Mamtha Banerjee, Founder, InvestmentYogi FinAdvisory Services Pvt. Ltd.

“Investing with the Yogis”

Most of us have very few ideas about finances and the entire gamut of tax related financial planning that one requires. Many of us run our finances on advice or on a trial and error method that seldom has the desired effect. Our entrepreneur believes that the solution to this can be solved online by a Yogi or more specifically at investmentyogi.com. Mamtha Banerjee is the woman entrepreneur behind the solution to all our financial questions.

She told us more saying “We are a small global team, with a passion for personal finance, building products that will benefit the community, and products that we ourselves would love to use and benefit from in our daily lives. InvestmentYogi’s mission is to help our customers make smarter decisions about money by providing the right tools, services and unbiased advice.”

Business Idea- The site is not just about investment advice but also handles the prickly questions of taxation and legalities. Mamtha explains “InvestmentYogi is a personal finance portal that helps Indians manage their investments, taxes and finances by providing high quality content and tools including online financial planning, online tax preparation, e-filing of taxes, online budgeting and mutual fund research. InvestmentYogi recently released India’s first online financial planning software.”

What sets them apart – Their widespread appeal is due to a few applications that make life easier for the average person. Mamtha stated “We have over a 1000 visitors a day and over a 1000 have already used our newly launched online financial planner. Our users are primarily from India; however, in any given month we have visitors from over 50 countries.”

All the attention is primarily due to the fact that “InvestmentYogi has India’s only online financial planning software and the only integrated platform for taxes, investments and budgeting. We have a subscription based model, and also a paid services model. We will also be launching a “Software as a Service” (SaaS) model of our product.”

Future Plans- Mamtha is looking at growth provided she finds the right partners.

“We will scale up our business with the help of partnerships and organic growth” says our entrepreneur.

“We would like to provide great value to our customers and grow to be the #1 personal finance website in India. We will grow our customer case, organization and infuse capital to support this vision.”

Her Entrepreneurial story- Mamtha was drawn to the entrepreneurial life by “The challenge, the excitement and the dream of being an entrepreneur and creating value for the community.”

She has discovered that despite the changing times and the abundance of entrepreneurs “setting up a company in India and the paperwork associated with everything is extremely time consuming and tires one out. The only way to overcome it is with patience.”

Her initial reaction to India was not a pleasant one but she soon leant the ropes of her motherland. She says “I moved back to India (from the US) after almost 18 years and made several mistakes in the first year while setting up shop in India. The biggest mistake was made in the selection of quality service providers.”

“The key challenge for an Indian Entrepreneur is to find the right team who can operate in a start up mode.”

“We have grown to 10 employees in the past one year, we have one branch in Hyderabad, however, our CTO Sanjay Joshi operates out of Dallas, TX in the US and we also have one employee currently working out of California.”

Her drive and her desire to continue the fight comes from “the passion to succeed and the fact that there is always something positive or exciting happening to cheer you up and take you back on the high.”

Recognition gained-The biggest feather in their cap has been their ability to launch several products and compete with bigger players head on with a small energetic team and a limited budget. They were also finalists at the 2009 HySea Product Showcase Awards and were selected by Outlook Money as the Top 30 small business ideas in 2009 which just goes to show that their idea has many takers.

Entrepreneurial lesson- Mamtha has returned to India with a purpose and is here to stay. She spoke of some essential ingredients for success saying “Stay focused and driven, don’t give up easily and be prepared to change course as needed.”

Yourstory wishes Mamtha and InvestmentYogi good fortune and all the success that they deserve. We hope to see them make it big in no time at all.