Palash Kala @kalapolish Twitter profile

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Palash Kala

2 months

A friend of mine works at one of the largest IT companies in India and she just completed a Gen AI course in an hour by clicking next button 100s of times and now she is part of a GenAI ready workforce! Proud of her :)

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

26 days

Why do people think its easy to create a copy and reach millions of DAU? Do you think creating a Grab or Gojek or Ola or Hike is easy? All of them were copies of their western counterpart but still tremendously hard to build. It is easy to criticize, hard to build. Period.

Mustafa Khundmiri

@mkhundmiri

26 days

'Koo', which was once termed as Twitter alternative is shutting down. My thoughts: The one and only reason we don't have a Twitter or Facebook from India is because we lack innovation. We're too busy copying what's working in the west and adapting it to the Indian market

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

3 months

Thanks @paraschopra for giving me an opportunity to work with you. I have learnt immensely from you. Here's a 🧵 of my learnings from the last one year of working at @nintee_official . A lot of them reinforced from @ycombinator startup school

Paras Chopra

@paraschopra

3 months

It's a wrap at @nintee_official

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

1/x Starting a habit coaching business might sound appealing, but here's why you should think twice. Having worked at @nintee_official with @paraschopra , we learned some hard lessons in this space.

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

Many people working in wellness tech have DMed the team to ask about the journey we had @nintee_official and how we decided about when and how to pivot. So, here's a long🧵on the journey from my point of view

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

Met a friend today: IITB CSE BTech, Stanford MS, Princeton PhD, MIT Postdoc. What should he write in his resume first?

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

You must have seen AI voice agents conversing naturally with humans. Want to create your personal AI voice agent? @rajatpiplewar & I made a personal journaling assistant than can call everyday & help you reflect! Let me show you how to make one in just 5 minutes! A 🧵

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

21 days

IITs don't just help you land your first job, but also these three important things: 1. Immense self belief 2. Amazing alumni network 3. And this one's the best: the skill of learning how to learn

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

1 month

1/ Not many people are open about why they decided to start up. Some are sure from the get-go, some hate their jobs, and some are on the fence, not sure if they should take the leap. I was one of those on the fence. Here’s how I built my conviction 🧵

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

3 months

I have been fortunate to have spent time at @CRED_club and @iitbombay to experience the concentration of ambition and talent. Seeing journeys of some of my colleagues & batchmates gives me confidence to aim for 10X things.

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

3 months

My mom doesn't prefer to come to Bengaluru because she can't speak English fluently. Also, she has no one in her network with whom she could practice it with. What if AI could become a judgement free language partner and coach? Tried building a simple prototype today.

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

3 months

4/n Don't overly focus on blanket metrics in early stages, qualitative insights are far more important. Identifying the persona who the product resonates with and then adjusting the messaging to attract only them is important

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

11/x Human accountability often leads to better results than AI. There is no such thing as AI accountability yet.

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

12/x Avoid making people work harder. Strava succeeded by simplifying an existing behavior—tracking workouts. It doesn't convert non-exercisers into exercisers but helps those who already do.

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

7/x For example, people may want to exercise, but there's no immediate consequence for not doing so. A bot's encouragement isn't enough to motivate action.

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

5/x Simple changes, like avoiding sugar after 10 p.m., are extremely hard. Users might follow through for a few days but then revert, feeling guilty and avoiding the app. This led to poor retention.

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

4/x Our initial promise of AI coaching for building habits at Nintee saw over 1000 sign-ups, but we couldn't achieve product-market fit. Digital products had limited impact on users' habits.

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

Same view for half the rent

Ashish Jha 🏡 🇮🇳

@the_dream_saver

2 months

The 80k rent in @peakbengaluru is so worth it at times 🌈

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

3 months

Had fun time making mistakes and learning with the team @abhinav @thebadberrry @aakashb_95 @yashgpt4 @bkguin @iponikar @Onkarhanchate1 @_aaryanshah_ @hemanth kumar

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

10/x There's a gap between what people say they want and what they actually do. For instance, they might claim they want to lose weight but continue ordering junk food.

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

TIL: Call centers in India serving the US or UK are not ready to use Gen AI to replace humans yet because if anything goes wrong, they will have to pay 100X for lawsuits of what they would have saved with AI

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

20 days

1/n How I was scammed out of Rs 25,000 in Dubai 🧵

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

6/x Products that require users to take difficult actions outside the app and then return will struggle with retention. Even fully digital apps solving real problems face retention issues, making this even tougher.

