The startup ecosystem often employs colourful metaphors like unicorns, dragons and angels to describe and categorise various stages within businesses. Ankit Suri, co-founder of personal finance app Planto, is instead shaking labels off, and emphasising building a company that is transparent and providing tangible value to the customer.

As a champion of sustainable business growth, his focus on building steady revenue instead of looking for massive cash injections to inflate a business, has paid off. The Planto app, which provides customers with visual insights and suggestions to optimise personal finance management, now has over 500,000 users and Suri’s company can now lay claim to that other mythical title: Planto is a centaur, a company with US$100 million in annual recurring revenue.

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In our latest episode of Crazy Smart Asia, Suri discusses the power of continuously exploring ideas; the balancing act of relationships with investors; how best to sharpen a product to better serve its audience; and how the shock of Covid-19 on the world economic system made him rethink his entire outlook.

Here are a few excerpts from the conversation. Click the audio player below to listen to the full episode or subscribe via Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.