Thou shalt have no shame
The golden rule of
entrepreneurship, according to Freecharge founder Kunal Shah
Usually, an entrepreneur's
vocabulary features words like passion, drive, and determination. But there are
few who would name shamelessness as a virtue. The Freecharge founder Kunal Shah
is one of them.Shah, speaking at an entrepreneurship event in the city some
time ago, felt that shame was counterproductive. “Shame works against you a lot
of times to do things -when you start, when you are scaling, failing, exiting a
business, growing or shutting down a business. Shame is constantly stopping
you,“ was the conclusion Shah had drawn from his stint as an entrepreneur.
Shah's company was acquired
by Snapdeal last year for $400 $450 million.
On success and not fitting
in
People who were shameless,
Shah said, were more open to taking risks and did well in life. “So, I would
urge a lot of people to do many things, which they would otherwise not do as
they fear being tagged as shameless,“ he said. “Some people do it really well.“
According to Shah, shame is
used as a behaviour changing tool by parents when raising children in India.
But shame is not natural, he felt. “It's a trained behaviour because we want to
fit in. But fitting in is a very dangerous thing because success is all about
not fitting in,“ Shah said.
Shamelessness also enables
you to ask for help. Shah said he asks for help even now. “I come from a
background with no ecommerce or technology experience. I am a philosophy
graduate; dropped out from MBA. I had to ask. And I was shameless about it. I
am pretty shameless. I still ask,“ he said.
On trust and its deficit in
India
Having trust is another
thing that he learnt. “India is a country with a massive trust deficit,“ Shah
said. “We don't trust each other. We need to stop that. In fact, trust works if
you give it to others.“
And how did Shah generate
trust? “In IT, it's very common for people to accept an offer and then not
join. So with every offer letter we sent a MacBook along,“ he said. “Most
people don't know how to deal with that because nobody had trusted them like
this before. My HR head reacted like crazy when I told him about it. He said,
`What if they don't return the MacBook?'. I said, `That's a good price to pay
to not hire a guy who would otherwise have been a cheat'.“
On the importance of dard
Shah feels humans act only
when there's a trigger and that's where pain helps. “You need to know how to
use pain as your fuel to be successful,“ he says. “We usually shy away from
pain, which is good; that's how human survival happens. But in case of
business, you have to really convert that pain. I remember a movie where
someone told a singer, the singing wasn't good because it lacked `dard'. It's
true for business too. Get the dard.Fail miserably. And then you will see how
you succeed.“ However, he cautioned not to wallow in self-pity. “Everything will
work as a fuel if you reflect on it and not cry about it,“ Shah said.
rashmi menon
|
ET23MAR16
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