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

1 year

@paraschopra Great video. This chart summarizes it

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

My talent vs @Saurabh_Netra Masters in CS ❌ Working full time at a job ❌ Cricket ❌ Ukulele ❌ Singing (I thought I can, but no match) ❌

jonathan selvaraj

@jon_selvaraj

2 months

If Saurabh Netravalkar, who had figures of 2-18 and bowled USA to victory in the super over vs Pakistan, wasn't disgustingly talented enough -- ( He is an engineer at Oracle and an MS in CS from Cornell University.) he's also a damn fine ukelele player. (video from his insta)

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

1 month

1/2 In IITB hostel mess, I used to ask for more sweets by asking for it in Marathi ("Kaka, ajun ek dya na"). My friends would be jealous of me. So, one of my good friends who was from Hyderabad learnt this particular phrase from me and ...

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

What if a protein lassi brand Amol could have daily iterations of consumer research like this at scale with AI? Lesser effort for consumers to provide their inputs as compared to filling surveys. Any brand managers or marketers who would want to try this? Please tag them.

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

Weight loss & JEE coaching businesses have few similarities - Services are similar, branding/marketing makes a difference - Results are directly proportional to students' effort rather than teachers' effort - Very few % people succeed (toppers) - Toppers are marketed to sell hope

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

1 month

2/2 regurgitated it to one of the mess workers. The mess worker didn't understand a word and turned out that he was the only one from Tamilnadu. We had a good laugh after the incident and my friend never tried to ask for favours in Marathi from then.

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

3 months

The risk of plunging into entrepreneurship & failing for people with good jobs isn't that they won't be able to get one again, but that they wouldn't want it again.

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

3 months

If you are looking to startup, but not very confident, I would recommend to join an early stage startup. Why? As you work closely with the founders, you will get a feeling that if they can do it, you can do it too. (Came up while chatting with @royaljain4 )

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

2/x Habit coaching is a popular topic, thanks to books like Atomic Habits and Tiny Habits. People think they can transform lives with tech products, but it's a trap.

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

3 months

3/n If you are trying to introduce social elements from start, I would recommend to think again. For social elements to work, it needs users to put effort & reputation on the line to invite friends. Unless the tool really works for them, social won't save a sinking boat

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

10 days

Many people in Tier 2, when their kid goes to Kota say: "hamara beta IIT karne gaya hai". Same way pre idea folks like me say: "hum startup kar rahe hai"

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

3 months

11/n Pre PMF, always stay in validation mode and don't think too much about scalability, costs and how you achieve the output. Focus on what the outputs are and see if they work for your consumers

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

Consumer content is so weird, things you write in just 5 minutes can become crazy viral, while something you take days to write gets ignored. Same goes with consumer products. Quantity over quality.

Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

A friend of mine works at one of the largest IT companies in India and she just completed a Gen AI course in an hour by clicking next button 100s of times and now she is part of a GenAI ready workforce! Proud of her :)

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

3 months

Our attempts

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

The PM who plans to do extensive user research in the upcoming quarter and never ends up doing it

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

I will be okay with $10M seed for a simpler audio only version :)

Chief AI Officer

@chiefaioffice

2 months

Learn languages with an AI avatar Praktika raised a $35.5M Series A for its language learning app that uses AI avatars to simulate real-life conversational scenarios. Demo:

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

3/x This is a classic "tarpit idea" where it seems like a big opportunity, but the reality is harsh. Habit formation is a tough problem, and tech solutions face significant challenges.

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

A friend at FAANG was having outdoor 1:1s with his team. When a female reportee came by, he asked if she was okay with the wind. He never used to think of that before, but marriage taught him how wind messes with a woman's hair. Marriage has been an empathy bootcamp for him.

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

3 months

6/n Markets can expand with delta 4 products. Language learning market size jumped because of Duolingo and similar with Shopify expanding the market of online stores. Eliminate friction & cognitive load to create delta 4 products

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

1 month

1/ Starting a startup is hard enough, but finding a co-founder can be even harder. It’s almost a must-have, with few exceptions. Here’s my journey to finding a co-founder (with partial success), and some tips from my experience.

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

5 months

I am vacationing in Dubai currently, and this is what my Dad tells me instead of asking what places I am visiting. He is my inspiration for fitness who would not skip his exercise even in an overnight train journey.

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

8/x Vertical focus might have helped. Noom does well in weight loss, and Quitsure in quitting smoking. But retention remains a challenge in the entire category.

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

3 months

8/n When things don't work out, don't go into the temptation of doing minor optimisations. Either attempt large jumps or do hard pivots

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

14/x In conclusion, habit coaching is appealing due to the abundance of theory and potential impact. However, success lies in simplifying existing behaviors or enhancing system 1 processes.

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

15/x Social features in these products only work well with friends or known coaches, not random users. Focus first on building a successful individual tool, then consider social features.

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

3 months

10/n Creating prototypes to validate is easier than you think. We kept launching prototypes in PPTs and on instagram which were built in few hours. Here's one example:

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

Prefer to build consumer products as a PM, but B2B as an entrepreneur.

