Hey everyone,
A couple of days ago I posted here asking about the broker discovery problem in India. The response was genuinely eye opening and I wanted to share what I’ve learned so far and keep the conversation going.
Quick background: I’m Sanketh, a 19 year old student and aspiring founder based near Bengaluru. I’m researching whether a marketplace connecting retail investors with SEBI registered independent brokers and RIAs is something worth building.
Here’s what I’ve done in the last 48 hours:
Reached out to 60+ SEBI registered brokers across India via WhatsApp and email. Got responses from several of them. Three separate firms told me they had already shut down or never started their broking operations at all — which itself is a significant finding about the health of the independent broking industry.
But the most valuable response came from an active independent broker who answered my 3 questions directly:
- How do you find new clients? — “Only referrals”
- How do you manage client communication? — “WhatsApp and calls”
- What’s the most frustrating part of running your practice? — “Compliance. Over regulations.”
When I followed up on the compliance point she said something really interesting — that compliance support would be of more value to full member brokers than to sub-brokers like herself. Which suggests the pain points are very different depending on where you sit in the broking hierarchy.
So here’s where my thinking has evolved:
The problem isn’t just one thing. It’s a combination of client discovery, relationship management, and regulatory burden — and different types of brokers feel these differently.
What I’m still trying to understand and would love input from this community on:
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For full NSE/BSE member brokers — is compliance really the biggest operational pain? What specifically takes the most time?
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For sub-brokers and authorised persons — if client discovery was solved and quality clients came to you directly, would that meaningfully change your business?
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Is the independent broking model genuinely under pressure from discount platforms or is there still a strong market for human advisers in India?
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Has anyone tried building something in this space before — a broker marketplace, a compliance tool, anything adjacent? What did you learn?
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From the investor side — have you ever struggled to find a trustworthy independent adviser? What stopped you?
Still very early stage, not building anything yet. Just trying to understand the real problem before jumping to solutions.
Any response — even a one liner — genuinely helps.
Thank you,
Sanketh