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The FreeCharge Founder and CEO revealed the secrets behind his success –and why one of them involves standing in public places all day and talking to 500 people

On Wednesday night, up to 70 startup founders gathered at a small café in South Jakarta to listen to a fireside chat between 500 Startups Managing Partner Khailee Ng and Kunal Shah.

Shah has always been known as the founder of FreeCharge, the online recharging platform which was later sold to Snapdeal for US$400 million. The M&A deal is believed to be the largest in the history of Indian tech scene.

That night, he stood with a whiteboard in front of the audience explaining about a model to evaluate a startup idea –whether it is worth doing or not.

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“Let’s assume that all inefficient stuff exists in the past, while all efficient stuff exists in the future … Today is the most efficient state we can ever be so far,” he said, drawing a table of two columns marked A and B. Column A being the past, while Column B being the future.

“When we move from A to B, everything that is blocking, that is becoming a hurdle for us [to make progress], that is a pot of gold. Anybody who can move that hurdle can claim the pot of gold and become rich,” he further explained.

Shah then went on to ask audiences to give a score on how taxi services were like before and after the existence of ride-hailing apps. Many audiences came up with score ranging from 2 to 5 for the old way (the numbers were then added to Column A), and around 7 to 8 for the new way (the numbers were added to Column B).

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The higher the difference between Column A and Column B, the less likely people are going back to the old ways after they have experienced the new ways.

And this is the level of innovation that startups should aim to achieve.

Customer (feedback) is king

It is no wonder that Shah has a rather deep understanding on the theoretical side of innovation as his educational background was in philosophy.

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“I was supposed to be doing engineering but I have no motivation to do that. I dropped out and pursue my degree in Philosophy. At that time, I did not know how it is going to create an impact; I just picked it because I heard Philosophy students talked in the cafeteria about what they learned that day, and I was like, ‘this sh*t is really good’,” he explained.

“I wasn’t really thinking about things like employability,” Shah added.

Starting out his career as a junior programmer at a business process outsourcing startup, Shah experienced a moment in his life when he had to decide between buying a new house –or starting his own company.

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“I pretty much started working when I was fourteen, doing almost anything from selling mixtapes, pirated stuff, to teaching people how to use the internet,” he said about his entrepreneurial journey.

He started FreeCharge in 2010 with Sandeep Tandon, as a separate entity from his first company Paisaback.

Upon its exit, FreeCharge claimed to have up to 600,000 transactions per day, a number they managed to reach within 4.5 years with only seven people in the team.

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One of the key secrets behind its success is Shah’s insistence to use traditional method of consumer research.

“One thing that I see among tech startup founders is that they do research on a chair,” he said, tapping on the one he sat on.

“It doesn’t work. When you talk to 500 people you get more than what you asked for, and that is real insights … Even after the acquisition, I’m still talking to my customers every day,” he added.

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Shah is also not crazy about using social media buzzers or digital ads to promote a product or service, believing more in the power of word-of-mouths.

“Google and Facebook are designed to make you lazy on customer acquisition. The true customer acquisition happens when you do the rough ways; when every customer falls in love with what you’re doing, and tell other people about it,” he said.

“You should figure out the ‘brag-worthy’ aspect of your product. If you don’t, you’re going to keep on burning the fuel of marketing dollars,” he affirmed.

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Startups, give up the yoga rooms, please

During the event, Shah also shared his views on many different aspects of running a company, including efficiency.

“We are a half-a-million-dollar company and we have a shitty office. I see Series A companies having a yoga room in their office, and I was like, what are you doing? Are you trying to impress your girlfriend?” Shah asked.

Last but not least, Shah has a warning for all startup founders:

“Falling in love with an idea is a dangerous thing. I believe that the only thing one needs to be in love with is to be successful and creating an impact … because there’s a very high chance that [your idea] is bullsh*t.”

The post Why Kunal Shah believes startup founders should not fall in love with their own ideas appeared first on e27.

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