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

3 months

1/n There's a tendency to not look around and play with existing products. We consider our product to be very different from alternatives. However, just a google search for alternatives not just help kill a lot of ideas, but also spark new ones

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

29/n That’s the story of almost two years of Nintee's existence. The pivots, the experiments, and the learnings. If you’re in wellness tech or thinking about pivoting, I hope our journey offers some valuable insights

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

1 month

Looking at Sales as problem solving for the potential customer makes it less overwhelming and exciting

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

3 months

26/n Conclusion: Don't worry about making NEW mistakes. Don't try to be perfect. Just try to make them efficiently and keep learning. Bias for action is far more fruitful than analysis paralysis. Though, the action is not just shipping, but also includes invalidating ideas

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

The number of groups in common on WA is directly proportional to how close friends you are cc: @royaljain4

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

16/x Before diving into this space, carefully assess if it’s worth the effort. The odds of success are lower for VC-funded digital apps in this category compared to others.

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

1 month

A great podcast! One simple takeaway on agents vs copilots: Copilots: More human in the loop Agents: Less human in the loop Its not black or white, it's a continuum

Sonya Huang 🐥

@sonyatweetybird

1 month

Episode 1 of our @sequoia AI podcast, Training Data, airs today! 🎬 Featuring @hwchase17 of @LangChainAI w/ my co-host @gradypb in a must-listen episode on agents 🤖 Listen & subscribe (new episodes weekly): Harrison has been a visionary on turning LLMs

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

20 days

Learnt recently The primary instinct in early stages (-1 to 0) of starting up is to help your TG with current alternatives and not to build Only build when most alternatives suck in some or the other way This is not intuitive to engineers like me Relevant for B2B SaaS only

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

1 month

PS: This is Bangalore

Darshan Ponikar 🧑🏼‍💻

@iponikar

2 months

PS: this is not a Bangalore

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

3 months

15/n As first time entrepreneurs, if you can manage, don't hire or raise VC funds before you have clarity on persona, problem and solution and validation. Discovery is filled with uncertainty and you don't know the time it will take to reach a high conviction validated idea

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

1 month

TIL: Bumble founder was a founding team member at Tinder. That's where she had the insight of "Women talk first" approach. Clearly, having a domain expertise / experience helps find a unique insight.

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

1 month

1/ Having a ready product in the earliest stages of startup is more of a liability rather than an asset.

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

9 days

I was fortunate to have a conversation with a successful SaaS founder. Here’s a summary of our discussion on how to get to a startup idea. One key takeaway: It's all about finding the billion-dollar idea, then in an extreme scenario you can hire a CEO to execute it. 🧵

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

3 months

20/n Important learning from @paulg which should never be forgotten is that the problem should be important and urgent for somebody and if you can't find them, then it won't go anywhere.

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

3 months

Our parents learn from Whatsapp University, while we learn from Twitter University

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

TIL: One of the early ideas of Slice' founder was peer-to-peer gaming console, bicycle, and camera sharing. The initial startup idea is most likely not going to be what is going to work out.

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

16 days

Realizing that there are no low hanging fruits (ideas) even with Gen AI. So, how to decide which areas to pursue: think where you come from (strengths) & where you want to go (interests) irrespective of success or failure and put a filter of value. credits: @royaljain4

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

@paraschopra Could also be a phone call

Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

You must have seen AI voice agents conversing naturally with humans. Want to create your personal AI voice agent? @rajatpiplewar & I made a personal journaling assistant than can call everyday & help you reflect! Let me show you how to make one in just 5 minutes! A 🧵

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

15 days

Iss baar 400 paar!

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

1 year

1/n Inspired by @paraschopra @krunaljchauhan @cold_monk657 @yash__vijaykar and others' ability to deep work / being indistractible 👨‍💻, planning to build a habit of deep work from 6 AM to 10 AM every week day. DM/reply if anyone is interested in something similar. More in 🧵

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

9/x Subscription models work because they capitalize on the initial high desire at the time of download, similar to gym memberships bought around New Year's. Follow-through is often minimal.

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

Tested a conversation with an AI girlfriend product today, and now my wife is jealous of "her"! The future is here and it's wild.

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

1 month

16/ Then I spoke with my dad. He asked, “How much is the loss in the worst case?” I estimated a personal burn of 20-25 lakhs over the next two years. He said, “People waste money in gambling. You are doing good work, so you should attempt it. Don’t worry about anything else.”

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

3 months

2/n We tried creating static content using Gen AI for consumers, but being Gen AI first content is not a good strategy in this domain as there was and is enough incentive for humans to spend hundreds of hours to create one video and Gen AI content is no match for it

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

Today, AI is an intern (& no more), which will grow into a CXO in the next 5-10 years. But, importantly, today it can only enter as an intern.

