Kunal Shah on winning in India, second-order thinking, the philosophy of startups, and more

**Lenny Rachitsky** (0:00)
Microsoft, Adobe, Alphabet, IBM, Palo Alto Networks, even Starbucks. The CEOs of these companies were all born in India and emigrated to the US.

**Kunal Shah** (0:08)
A lot of CEOs have done well because they follow the dharma of the founders quite well. These are the principles were given to me, and I'm going to sustain this and make it even bigger.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (0:16)
I want to keep talking about India and how it's different and how to build products that are successful in India.

**Kunal Shah** (0:21)
No Indian has ever been paid an hourly salary in their entire life. The concept of time is not the same.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (0:27)
What do you see as the biggest opportunity for Indian startups?

**Kunal Shah** (0:30)
India is changing because now, for the first time, we're seeing founders being respected and unicorns being celebrated. We have a national startup day, and probably the first generation that will have to prove ourselves to be very large, profitable companies. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else in building.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (0:48)
Today, my guest is Kunal Shah. Kunal is one of the most well-known and respected entrepreneurs and product leaders in India. and around the world. He shares endless wisdom on Twitter and LinkedIn, where he's got over 1 million followers. He's the CEO and founder of CRED, a fintech startup based in India, which was last valued at over $6 billion and has of a couple years ago processed over 20% of all credit card bill payments in India. Prior to CRED, he founded three other startups, including Freecharge, which he sold for over $400 million to Snapdeal. Kunal is a deep thinker, both about product and about life. His background is actually in philosophy, which comes across very clearly when you hear him share his advice. In our conversation, we get deep into what makes working and building in India different from the US markets and other markets, including why trust is so essential and why so many people are so much more risk averse in India. We talk about the biggest challenges and opportunities within the India market, why there are so many successful Indian immigrants in CEO roles across tech, and what we can learn from that. Also, why companies in India can quickly grow Dows, but not ARPUs, and what that means for building products in India. We also talk about how to stay curious and open-minded in the power of second-order thinking, also stories of failure and lots of contrarian takes, and so much more. If you enjoy this podcast, don't forget to subscribe and follow this podcast in your favorite podcasting app or YouTube. It's the best way to avoid missing future episodes and it helps the podcast tremendously. A big thank you to Cyanmaiti for making the connection to Kunal. With that, I bring you Kunal Shah, after a short word from our sponsors.
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Kunal, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the podcast.