Sharan Hegde lays off 15% of employees, cites ‘mistakes’ during rapid growth

Content creator Sharan Hegde announced that he has laid off 15 per cent of his workforce. The decision comes as part of his first cost-cutting exercise since he set up his company a little over two years ago, he said, adding that the company is now focussing on implementing AI-driven cost savings.
Hegde, a hugely influential financial content creator with over 2.7 million followers on Instagram, is the founder and CEO of 1% Club which claims to help people achieve financial independence. He founded the company in 2022.
“I just laid off 15% of my workforce and I received a lot of messages from my friends and media if I’m going bankrupt. As a finance influencer who built his career around financial education, the irony isn’t lost on me,” Hegde said in a lengthy post on LinkedIn.
Hegde’s note on the layoffs comes after an anonymous post on Reddit by a person claiming to be an employee who was laid off from the Mumbai-based influencer’s 1% Club. The Reddit user claimed that around 40 employees have been laid off.
“They’ve terminated various VPs and AVPs, half of the video editors, all content creators and almost all the graphic designers,” the user said. HT.com cannot independently verify the authenticity of the Reddit post.
Sharan Hegde also clarified that the company’s expansion, including its 5,000 sq ft Mumbai office, was fully funded by profits. He said ₹10 crore in investor money remains in a fixed deposit (FD) account, generating an 8.5 per cent interest yield.
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“I started this company from my bedroom with just 5 interns 2 years back and fast forward today we have almost 200 employee,” he said.
“Needless to say, when you grow at such lightening speed you are bound to make some mistakes with hiring and redundant expenses. Raghav Gupta (co-founder) and I have been running this company bootstrapped without ever using investor capital because we are super strict with our financial planning and diligence.”
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Hegde, who did his engineering in Bengaluru, is originally from Mangaluru. He worked at KPMG and PwC in the city before taking up content creation and moving to Mumbai.