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

3 months

24/n In B2B, spend significant amount of time in choosing the right market and avoid traps where customers don't already spend money on problems that you are trying to solve or worse, they don't have money

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

3 months

To all those who are struggling to find a tech co founder One advice: don't get a tech co founder to build your idea, but make them part of the discovery, so they have the same passion as you. The work has to be significantly better than a job for them to leave a high paying job.

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

3 months

This!!

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

21 days

1/4 During our second year at IIT Bombay, we had a game-changing course: Software Systems Lab in the CS department. We had only learned C++ in the first year

Palash Kala

@kalapolish

21 days

IITs don't just help you land your first job, but also these three important things: 1. Immense self belief 2. Amazing alumni network 3. And this one's the best: the skill of learning how to learn

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

Happens so many times: I assume someone is an extrovert based on their behaviour, but when I meet them they call themselves introvert. (I know boxing someone in these labels is not right and the division is not based on behaviour, but what gives them energy. But, still!)

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

3 months

If you are building a consumer learning product (could be anything: computer science, language learning or maths), think engagement first, effectiveness later. Will save you months of effort. Imagine you are building a game with the theme as learning.

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

3 months

9/n At @nintee_official , we also attempted game like apps. What we learnt from game experts is that the core game play (think just the levels of candy crush) contributes to 80% of retention metric. Remaining 20% optimisation comes from meta game (think stickers, leaderboard, etc)

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

1 month

22/ So, with the support of my mentors, friends, and family, I decided to take the leap. If you’re on the fence, remember that building conviction takes time, but it’s possible. Talk to people, gather feedback, and focus on what drives you. You might just find your answer.

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

UPSC prep is higher risk to your career than trying to startup

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

3 months

25/n Spend less time in the room, more time with the TG (including online). Focus on their problem's nuances more than the product's nuances in early stages.

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

3 months

12/n sums up the above point really well. First chase satisfaction with outputs, then generate demand and then worry about being efficient. So, don't spend on fancy websites or SEO strategies or scalability till you can satisfy a few consumers

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

1 month

9/ I spoke to @ChandraMaloo , @siddharth_bulia , @paraschopra , @HardikKatyarmal , @royaljain4 , Anupam, @shobjain , @vishnuvinjam , Aakash, @IshanTarunesh , @samayjain35 , @hangal , @surbhiskjain , @sgondala2 , Rakesh, @rharki , Pankaj Jain and many others. Thank you everyone.

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

1 month

23/ And remember, it’s okay if the answer is no. No decision is right or wrong. This phase of deciding is more about seeking the truth than anything else.

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

3 months

7/n Hit rate of consumer products is extremely low. The primary reasons are its a winner take all market and the supply of entrepreneurs is very high in consumer and hence the bar for products is also very high

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

3 months

14/n As first time entrepreneurs, when working on an idea, think of odds of success and then how passionate you are about it. For example, avoid building another social network. Startups are already very hard, don't make it harder unnecessarily.

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

I had never thought of cockroaches so much before I moved to Namma Bengaluru!

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

1 month

12/ @rharki said, “It’s just the loss of salary. That’s the worst case. Are you okay with it?” And I realized I was.

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

3 months

19/n In the last few months, @nintee_official we also realised that applied AI is best suited for B2B space where it can increase productivity of professionals. A framework which we resonated with: Persona Problem Promise Product. Fixate persona and iterate on others

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

3 months

13/n It's better to keep one goal at the top priority while starting up. If making money, impact and learning as goals have tradeoffs, (usually) making money should be the top priority, others are side effects or inputs to it.

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

Another way to put it: - Reading books on habit building theory is hard - Practicing building habits for yourself is harder - Helping clients / friends build or break habits is hardest - Helping millions of people build good habits is hardest++

Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

1/x Starting a habit coaching business might sound appealing, but here's why you should think twice. Having worked at @nintee_official with @paraschopra , we learned some hard lessons in this space.

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

As an early stage startup figuring what to build / sell, one should never try to convince someone to care about an outcome that they already don't care about

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

3 months

21/n Having access to the audience you are building for is very important. We need to understand the problems deeply and the solutions actually turn out to be very simple. The best way to understand problems is to simply be with the audience and observe them.

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

I scroll immediately

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

@arjun59 @JamesClear We had smarter nudges and reminders. In my experience, they are optimizers and not delta creating interventions.

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Palash Kala

@kalapolish

2 months

4/n As a part of the weight loss program, we had telegram bots for nudges, calorie tracker, 1:1 human coaching via weekly calls. The initial target market was founders in India who could pay and have the need to lose weight. The program was effective because of the 1:1 coaching

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