Watched another @CRED_club curious episode with @kunalb11 and @paraschopra today, so its time to signal again.

How does Paras manage to be curious while running a successful startup?

- Paras prioritises well and thinks of running a co as an opportunity for continuous learning

- Paras acknowledges that serendipity played a big role in his company becoming successful but used mental models judiciously to leverage those chances

- Its important that founders establish positive rituals (norms) during company formation. This applies for personal life too.

- Paras, for eg, does his most creative and cognitively demanding tasks in the morning. He focuses a lot on reflecting and think about thinking at this time. This reflects in his relationship and his role in the company and sets a precedence for everyone.

- The curiosity to understand how the world works drives Paras to run the company he is running. He gets to design his experiments and interventions within the company's microcosm. His workspace (mental and physical) is his playground.

What is a mental model?

- Mental model is like map that helps your figure your way around on a random journey. Map helps you locate yourself and then also chart out your path to the destination.

There are infinite ways in which your can chart a path and there are multiple tradeoffs in terms of the resources. Maps are the collection of mental models that help us figure such paths.

- Mental models help your reorient yourself on your path.

- Paras' most commonly used mental model is Inverted Passion. Only passion is a bad reason to start a company. If you are drowned in your passions than you may not know whats happening around. A good way to build is to build for problems that others are passionate about.

- Kunal Shah gives an analogy for building useful cos. Rivers and tributaries are the passions, problems and inconveniences of people and you have to build your company on the banks. If you build a dam it should be on an already flowing river. Do not build it then wait for river.

How does Paras make good decisions?

- We tend to jump right in, we do not like uncertainity and confusion. In that discomfort we push ourselves to take a decision and avoid the confusion.

- Paras tries to be comfortable with the confusion. He writes down what the objective, the context and what end state he wants. Then he elaborates on his decision and tries to know what all is gonna happen as a result of it and why is he taking the decision in the first place.

- You cannot be completely rational so Paras after doing this analysis he trusts himself and his intelligence.

Paras tweets to:
- Document
- Observe patterns in his thoughts
- People give you feedback on where you are wrong

Why Kunal tweets:

- He is bad at remembering so it helps document
- He is good a summarising and finding insights in content. Putting this on twitter helps him make connections and loops of thoughts through the tweets themselves and the engagement that he gets.

- Paras personally also thinks the engagement on twitter is less consequential and the act of writing itself is more rewarding for him.
- He does enjoy the responses (not the retweets and likes so much)

Paras' thoughts and mental models for money, wealth and rich

- Paras makes sure he knows why he wants to be wealthy. He does not focus on being or getting rich because that is comparative. Differentiating between the two is important.

- He wants to be wealthy to have freedom of thought, action and be able to trade for things he wants and needs.

- Only having knowledge does not help. There is great gap in knowing stuff and seeing the change because of that knowledge. For eg we know that meat markets are a hub of viruses but corona still happened.

- People have 2 modes. One motivated by desire to look smart and ethical.

In isolation our core motivators drive us and we behave differently. Its baffling that people do not admit or internalise and act on it.

Mental model for marrying?

If you are doubting it then do not marry. Cannot be decided rationally. You have to be 100% into it by heart.

- Indian parents do not recognize their kids as individuals. Kids have their own head, they think for themselves, let them.

- Kunal Shah says we are shifting from valuing people for years of experience to experiences per year (golden takeaway)

Raising money for startups

- Nature of the company, market situations, nature of users, etc should be the factors deciding whether or not you need funding. Thinking through these is important, have good answers for wanting or not wanting funding.

How to become and compound like Paras?

- Reading and writing. Doing either alone is not enough.

- Every new mental model you add will shape your entire mental model complex. Mental models do not developed without constant reflection. Writing is an important tool of reflection.