Simran Kaur was shocked when she first learned how much money her best friend of 20 years had saved up. She and Sonya Gupthan had grown up together in New Zealand and knew each other’s deepest secrets, but had never talked about their finances until they started a podcast together.
Their conversation was one of the reasons Kaur founded in March 2020 the financial literacy platform Girls That Invest, which aims to help women, especially those from diverse backgrounds, access tools and information to build their wealth. One of the main tenets of Girls That Invest is its weekly podcast, which is how Kaur and Gupthan came to discuss their own personal finance journeys. Over the last month, the podcast has ranked on Apple among the top 100 of investing podcasts in the US.
Kaur said the podcast played an integral role in helping the company build a powerful relationship with its audience, who are primarily women of color.
“It’s an intimate type of conversation, you’re in someone’s ear while they’re going about their day,” the New Zealand-based founder told Insider. “It’s also about the relatability of being two South Asian girls that builds trust because the personal finance space isn’t very diverse.”
Today, Girls That Invest isn’t just a podcast — it’s a million-dollar media company. The company sells financial literacy courses and books that aim to help women manage and grow their wealth. In the last three years, the company has made $1.4 million in revenue, according to documentation viewed by Insider.
“We’re successful because we went to where the audience already was — on TikTok, on Instagram — and inserted ourselves in,” she said.
Podcasting allowed for a more intimate conversation with listeners
Kaur was a content creator before she became a founder. In 2016, she started the Indian Feminist, an Instagram account dedicated to discussing and challenging the traditional expectations and roles of women in the Indian diaspora
“Back then, influencing wasn’t even a thing, so I didn’t consider myself a creator,” she said. “Today, I think that’s exactly what it was because I was creating spaces online for people to talk about issues that were important to me.”
Her success with Indian Feminist, which has 296,000 followers on Instagram, inspired Kaur to try her hand at a different medium when Girls That Invest was born. She and Gupthan thought about a YouTube channel but ultimately decided on a podcast.
“It came down to the lowest barrier to entry,” she said. “We could remain off-camera, wouldn’t have to buy a nice camera or equipment or anything, and there was free software to edit out any sneezes or coughs.”
She also thought podcasting would help build a better relationship with listeners because it’s more accessible — it’s hands-off and people can listen while doing other things like driving to work, folding laundry, or cooking.
“We wanted to become a part of someone’s daily routine until it becomes second nature to listen in,” she said.
Podcasting soon led to sales of online courses and books
Kaur was previously an optometrist, and every day after coming home from work she’d focus on building Girls That Invest.
“I always say that my 9-to-5 was my first investor,” she said. “Not just the money, but the time it gave me to focus because my job didn’t allow me to take work home.”
Once the podcast became popular, Kaur knew the next step would be to post about their platform on TikTok and Instagram, which today have 121,000 followers and 255,000 followers, respectively.
She shook off the nerves about going on camera and filmed Instagram reels and TikTok videos explaining concepts like blue-chip stocks and bull markets, hoping to draw more fans to the podcast. Soon, listeners started asking for more detailed information, so the platform launched paid online courses and published books. The company also hosts investing workshops with companies like Shopify, Lululemon, Salesforce, and L’Oreal.
Getting over that fear of putting herself out there on social media kickstarted the next stage of her business.
“It’s cringe to make a TikTok account and post daily, but just feel the cringe and do it anyway because it will pay off,” Kaur said. “If I was worried about what other people would say and let that stop me, I wouldn’t have a successful media company today.”
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