01 · Context
Picking the Product
I mapped Zerodha’s product line and focused on Kite and Coin, which serve two very different users: active traders and long-term investors.
- Kite Focus Active trading & delivery stock buying
- Coin Focus Mutual fund investing
- Console Portfolio, reporting & analytics
- Kite Connect APIs & developer ecosystem
- Varsity Investor education
- Zerodha Capital Lending & credit
- Zerodha Fund House Asset management
Kite users
- Active traders
- Intraday and F&O traders
- Investors who trade occasionally
Coin users
- Long-term mutual-fund investors
- SIP investors
- Investors building wealth over many years
Understanding the revenue model
Who pays?
Zerodha’s customers — primarily active traders, investors using demat services, MTF users, API users, and customers using paid or value-added services.
What’s paid?
Brokerage, DP charges, MTF interest, AMC, API subscriptions, and fees for certain value-added services.
For what?
Executing trades, maintaining demat accounts, borrowing funds through MTF, accessing paid APIs and data, and using premium services.
How?
Per-order transaction charges, recurring account and service fees, interest on funded MTF amounts, and subscription fees.
How much? Retail pricing at the time of the analysis
- ₹0 Equity delivery
- ₹20 or 0.03% per order — intraday & futures
- ₹20 per executed order — options
- 0.04% per day on MTF-funded amount
- ₹500 per month per Kite Connect API key
02 · Empathize
User Personas
Manish · Product Manager
- Fear / frustration
- Has invested in mutual funds since his first job eight years ago. With a stagnant market and negative returns, he is unsure about continuing — and is considering swing trading.
- Behaviour
- Checks his portfolio size and volatility every week.
- Goal
- ₹2 crore for an apartment, his child’s education, and a car.
Rohan · Trader
- Fear / frustration
- Constant regulatory change — he recently lost ₹2 lakh after a new SEBI market-closing-price rule.
- Behaviour
- A seasoned trader of 10 years who studies the market on weekends and in his spare time.
- Goal
- Turn his proprietorship trading firm into a private limited company with a friend, offering broking, asset management, research and stock recommendations.
03 · Define
Five Core Problems
Portfolio understanding
Investors can see holdings and returns but struggle with the bigger picture: diversification, concentration, sector exposure and overlapping mutual-fund holdings.
Manish Holds three flexi-cap funds, each with 7%+ allocated to HDFC Bank.
Trading behaviour
Active traders may not recognise when their trading becomes excessive or unusually risky, especially after losses — a real concern given the risks of retail F&O trading.
Manish Is considering swing trading after weak mutual-fund returns.
Investment research
Turning filings, results, annual reports and announcements into useful insight takes time and expertise.
Rohan His career is built on trading, not fundamental research.
Customer support
Customers frequently need help with account, order, margin, charge and transaction issues, creating support workload and delays.
Rohan Paid ₹5 lakh after an income-tax notice for an incorrectly filed ITR, following informal advice from a relative.
Long-term investment planning
Coin investors can run SIPs across multiple funds but lack personalised visibility into whether their behaviour matches their goals.
Rohan Sees trading as his income source and has no long-term investments.
04 · Ideate
Solutions and RICE Prioritization
I generated 13 AI feature ideas and scored each with RICE — Reach (lakh users) × Impact × Confidence ÷ Effort. The top five moved forward to specification.
| # | Solution | Reach | Impact | Conf. | Effort | RICE score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Portfolio Health & Risk Analyzer Top 5 | 20L | 3 | 90% | 8 | 6.75 |
| 2 | Fundamental Research Copilot Top 5 | 15L | 3 | 85% | 8 | 4.78 |
| 3 | Financial Concept Explainer Top 5 | 20L | 1 | 95% | 4 | 4.75 |
| 4 | Portfolio Overlap Detector Top 5 | 12L | 3 | 90% | 7 | 4.63 |
| 5 | Earnings & Filing Summarizer Top 5 | 12L | 2 | 90% | 5 | 4.32 |
| 6 | Financial & Tax Education Assistant | 25L | 2 | 90% | 12 | 3.75 |
| 7 | “Teach Me This Stock” | 10L | 2 | 90% | 5 | 3.60 |
| 8 | P&L / Tax Report Interpreter | 12L | 2 | 90% | 6 | 3.60 |
| 9 | Portfolio Explainability Copilot | 15L | 3 | 80% | 10 | 3.60 |
| 10 | Company Comparison | 8L | 2 | 85% | 5 | 2.72 |
| 11 | Trading Behaviour Coach | 8L | 3 | 80% | 8 | 2.40 |
| 12 | Wealth & Goal Coach | 10L | 3 | 70% | 10 | 2.10 |
| 13 | Trading vs Investing Coach | 8L | 2 | 75% | 6 | 2.00 |
05 · Specify
The Top 5 AI Features
Portfolio Health & Risk Analyzer
Investors can see their returns but may not understand how diversified or risky their overall portfolio is.
