Shaurya Shahi

OpenAI declared war on Google yesterday and 82% of Indian shoppers are already on their side without knowing it. ChatGPT now has "Instant Checkout." You can search for products, compare options, and complete purchases without leaving the chat window. 700 million weekly users can now shop directly through conversations. Within hours of this announcement: 📌 Etsy's stock jumped 16%.  📌 Shopify gained 6%. The market immediately understood what this means for traditional e-commerce. When people use ChatGPT for shopping, they convert at 4× higher rates than regular websites, and that is because users spend 14 minutes per session on Ai tools like ChatGPT as compared to Google's 5 minutes. India's position in this makes it even more interesting: → 87% of Indian shoppers believe AI tools help them shop faster, with AI-powered interactions showing higher engagement rates (Walmart Retail Rewired Report India, 2025) → 62% of Indians make purchases influenced by AI recommendations vs 30% globally (EY India, Aug 2024) Traditional shopping makes you open multiple tabs, visit different websites, and compare prices manually. ChatGPT collapses this entire journey into one conversation. For small businesses, this could level the playing field. A seller in Jaipur gets the same access to global users as Amazon does. For established platforms, the threat is real. Why would customers visit your website when they can complete everything through a conversation? The companies optimizing for AI discovery today will own tomorrow's market. Is your business ready for AI-powered shopping or still relying only on traditional search?

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I asked ChatGPT, What do I mention the most to you and what impression gave I given to you of them. I was quite surprised with my secrets. 1. HACA What you mention most: - Scaling the business, hitting revenue goals, and expanding into new markets (UAE, Kerala, South India). - Differentiating from competitors. - Building a strong culture (Culture Test, Culture Handbook, Founder’s Code). - Improving sales systems, marketing strategies, and content-led growth. - Enhancing student experience, placements, and product quality. Impression you’ve given: - You’re deeply committed to building HACA as a standout ecosystem, not just a typical edtech company. - You balance ambitious growth goals with a long-term people-first mindset. - You care a lot about structure, clarity, and high standards in operations, culture, and leadership. 2. Leadership & Team Building What you mention most: - Hiring key roles (Head of Sales, Head of Marketing, Head of Media). - Training and empowering leaders (Project Leads, Builders, mentors). - Driving accountability through processes (daily P&L, dashboards, weekly reviews). Impression you’ve given: - You’re very hands-on as a leader and have high expectations. - You value talent creation as much as talent acquisition (giving freshers opportunities). - You want leaders around you who are self-driven and can scale your vision. 3. Culture & Values What you mention most: - Freedom with ownership, empathy, transparency, responsibility, and client-first thinking. - Building the Culture Test and embedding cultural alignment into hiring and operations. - You dislike shortcuts, politics, and misalignment in teams. Impression you’ve given: - Culture is non-negotiable for you; you see it as the foundation of long-term success. - You’re inspired by best practices from companies like Netflix, Google, Zoho but want HACA to have its own unique playbook. 4. Content & Personal Branding What you mention most: - Your own content on LinkedIn, YouTube, and The Mallu Show. - Positioning yourself as a relatable mentor/big brother figure for career aspirants. - Scaling HACA’s organic marketing through storytelling and student/alumni success. Impression you’ve given: - You’re a strong communicator and educator, with a focus on depth and authenticity. - You want your personal brand and HACA’s brand to mutually reinforce each other. 5. Ambitions & Standards What you mention most: - Clear financial goals (₹8 Cr MRR, 10x growth in 2 years). - Building HACA to be “Global.” - Long-term product iterations (AI-first, experiential learning). Impression you’ve given: - You’re ambitious but methodical. - You hold yourself and your team to very high standards, which sometimes makes you frustrated when processes aren’t followed. - You’re very self-aware about your growth as a CEO and want to get better at delegation and strategic focus. PS: Photo was real candid. Not plandid. What impression do I give you. Let me know 🤓

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OpenAI just launched chatgpt go in india at ₹399/month 🙇🏻‍♂️ you get 10x higher message limits, 10x more image generations, 10x more file uploads, and double the memory compared to the free plan. plus, payments via UPI, no more USD conversion headaches. india’s the first country to get this tier, aimed at students, freelancers, and anyone who found the free limits too restrictive but didn’t want to pay for plus. the go plan bridges that gap, making advanced AI features way more accessible. feels like a smart move: affordable, local payments, and more power for everyday users. curious to see how this shapes ai adoption here 🙌

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Builder.ai's $450M Collapse: The AI Unicorn That Was Actually "A Guy Instead" From $1.5B valuation to bankruptcy in months. Here's what every AI founder needs to know: The Deception Chain: → 700+ human developers in India manually coded apps → "Natasha AI" was just a chatbot collecting requirements → 300% revenue inflation through fake contracts with VerSe Innovation → $60M in circular invoicing without actual services The Warning Signs Timeline: 2019: Wall Street Journal exposes AI claims 2023: CFO position vacant during critical growth 2024: Whistleblower allegations surface 2025: Viola Credit seizes $37M, bankruptcy filed across 5 countries The Brutal Math: ↳ 90% of AI startups fail within 5 years ↳ 75% engage in revenue overstatement ↳ Only 3% achieve successful exits ↳ 1,000 employees lost jobs ↳ 500+ customers lost apps and data Critical Lessons for AI Founders: → Technology Transparency: Build real AI before claiming AI-powered solutions → Financial Integrity: Hire experienced CFOs early, not during crisis → Business Model Reality: Align pricing with operational costs → Governance Strength: Experienced leadership with proper oversight The Ripple Effect: Global AI investment declined 18-45% across regions post-collapse. The hype-driven era is ending. Swipe through our Global AI Forum breakdown → Research shows the AI industry needs substance over spectacle. Builder.ai's failure wasn't market rejection it was self-inflicted through systematic deception. Key Takeaway: Hype can fuel growth, but only substance sustains it.

