From Start-up to Success: The Inspiring Story of Purva Aggarwal

Let's embark on the inspirational journey of Purva Aggarwal, the founder of Good Good Piggy. Good Good Piggy is an Ed-FinTech startup that encourages the new generation to develop the life-skill of managing the entire money management equation digitally.

Business2Business had a personal and insightful interview with her. Here she has also provided us with the tips on how to make startups work. Do check out her interview below-

Q1. When and what inspired you to start your own brand?
Answer: It was always my goal to create impact and my experiences with my nephew showed me that the next generation needs some tools to bridge the gap between the current methods of education and the tech-driven world around them. I saw him struggle with understanding the value of money as money is invisible. Since they can’t see money exchanging hands, it makes it harder to teach them about the value of money. While the world has changed so quickly, parenting and teaching methods haven’t adapted yet. New tools are needed to facilitate teaching since the learning environment is now vastly different due to the tech-disruption. This taught me a lot about the next generation (gen alpha and beta) and really set the groundwork for Good Good Piggy. 

Q2. What problem are you trying to solve with your brand in the market?
Answer: A study from Cambridge University confirmed that basic money habits and other behaviours associated with money are formed by the age of seven. It’s not just about knowing that money doesn’t come so easily. Research also implies that money values are declining in application since the way we teach about money i.e., begrudgingly telling to be careful, does not translate well during any online transactions. And since the future of money is digital, it makes more sense to teach them digitally so the skills they learn make for a solid foundation for their future financial decisions.
Good Good Piggy takes the oldest and most popular method of teaching financial literacy and banking basics to children i.e. using piggy bank; and reinvents it digitally. It is very easy for customers to adopt this as the product simply replaces an ‘offline behaviour’ of positive reinforcement of good behaviour and piggy bank savings into an ‘online behaviour’ as an easy to use tech product.

Q3. What is unique about your brand as compared to others in the market?
Answer: There are other companies in the market providing prepaid cards for teenagers to make digital spending easy. As India's first ed-fintech interplay, we encourage starting early (pre-teens) and focus on the edtech solution, a clear difference for parents. With a customer centric positioning, Good Good Piggy nails the brand relatability factor. The cartoonish presentation works well for children and parents too can park their trust with us as we are vocal about being research and impact oriented. Features like the video garage- aimed at encouraging directed learning and the digital lock-out feature are unique to us. Good Good Piggy provides a closed and safe environment for parents and kids to practise online learning and is extremely parent-friendly. We also create a wholesome environment with digital and physical events to encourage our Good Good Kids and provide them with dynamic learning activities. 

Q4. Can you tell me about 2-3 challenges you faced while building your company and how you overcame it?
Answer: Good Good Piggy was a pandemic-born idea and I really just fell into it. It was a tumultuous decision for me to start a company at a crucial time in my career. With the pandemic creating stress and anxiety for the whole world, choosing a job was the more responsible and safe choice. Choosing to go forth with the idea of a startup was a gutsy move but I’m glad I had the opportunity to take it forward. 

We were often told that it is a difficult concept for people to understand and while traditional parenting scoffs at using tools or help, we have successfully been able to address the underlying issue of change in the environment of parenting and therefore, getting customers to recognise the need for Good Good Piggy. By comparing us to the traditional Gullak, we have addressed the hesitancy among parents as they overcome their tech bias. There have also been many developmental challenges in creating a product for very young children while keeping their motor skills and understanding level. To balance this responsibility of influencing young children and creating a healthy business, we have taken several hard decisions and are very focused on the aid and approval of psychologists for every step of the way.

Q5. What is your long-term vision for the company?
Answer: Good Good Piggy aims to help the next generation up their educational ways and means to suit the changed environment and tailor education to fit the tech world around them. With social media and video games, attention spans have become smaller and instant gratification is a huge problem which can create many significant behavioural problems throughout their lives. With consumerism and debt increasing, it's important to study these trends and with a large section of India’s population being under the age of 10, we have a great opportunity here to make a difference. We would like to set these benchmarks for financial literacy in India and help raise a financially intelligent, responsible next generation. 

Q6. How do you plan to scale the company?
Answer: We are very grateful for the support we have received so far and are very glad the concept is resonating with parents from different walks of life. We would like to ensure we support all our Good Good Parents as there’s no “one size fits all” when it comes to parenting. We’re now focusing on small measures to teach financial literacy concepts through seminars and courses. We also host online and physical events to make sure we cater to our community and provide fun activities for kids to learn in a more hands-on way. We are slowly reaching institutions to spread awareness and are very glad for the support of educators along the way. 

Q7. What is your management style and how do you lead your team?
Answer: I like to encourage independence. Micromanaging can cause a lot of delays and become inefficient.  I believe people need space to be creative and come up with ideas. We definitely encourage learning all that you can- even for our senior members. I believe learning from each other is important for the success of any team. While everyone has their own roles, the team is always cross-functioning and it feels like we are all growing together. 

Q8. How do you prioritise tasks and make important decisions for the company?
Answer: Prioritising a task depends on how urgent it is and the impact it would have on the company but when you’re a founder, the job is never ending. Finance, legal, operations, marketing, hiring- they’re all equally crucial and time-sensitive. I’m a very process-driven individual and like to make sure we are thorough in everything so I prefer to create structures that will last us and provide efficient results without discounting any points. I have worked hard to create a good business environment so I take advice from experts and include my team in discussions. 

Q9. Tell us something about your company culture?
Answer: I believe in having an open culture in the office. I don't believe in hierarchy as it reduces the flow of ideas that could hinder the growth of the company. I want everyone to be able to discuss their ideas and issues with me with ease , without any obstruction. I find it motivates people as they also feel their professional selves growing in different areas and not being limited to an everyday routine job.

Q10. What kind of investors are you looking for, and what are their values and priorities?
Answer: I’m looking for strategic investors who could guide me in this initial phase of business. We want investors who understand this industry and have some synergy with our brand as well as understand the sensitive nature of a brand that caters to and influences kids.

Q11. If you weren't an entrepreneur, what would you be doing?
Answer: I think I would have a job in business consultancy. Entrepreneurship was a surprise to me so I can’t say for sure but I enjoyed the private equity sector. It gave me the opportunity to research about different sectors like telecommunications, insurance, hospitality, fintech, mining, disruptive FMCG, logistics etc and understand various business models. It’s hard to guess where I would be but I’m glad with the turn my life has taken with Good Good Piggy.