of that. We get some beautiful messages and emails every day from new members of our community thanking us for this space that we have created. The feedback that stuck with me the most was a young lady commenting to say ‘Thank you for not being the generic male voice. You were just the voice I needed.”

Advice on developing financial literacy

Simran says “Being financially literate is one of the most powerful tools you can acquire to change your life. It doesn’t matter where you’re from or what money mistakes you may have made in the past, being financially literate means having the tools and knowledge to have choices. It’s not the money that makes life fulfilling, it’s the choices you get to make about how you live your life, and those choices become a lot easier when you have money buffers. The first step is often the hardest and involves unlearning the myths we’ve been taught about money. You don’t have to be ‘money minded’  or even ‘good with numbers’ to learn about basic financial literacy. With the uncertainties that the pandemic uncovered about careers and financial aid, now has never been a better time to learn. When I began I watched YouTube videos, listened to podcasts, read books and took courses. Nowadays there are so many amazing free resources available, from websites like sorted.govt.nz, to YouTube channels or even podcasts like our own.”

Advice on entrepreneurship

Simran talks openly about the need to learn to work well with others and to be prepared for a lot of humbling moments and rejection along the way to achieving your goals. She says “One of my biggest lessons was how to manage running a business alongside someone very close to you. You can be best friends with someone for 20 years but your business relationship is not going to 100% mirror your friendship. I had to learn quickly what my strengths and weaknesses were and do as much as I could to play to my strengths. Rather than getting both you and your partner to do everything equally, it’s more effective to split up tasks that play to each other’s strengths. For example, I’m great at being creative, branding and marketing, Sonya is exceptional at organisation and leading.

“One success that has stuck with me is a bit cliche, but it’s the fact that you do miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. It’s not easy breaking through in the business space as young women when you don’t look like your traditional investors or even traditional business people. Our success came from relentless action; Messaging people, connecting with brands. Networking every chance we could. It came from being a ‘yes man’ and accepting every free speaking gig and opportunity until we grew to the point where brands would start paying us to show up.

“At the beginning, we were pitching ourselves to the media constantly, and being rejected constantly. Only once we hit our ‘big break’ as the number one business podcast in the US did things really turn around. If I had to give one piece of advice to any budding entrepreneur it would be to not wait for opportunities to fall into your lap or wait for someone else to discover you. Sometimes the secret to success is just being consistent, showing up every day and creating high-value content and products for your community, the rest will fall into place.”

Simran and Sonya are now reaping the rewards of their continued efforts. Girls That Invest has reached over 100,000 listeners a month and became the number one business podcast in the US, Canada, New Zealand, and number two in the UK, on the Apple podcast charts. They have been interviewed on Canada’s number one news channel, Simran is a weekly money columnist for stuff.co.nz and Simran and Sonya received four book deal offers. Simran is currently working from Queenstown on their first book due out later in 2022.

Simran says “I had a lot of pinch me moments leading up to the end of 2021 and start of 2022, but getting into Vogue and having a photoshoot with them was by far the most wild experience. The feature resulted in being invited to become money columnists for Vogue. I still cannot comprehend it. I think despite all the success, imposter syndrome is still one I deal with.” 

With all these opportunities, Simran is still laser focussed on her overarching mission. She says “The next step is creating more ways to help spread our mission; to put more money back into the hands of women.”