Lessons From Kunal Shah’s Interview With Ranveer Singh

Ranveer Singh is a famous YouTuber from India. He is famous for carrying out interviews with some of the well-known names within the Indian ecosystem. He has two channels “The Ranveer Show” & Beer Biceps. I personally like beer biceps more & his interview with Kunal Shah was the best. Kunal Shah is a giant in the Indian startup world. He founded freecharge that was later acquired by SnapDeal & currently building a credit card payment app via Cred. Kunal Shah is very outspoken & extremely well-read personal. His detailed outlook on various subjects is among a few characteristics that shall be taken note of. This interview of Kunal Shah with Ranveer is extremely detailed & effective. So If one wants to learn anything about a start-up or about the future should listen to this conversation once.


Here are the top points from this interview:

  • Become curious: Being curious can change your life. Try to be curious about certain things & then dive deep into them. Becoming curious can help one to develop interests, & it is hard to beat people who have developed an interest in any subject.


  • Business is a journey of constant iterations. A constant process of finding what people want & will they pay money for that. Most of the startups fail to deliver this fundamental point & iteration is one of the steps that will help you reach that pinnacle.


  • Application of ideas is lacking in India: India is a country of safe bets, people are not appreciated for taking a risk & this may be because of the hardships of the past. Ideas & going away from the traditional routes are highly criticized & which is why innovation is very slow here. .


  • India in 2060 will either be extremely bright or dark:


  • The world’s useless jobs are shifting to poor countries: Useless jobs of the world, are shifting to the poor countries. As rich countries value time more they are looking to utilize the extra time to develop & innovate.


  • Most of us are job seekers: Seeking a job is the first thing we are told & we are not innovating this place will burst with unemployment. As most of the jobs in the future will be mechanized & we don’t have infra to support such high unemployment rates.


  • No of financially independent women are decreasing rapidly: This is a scary part of growing India, as the lesser, the women working or financially dependent will create an unequal society.


  • India playing a game of capitalism but having the blood of socialism.


  • India is a status-driven society & not wealth driven society (crab story) & respect: The only thing India is great & feel great about is their ego, everyone has the ego of something, color, money, caste & they will force their way on the ones lower than that. India plays a status game & the status game is short term game & people should play a long term game to win & to be successful.


  • Nobody is interested in the future & everyone is celebrating the past: Although we have a rich past we are still stuck with it, we are building statues & temples rather than spending on free education, basic infrastructure, or future research. Any country that refuses to invest in the future usually gets doomed.


  • Nations super obsessed about their past are delusional about their future:


  • Covid is a catalyst to the future:


  • When countries become emotionally charged, one can never know what outcome it will create: India is an emotionally driven country & if a group of people decides to do something the outcome can get very bleak. With the rise of uneducated social media use & fake news, we are sitting on a ticking bomb.


  • Indian is conflicted between very few people who think we are in Singapore & the rest of the country feels like Africa: The difference between the rich & the poor is growing & specially during covid when the country was in the lockdown the gap is expected to widen.


  • One has to constantly up the game to stay in the game:


  • It is not cool to be entrepreneurs: India doesn’t celebrate failures, everyone wants to be stable & safe & people are not appreciated for trying new things. While trying any new thing, the chance of failure is high, yet it is necessary to try it, just to find some new avenues & the feel of achieving something remarkable.


  • We fundamentally have wrong role models: We society believes in a facade & the person who is top on the list are actors, cricketers, we celebrate them & hence to mock them is the easiest things. While entrepreneurs hunt in silence & in hardship while following it is not for the weak stomach. So, if we celebrate entrepreneurs, we can shift this momentum.


  • Whenever one finds the flaw in people & people blame it on the external factor, they are not reflecting on the problem:


  • Until we ask tough questions, we are not going to get better:


  • Our opinion is of a group & we don’t appreciate; if one is alone:


  • It is difficult to find individuality without being an explorer:


  • Some professions are fundamentally limited to only a few people:


  • Any country that has not experienced the Industrial Revolution doesn’t understand the value of time: Western countries realized the value of time early & they dedicated the time to build something great. Value of time is the main difference between poor or rich nations.


  • If 90% of your time is spent with a smarter mind, you will become smart:


  • Everyone has 24 hours & it depends, what you do with your 24 hours.


  • These are just small pieces of information to get you started. There are lots of gems to learn from this interview of Kunal Shah & probably a real eye-opener. There are limited opportunities to win in life & this interview will help you to align your efforts in that direction.