How did I become a fee-only advisor?

Earlier I worked with Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) in various roles for over 16 years. While working with my previous employer, I was sponsored to do PGDBM at MDI, Gurgaon in the year 2010. The value investing course at MDI changed my perspectives on money and more particularly on stock investing and the thought of career change first struck me while doing this course at MDI. After the course at MDI, I started investing my money by following value investing principles in the year 2012. 

At the start of this exercise, I told my wife "I will try my hand at investing for the next five to six years. If I get reasonable success in investing, I may consider move to the finance field." She was not serious about the career switch plan then. In the meantime, I had a fair bit of success in my investing and there were many mistakes along the way which helped me to learn and refine the investment process.

Why did I start taking my career switch seriously now? By following a systematic process of saving and investing, my portfolio grew over time. I reached a stage where we could manage our family finances for a few years without my salary job. Next, I could see my skills, interests, and values match more with the fee based financial planning advisory than with the PSU job. Moreover, the PSU job was not exciting anymore and I wanted to do something on my own. I believed that owning a business would give me more flexibility to manage my time between my family and profession.

I came to know about the fee-only advisory model and its planners through the freefincal website.  I was impressed by this model that puts clients’ interests first. I believe the fee-only advisory is best suited to my personality as this model provides client-centric and conflict-free advice. 

I started reading more about personal finance and started my preparation to get the SEBI RIA license in the year 2017. I cleared the NISM exams and got the CFP certification in the year 2019. I could somehow convince my family to quit my job and become a SEBI registered adviser.

After meeting the necessary qualifications and certifications, I applied for a SEBI license in Feb 2019. In the mean time I quit my PSU job as SEBI insisted that I should not hold any other job for granting me the RIA license. There were some tense moments after quitting my salary job when I had neither  a job nor the RIA license for a while.  Eventually, I got my license in June 2019, founded FinIntellect, and became a fee-only planner.