Exclusive: Shark Tank India 4’s Kunal Bahl calls the experience of being in the tank ‘surreal’; says ‘I had been in touch with the makers…’

Kunal Bahl, the co-founder of Snapdeal and a new addition to Shark Tank India Season 4, opened up about his journey on the show in an exclusive chat with Times of India TV. Reflecting on his experience, Kunal described being on the Shark Tank India panel as “surreal”. He revealed that he had been in touch with the makers for some time before officially joining the popular entrepreneurial show.

It's been a fantastic experience. I have seen many of the episodes from Season 1-3 as a viewer, so it's always a bit surreal to be there in the tank yourself as one of the sharks and experiencing everything firsthand, but for the most important part is how much of an impact this show is having on the spirit of entrepreneurship in our country and each one of us is playing our own small role in enabling that.

I was in touch with the Shark Tank team from season one onwards but for whatever reason like scheduling reasons, other reasons it didn't work out and then finally this year it did work out because there is a big common interest here of promoting entrepreneurship, so I also have that and I'm doing that through.

I feel that the amplification that the show creates, the discussion, which we used to have in our room, we can do it on national scale. They are will learn from our mistakes, or get inspired from our knowledge and that in itself is really moving the needle for entrepreneurship in our country.

I have small kids at home and what would I want them to watch? My daughter loves to talk about startups and business ideas and all that she's 8-years-old and Shark Tank just offers entertainment because if it was not entertaining it would be like a documentary right. This is not a documentary, it is an entertaining show. People come so that they have a laugh, they have a little few tears, they have vigorous discussion amongst the family members and friends. They discuss the deals and I think that's what makes it fun.

I am an introvert and a private person. I don’t socialize much or meet many people. After work, I spend time with my family and a few close friends. So this is as much as going out of the comfort zone as it can be for me. Mere hisaab se isse zyada main kuch kar nahi sakta apne comfort zone ke bahar. But what motivates me to do it is imagine how much it is helping founders in the country, all the effort that the sharks are putting into it. It's a tremendous amount of effort. It is 100 and 100 and 100 of hours away from your family, away from your friends, away from your work but it's a very, very worthy cause.

When I look back, people will say ‘Oh congratulations’. Actually I don't remember any of the euphoric moments because by the time the moment of euphoria is supposed to come, you've moved on to the next problem. When I look back on my journey, I only remember the times I fell. But as they say, success is going from one failure to the next without any loss of enthusiasm. So I think that's what founders do, they just they fall, they pick themselves up, they keep moving forward.