Learn From Kunal Shah, Founder of Indian Startup FreeCharge

Aiming to be a forum for gathering startup founders who received investment from 500 startups, networking activities are regularly held named fireside dinner chat, with SEA 500 Startups Managing Partner and event moderator Khailee Ng.

"In addition to aiming as an event networking, routine activities fireside dinner chat This is also a good opportunity to learn from global startup founders who were presented and specially invited by 500 Startups," said Khailee.

In an event fireside dinner chat which was held by 500 Startups in Jakarta, Wednesday (7/9), especially the successful CEO of FreeCharge Kunal Shah selling his startup, Free Charge, to Snapdeal for $400 million in 2015.

To provide inspiration and share experiences to other Founders who attended the event fireside dinner chat In this case, Kunal explained the tips and tricks that founders should apply in order to run a healthy and healthy business sustainable.

Starting from an original idea and not 'market'

FreeCharge is a startup founded by Kunal Shah in 2010 based in India and offers online quota/toll purchases for prepaid and postpaid customers. The advantage of Free Charge is that it offers coupons or vouchers from favorite F&B merchants in India to users who buy credit through FreeCharge.

"At the beginning of the establishment of FreeCharge, we encountered many obstacles, starting from convincing partners to work together, operators to the target market to try FreeCharge services. We continue to run the business because we believe in the idea we have," said Kunal.

With a unique and original business model, Kunal is able to convince partners, operators, and users to take advantage of FreeCharge services. It is proven that the existence of FreeCharge increasingly exists as an online credit purchase service.

"The success of FreeCharge shows that a reasonable and original idea will certainly succeed and be accepted by the community, so before deciding to set up a startup, make sure the idea you have has the potential to grow," said Kunal.

In the course of its business, FreeCharge has received funding from a number of investors, including Tandon Group, Sequoia Capital, Sofina, Ru-Net, Tybourne Capital Management, and Valiant Capital Management. Kunal's success in raising funds is one of the best achievements ever made by a startup in India.

The interesting thing that Kunal said when launching promotional activities was that it was completely done organically, without using any digital ads like Facebook or Google Ads. Relying on word of mouth recommendations turned out to be more effective than using digital advertising.

"I believe in power buzzword and recommendations from fellow users, it is more effective and of course immediately get impact compared to just relying on digital advertising," said Kunal.

Another thing that Kunal also emphasized learning about the methods he has implemented on FreeCharge is the importance of getting feedback from users and try to do in-depth research. Starting from getting surveys to responses from the target market.

"In addition to not doing research and managing feedback from users well, one of the failures of startups is the habit of usingcloning pre-existing services. For that, always try to be original," said Kunal.

Find the right employee candidate

Kunal also shared the right way to do the startup pruning process. It will be a positive thing if the startup can get the right team members, according to the position needed and of course loyal. Avoid hiring team members who are not in line with the company's vision and mission and focus on the most suitable candidates.

"Place dedicated person to do employees and make sure you as the Founder have correctly implemented what the desired candidate looks like. If you want to be a successful technology company, you don't need too many employees," said Kunal.

Founder's full scalability and dedication

As a startup founder, you are responsible for always supervising, monitoring and observing all developments in startups, especially for new startups. The process at the beginning of a startup is the most crucial and always a priority for the Founder.

"I remember when I started FreeCharge, I used to spend a lot of time developing and monitoring all the processes. Never hesitate to spend more time on your startup in the early days," said Kunal.

Scalability is certainly a stage that startups will go through, when the time comes, there is no need to rush to expand, increase the number of employees, or launch massive promotional activities. Focus on the product and how you can develop innovation into existing products.

This also applies to funding. Ideally, when a startup gets funding in an advanced stage, be more careful low profile and set the funding amount in the most appropriate amount.

"I see most startups in Asia celebrating their newfound funding too much. Starting from building offices with super designs 'fancy' to increase the number of employees who are not really needed. There is no need to do this," said Kunal.

Ideally, use all the fresh funds that have just been obtained for more important purposes. Thus your startup can stay survive although currently still sufficient in terms of funding.

"For startups you can still survive make sure you as a founder are smart in managing money and most importantly never run out of money. Successful founders are those who have the ability to survive," said Kunal.

If in the end the startup is unable to survive and run its business for any reason, immediately make a decision to close the startup so it doesn't end up worse. Never doubt or feel ashamed of the failure and do not cover up the failure from related parties such as investors, stakeholders, to team members.

"In Asia there is a stigma of fear of failure, don't think about being afraid of failure, immediately close if your startup is not successful, don't be ashamed when your business fails," concluded Kunal.