Name: Dharmpal Chaudhary

Title: Founder and CEO

Organisation: Upcred.ai

A Creator Economy and Artificial Intelligence enthusiast with deep expertise into MVP building and scaling, Marketing, Sales and GTM

Thank you to the 2,000 leaders who’ve generously done the 7 Questions on Leadership!

I hope Dharmpal's answers will encourage you in your leadership journey. Enjoy!

Cheers,

Jonno White

1. What have you found most challenging as a leader?

Keeping myself motivated and calm even during the toughest times.

2. How did you become a leader? Can you please briefly tell the story?

When I started building Upcred.ai, everything started going in wrong direction and we were messed up. 99% people told me that now you wont be able to make this company.

Believe me, we did. Over a period of time I became a person with full of calm and self motivation.

3. How do you structure your work days from waking up to going to sleep?

I'am always planning my work before going to bed and always having pen and paper near by to note down all thoughts.

I start my day with daily standup with my team and prioritising wok for them with proper deadlines then I take a break for 15 minutes and then start doing my part of work delivery.

This goes and goes on and in the meanwhile I manage investor meetings, client meetings and everything else needed.

Weekly I ready books and monthly watching movies too.

4. What's a recent leadership lesson you've learned for the first time or been reminded of?

Things can go wrong at any time. Always be ready to stand against the worst. Things quickly turns into good to bad and vice-versa.

5. What's one book that has had a profound impact on your leadership so far? Can you please briefly tell the story of how that book impacted your leadership?

I'm inspired by Kunal Shah and Kalam Sir. More than books I like videos on them.

6. If you could only give one piece of advice to a young leader, what would you say to them?

For aspiring entrepreneurs:

Learnings so far:

1. People love to buy from a sales man who can creative massive value before selling anything.

2. Noobs always fail while selling because they use Jargon which has no relation with real world things.

3. You will feel like giving up 5 days in a week and 2 days you will have feeling that "Apun hi Bhagwan hai".

4. Funding is non-sense and it can kill your startup if you get it before you deserve it.

5. People are ready to help always. I have not seen any startup owner or business personality who refused to help us when we asked.

6. You need mentors and friends like these folks who makes you not give up or tells you right time to give up.

7. Never fail before learning or earning as 90% startup founders fail without learning anything. Later they go here and there with "Founder" or "Co-founder" title and just tell you fake stories. "Being a founder or co-founder is meaningless if you are not valuable to your company and just being there on someone else's back"

8. You will get Co-founders faster than "marriage proposals after becoming IAS". And they will go away faster than Bullet trains.

7. What is one meaningful story that comes to mind from your time as a leader, so far?

I don't know if I'm a leader or not but what makes me better than 99% people is that I am always learning, I am ready to fail and I have great people around me who are ready to help me.

I take decisions carefully and 100% committed to where ever I am.

Making these things accessible boosts your confidence.