“In India, people making ₹10,000 an hour will spend an hour to save ₹500 on a flight,” says CRED’s Kunal Shah

CRED founder Kunal Shah said that Indians keep wasting money to save even a little bit of money. In an interview with Forbes India, Shah shared that while in the US, even teenagers know their hourly worth, Indians have no clue about the value of time.

Indians have ‘poor’ time math?

“In the US, even teenagers know their hourly worth—whether they’re mowing lawns or waiting tables,” he said. “But in India, people making ₹10,000 an hour will spend an hour trying to save ₹500 on a flight. That’s just poor time math.”

According to the angel investor, time value for money is an interesting concept that doesn’t exist for most Indians. 

“I just love connecting the dots,” he admitted. “All my businesses are just manifestations of thoughts and observations over time.”

From a BPO company to marketing solutions and eventually FreeCharge (which he sold for a cool $400 million), each venture brought him lessons.

Shah also shared an eye-opening lesson he learned while visiting China after his FreeCharge exit.

“In every product meeting, there were more women than men,” he remarked.

This intrigued him to look into India’s workforce stats, and what he found was worrying. Female participation in the labour force was painfully low.

“It’s simple: one-gender households can’t drive per capita income growth,” Shah said. And more than just economics, it affects social dynamics, too. Countries with low financial independence for women often have lower divorce rates, not always a sign of happy marriages, the entrepreneur shared.

Who is Kunal Shah?

Born and raised in Mumbai, Maharashtra, Kunal Shah is an entrepreneur and angel investor. He is the co-founder of Freecharge and the founder of CRED, a fintech company valued at around $6.4 billion.

In 2010, he co-founded FreeCharge, a digital payments company, with Sandeep Tandon. The firm gained huge popularity, attracting millions of users. In 2015, Snapdeal acquired FreeCharge for $400 million. 

In April 2018, the entrepreneur started the credit card bill payment platform, CRED, with his own capital at the age of 35. 

CRED raised substantial funding from investors, including DST Global, Sequoia Capital, and Tiger Global. ^{In June 2023, Kunal Shah’s company raised $140 million at a valuation of $6.4 billion. The fintech startup became the official sponsor of the Indian Premier League from 2020 to 2023.}

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