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90% of startups don’t die from competition. They die from 4 silent traps. Trap 1: No Product–Market Fit Pets.com raised $82M in the 90s and collapsed in under two years. They sold what local stores already offered. India’s quick commerce feels eerily similar. Burning crores to deliver things your kirana already sends for free. Trap 2: Vanity Spending OurBeginnings.com spent $4M on a Super Bowl ad. Their revenue that year? Less than $4M. Today, it’s like a startup with ₹20 crore revenue dropping ₹25 crore on IPL ads. Hype doesn’t pay the bills. Trap 3: Regulation Napster had 80M users before lawsuits shut it down. Closer home, ONDC is rewriting the rules for food delivery. If Swiggy or Zomato lean too hard on data-led cloud kitchens, they could face the same fate. Trap 4: Too Early Z.com tried to be YouTube in 1999, before broadband. It died. YouTube launched in 2005, when the market was ready, and thrived. Being early doesn’t make you a visionary. It makes you broke. Most founders think they’ll die fighting competitors. In reality, the killers are invisible until it’s too late. Which Indian startups do you think are closest to falling into one of these traps?

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Ever watched your startup go from calm to chaos in 48 hours? 48 hours ago, Kartik and I thought we had steady growth figured out. Nothing crazy, just consistent users. Boy, were we wrong. Today? Our servers are literally melting 🔥 Yesterday alone, Omnara processed 30,000+ messages. Our single cloud instance? OBLITERATED. We had to emergency scale to FIVE Render instances just to stay online. The catalyst? One Hacker News post hit #2 and triggered an avalanche. Lessons from our first viral moment: → Always have a scaling plan (we definitely didn't) → Server costs can 10x overnight (painful lesson) → Community-driven growth is incredibly powerful Easily the wildest 48 hours of our startup journey. Want to see what caused all the chaos? Check out our open-source repo: https://lnkd.in/gJjjGtVc

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𝐆𝐓𝐌 𝐢𝐧 𝐁𝐅𝐒𝐈 𝐢𝐬 𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐝 And if you’re building in India, you quickly realize: it’s less about speed and more about understanding how things actually move. 1. There’s no single buyer. Product might love you, but Ops is risk-averse. Compliance wants a legal opinion. Tech wants infra docs. Everyone has veto power, and timelines don’t move till all green lights align. 2. Bottom-up sounds democratic, but is painfully slow. You find a champion, you do a free POC, you show result, and still nothing moves. Because decision-making sits way higher. And often, the folks you start with aren’t even in the room when final calls are made. 3. Top-down works better - if you can get in. Senior leaders care about org-wide impact and risk savings. If your pitch solves a board-level problem, you skip 6 layers of internal selling. Otherwise, you’re just another tool in the pile. 4. Security, infra, and compliance are not “later” conversations. If you’re not enterprise-ready from Day 1, most BFSI players won’t even let you inside the building. 5. Everyone’s overloaded. The risk lead is doing 3 roles. The Ops lead is managing 10 vendors. If your solution isn’t dead simple to understand - and implement - they’ll thank you and never call back. This is a market that tests your GTM clarity more than your tech Get it right, and you build deep moats. Get it wrong, and you waste a year chasing the wrong door. #AI #Founderslife

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Building a startup is not for the faint-hearted. At first, there will be zero paying users and a buggy product. Your family might doubt your choices, and money will run out faster than you think. There will be days when the urge to return to a steady job feels overwhelming. But startup founders are a different breed—they persist when others would quit. Startup founders always embrace the uncertainty of the journey. They consider each setback an opportunity to grow, to refine the business, and to come back stronger. They turn adversity into fuel and keep trying until they succeed. Video Credit: Dagobert Renouf ~~~~~ ♻️ Found this helpful? Repost it so your network can learn from it, too. And follow me, Fazlur Shah, for more content like this. #startups #entrepreneurship #venturecapital #investing

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Note to self: 11 things I have observed from leaders on building an iconic company 1. An iconic company has an iconic product to begin with. 2. To build an iconic product, you need a visionary founder who views the world in a different way and gritty enough to will it into existence paired with a strong technical person who can help make that real. 3. Since every iconic company is a monopoly, and by definition you can’t be a monopoly of a large market when you start, you need to pick a small market to dominate. The smaller the niche, the better. 4. And you build a product that 100 users in that niche really really love vs 1000 users sort of like 5. Once you have this, carefully scale the team. The first 10 hires decide the trajectory of a company because they set the bar and the culture. 6. When it comes to hiring, hire people who have the same value system as you — e.g., ambitious, high work ethic, deeply care, etc. Be careful that whatever you program in the culture also has a side effect of programming all the flaws in it. 7. When it comes to scaling, follow @pmarca's advice -- creating a billion dollar company (well I guess $T is fashionable now) has 3 steps (a) build a product that has p/m fit (b) ensure it doesn't run off the rails (c) expand to adjacent markets 8. In order to scale well, never take your hands off on being close to product & customers. Never. 9. When it comes to raising money, choose high quality board members over valuation. The ideal board member should be a truth teller and also have empathy on how lonely the job is. 10. Have a support system 11. Evolve as a leader but be yourself all the way.

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