Exclusive: Shark Tank India’s Aman Gupta reacts to trolls, says ‘India me taaliyan aur gaaliyaan saath me padti hai’

Shark Tank India 3 Anupam Mittal, Vineeta Singh, Amit Jain, and Aman Gupta, reacted to trolls, how the show has helped them in building their own brand and a lot more in this exclusive conversation with ETimes TV. The Sharks offered their perspectives on the current season, dealing with fans and a lot of interesting things.

Anupam: Mujhe toh bada maza aata hai. If you don’t really like it, then you have a choice. But if you keep doing it, you become a bigger and bigger public figure. But keep saying, ‘no, no, I don't like it’. That is kind of odd.

Amit: I like to keep it private. Now what happened is, that I stopped going out. Actually, I used to go to stores first. I stopped going out. No, I don't know. I mostly do house parties.

Anupam: One more thing, I'll tell you something very interesting. At least with me, what happened is, generally as we build businesses, we become a little bit successful then we lose touch with people. I think that's very important because as an entrepreneur, that is what made you successful. And you leave that behind. So at least it has reconnected me to India.

Aman: I’ll tell you frankly. Once I met Badshah bhai. I asked Badshah bhai, ‘Ye bada stress ho raha hai aaj kal. Log milne aarahe hai. How to handle this?’ He said, ‘Achha, stress ho raha hai? Tu private banda hai?’ I said yes. Then he said, ‘Toh mat jaa season 2.’ That’s when I realised that while doing the show, the gains are more than the pain. So it’s better to go and I should not cry about it. So I like it now. Now entrepreneurs are also getting clicked. I remember celebrities get clicked. Filmstars ke saath photo kheench te hai. Main khud jaake kheenchta hu. So now entrepreneurs ke bhi photos le rahe hai. It is good for the country that we are also being celebrated. Initially, I was also a private person. Then I started liking what is happening. It is good for the brand also. People know about our brand now.

Anupam: I see a little bit. But you know earlier it used to feel like even if there was a wrong comment, it used to feel like how to correct it. But now I understand that you can't win everyone, you can't win everything and everybody will have a view. Whatever you do, there is a counter to it.

Vineeta: I think it makes us stronger because as CEOs, no one gives you direct feedback. But the direct, brutal feedback you get on social media suddenly you're like ‘hmm I can survive criticism’.

Aman: Earlier in the beginning when people used to say negative things in the first season then I used to feel like what happened, let's fix ourselves. Now it's become a habit. You know what they say, ‘India me taaliyan aur gaaliyan saath me padti hai’.

Vineeta: My biggest takeaway has been young girls. I mean, I get bohot saare 7 saal se 15 saal ki age ki girls, you know, telling me about their sapne, ambition, kya unko banna hai. And it's like so amazing that unke parents are like agreeing with them saying ‘apke ke tarah entrepreneur banna hai’. Matlab ek generation pehle tak to being able to do a job for a girl was a big deal. In my generation, deciding to build a start up was a very big deal for a girl. On the next generation, I think it's going to be like very normal. It's being seen as something which is, not just me, but all the women that come on Shark Tank to pitch, you know, the other sharks, Namita, Radhika. I think for me, the biggest takeaway has been that a girl can have a dream and a girl can do anything. And, you know, little girls in across the country are feeling that and I get to be a part of that movement, one of the faces of that movement and yeah that's very empowering.

Amit: For that I think it was all about a lot of brand trust started to flow in. If you look at the screen, it's authentic, trustworthy. Our whole group is based on that, culturally too. So, our culture in the brand has been humanized. And now, in all our businesses, almost last season when I came, we saw almost 30-40% surge search at that point. And that sustained. It didn't fall down to 30-40%, it remained at 20% plus even after that. It had a huge impact. Other transaction business, insurance eco, college eco, all saw almost 80-90% growth over the year. I would attribute at least 20% to the show here that happened.

I would say that like our brand is a consumer brand so the whole India at least knows that they want to buy products of Boat wale brands. If you are able to connect the founder with a brand, like for Jeff Bezos we used to know about Amazon. The founder connecting to the brand is important. It's good. Plus, it's also a little scary because you know, if you say something wrong then our negativity escalates even more. So, right now, we are all enjoying the positives of the brand rub off, the positive rub off. But if it's sometimes negative, it can go even negative. So, it's a scary one that to associate your personal brand to the corporate brand so much.

So, there are two aspects, I think, to my business, one is operating businesses and one is investing. You know, like everybody else said ye jo naya daur chala hai na, social media ka, businesses and brands can't escape being associated with their founders. Unless you're fully corporatized and you know it is run by a corporate leadership team and so on and so forth. Because we have a platform like that, we get a chance to create our own narrative, right? A lot of other people don't get that chance, right? So I think that's a very good thing. How we use it is up to us. Last season, season before that, you know, there were some sharks with whom a lot of bad things happened. There was some shark, who had to issue an apology to, you know, for a particular community. So it can happen. This can also happen. But the good part is you have that platform. Trust is the corner piece of customer relationships in the new hyper connected world. Angel investing is an asset class which chooses you, you don't choose it. Because there are limited people they can take on and they decide good founders. Everyone wants your name to be on the cap table. So now deals are chasing me and people say take it for free, we don't take equity. But that's again a good problem to have. I think problems are plenty. If you manage it properly, it can be good otherwise fame can bring its fair share of pain as well.