‘Stop preventing failure and go after an audacious goal’: Kunal Shah at Vista 2016
Founder and CEO of FreeCharge talks about how every hurdle that keeps humanity against the more futuristic step is actually an opportunity to attain greater success, while speaking on wealth creation and erosion in the start-up world, on the concluding day of Vista 2016
25 September, 2016, Bengaluru: Kunal Shah, Founder & CEO, FreeCharge, chose to speak on wealth creation and erosion in the start-up world on the concluding day of Vista 2016, here today. In this context, he said: “This is a unique time where a lot of old practices are changing. Everything is gaining in efficiency with time. Humans are not relying on evolution to become more efficient. They are hacking evolution by creating goods and services, tools, knowledge, understanding, language, etc. and becoming more and more efficient, therefore ruling this planet. The universal law is: all efficiency is in the future.”
Talking about wealth creation as well as erosion, he said: “There are millions of lanes seeking efficiency. Every hurdle that keeps humanity against the more futuristic step – is actually an opportunity for you to attain greater success, if you can move on to the next level.” He pointed out that through efficiency scoring, one can understand if that has been achieved. “Once you move onto the next level of efficiency, you don’t go back to the earlier level. That is what unlocks wealth. A lot of times when you create more efficiency which is also cheaper -- that is amazing wealth creation. Similarly, if users drop out, that results in erosion.”
Shah listed some factors responsible for increased efficiency not being good enough, such as affordability, readiness, learning efforts, configuration and collective participation. “However, when you cannot make people feel the efficiency impact by product or service alone, then marketing and branding come in. But remember brands create the perception of efficiency whereas products create efficiency. If efficiency is truly felt-people will stick to it,” he added. “I have seen great minds and smart people invest energy on inferior ideas; hence the objective of building this theory is to prevent such occurrences.”
He mentioned a few other vital elements for increased efficiency. “Discovering a more efficient product/service has to be backed by execution. It is also important to master the science of estimation of market size. You have to be more in love with success rather than the idea itself.”
The FreeCharge CEO also discussed the important issue of employee retention and talent wars in start-ups. “If an environment of trust is built by demonstrating trust, then people will continue to work in the organization. Employee retention is going to be a function of the organization/employee culture and that culture needs to undergo a massive change, and control and mistrust have to go.”
He had wise words for the youngsters in the room. “Stop preventing failure and go after an audacious goal. Many achievers fail miserably multiple times. If you want to be a success stop taking validation from others.”