Show notes
1 · SummaryPart 2 of 2. Part 1 laid out the bet: a fund built only for Indian consumer brands, back when the idea sounded absurd, and the anti-power-law machine Kanwal Singh built to make it work. This half is the person. The near-decade at Hindustan Lever that gave him his love of consumer, the Intel years, and the Paper Boat conviction that taught him to back the founder over the idea. Then the man himself: parents who came to India as refugees from Pakistan, a father who kept collecting degrees while feeding the family, the coach he started seeing in his sixties and what separates coaching from therapy, and how he reads a founder by meeting their family. He turned down twice the money he could have raised. He rates his life a 10.2 · Chapters
52:47 Cotswolds, golf, and the empty nest refilled3 · Pull-quotes[17:56] "I could have raised 2x of this. Genuinely, we could have raised 2x of this."[23:55] "You cannot build to sell. You build for sustenance, you build for good."[27:04] "Both my parents were refugees from Pakistan."[51:34] "A 10." (asked how happy he is with his life)4 · Frameworks & mental modelsFounder assessment through the family: read a founder by their story and support system, often over a meal with their spouse, on the belief that no one survives a decade-long build without one.Build for sustenance, not to sell: the best businesses are bought, not sold; you build for the long run and treat a sale as a business decision along the way.Value of good ("do good to do well"): founder first, planet first, one Fireside, with goodness as the foundation of doing well.Coaching vs therapy: therapy addresses a medical issue; coaching is vulnerability and honesty in a business context, and only works once you have the self-awareness to accept there's a problem.This episode was produced by Rohin Dharmakumar and mixed and mastered by Rajiv CN.Write to us at [email protected] with your feedback, suggestions, and guests you would want to see on First Principles.If you enjoyed this episode, please help us spread the word by sharing and gifting it to your friends and family.