- Data needed
- Kite holdings, Coin MF holdings, transactions, portfolio history, stock/fund holdings, sector and market data
- What it improves
- Helps users understand the overall health and risk of their portfolio
- How Zerodha benefits
- Paid or freemium feature — one free check per quarter
- Metrics it will impact
- Portfolio review frequencyCustomer LTV
Fundamental Research Copilot
Rohan knows how to trade but struggles to analyse companies from a fundamental and financial perspective.
- Data needed
- Annual reports, financial statements, earnings calls, exchange filings, investor presentations, corporate announcements, financial ratios
- What it improves
- Makes fundamental research faster and easier; improves investment understanding
- How Zerodha benefits
- Paid insights tier based on research usage
- Metrics it will impact
- Research adoptionResearch timeSessions per user
Financial Concept Explainer
Users may know how to trade but struggle to understand complex financial and tax concepts.
- Data needed
- Zerodha help articles, Varsity content, official SEBI/NSE/BSE information, tax rules and regulatory documentation
- What it improves
- Improves financial literacy and reduces dependence on informal or inaccurate advice
- How Zerodha benefits
- Reduces support cost while improving customer trust, engagement and retention
- Metrics it will impact
- Support ticketsSupport cost per customerSelf-service resolution
Portfolio Overlap Detector
Manish owns three flexi-cap funds but doesn’t realise they overlap significantly, including 7%+ exposure to HDFC Bank in each.
- Data needed
- Mutual-fund portfolio holdings, Kite holdings, stock weights, sector classifications, historical holdings
- What it improves
- Surfaces hidden stock and fund overlap for a more accurate picture of diversification
- How Zerodha benefits
- Bundled with a premium plan
- Metrics it will impact
- Overlap detectionPortfolio review frequencyFeature usage
Earnings & Filing Summarizer
Investors struggle to understand what has changed in earnings reports and regulatory filings, and why it matters.
- Data needed
- Quarterly results, annual reports, exchange filings, earnings-call transcripts, investor presentations, corporate announcements
- What it improves
- Reduces information overload and the time needed to understand company updates
- How Zerodha benefits
- Freemium feature
- Metrics it will impact
- Time-to-insightFeature adoptionEngagementRetention
06 · Test
Validating Usefulness
Each feature gets a clear hypothesis, the metrics to watch, and a pass/fail bar set before testing begins.
Portfolio Health & Risk Analyzer
Users can understand the overall health, concentration and risk of their portfolio.
- ≥80% correctly identify their biggest portfolio risk
- ≥20% reduction in time-to-insight
- ≥4/5 usefulness score
Fundamental Research Copilot
Users understand a company’s fundamentals faster, without manually analysing multiple documents.
- ≥30% reduction in research time
- ≥90% factual accuracy
- ≥95% of material claims supported by source documents
Earnings & Filing Summarizer
Users can identify what matters most in lengthy earnings reports and filings.
- ≥90% accuracy in identifying material information
Portfolio Overlap Detector
Users realise that owning multiple funds does not necessarily mean they are diversified.
- ≥80% correctly identify significant overlap
- ≥80% correctly understand their effective exposure
- ≥4/5 trust score
Financial Concept Explainer
Users understand complex financial and tax concepts more easily than through traditional help content.
- ≥80% correctly explain the concept after using it
- ≥30% reduction in time-to-understanding
- ≥20% reduction in related support queries
My focus: product and revenue-model analysis, user personas, problem definition, AI opportunity ideation, RICE prioritization, AI feature specification, prototyping, and success-criteria design.
Want the full case study?
Download the PDF with the prototype screens, or read the deeper write-up covering AI architecture, product risks, and a rollout plan.