November 4, 2026 – India SMB Blastoff Rajan Anandan and New Rules of Negotiation Kristen Prinz

00:04 Announcer: In the AM, radio network, broadcasting from AM and FM stations around the country. Welcome to the Small Business Administration Award-winning School for Startups Radio, while we talk all things small business and entrepreneurship. Now, here is your host, the guy that believes anyone can be a successful entrepreneur, because entrepreneurship is not about creativity, risk or passion, Jim Beach.

00:25 Jim Beach: Hello, everyone, welcome to another exciting edition of School for Startups Radio. I hope you’re having a great day out there, making some money growing a business, taking control of your own destiny. Well, I blew part of my destiny. I want to apologize to our 2nd guest, Kristen Prinz. I blew the last or the 1st minute of the interview. I have no idea how I did it.

00:50 Jim Beach: I tried to fix it, and I can’t, and I’m a loser, and I’m sorry. I apologize. Anyway, we got a great show for you today. First up, we have Rajan Anandan. He is one of the most important Indian entrepreneurs out there. He has been head of Google, India. He’s also had senior positions at Microsoft and Dell, recognized as one of India’s most prolific investors. He will be with us.

01:15 Jim Beach: And then after that, we have Kristen Prinz. And again, I’m so sorry we lost the 1st minute of that. We are talking about negotiation with her and maybe that’s my negotiation tactic. I lost the 1st minute to gain some edge or something. I don’t know, but I blew it. Anyway, let’s get started with the great show. Here we go. Very excited and honored to have my next guest on the show.

01:41 Jim Beach: He has perhaps one of the most impressive resumes I have ever seen. Please welcome Rajan Anandan to the show. He started off at MIT and then to Stanford and then went to McKinsey, where he eventually became partner. He then went and became vice president of Dell for India, and then managing director of Microsoft, India. Eventually Microsoft, I’m sorry, vice president of Google, India. He was a managing director at Sequoia Capital.

02:09 Jim Beach: He is now managing director at Peak XV Partners, which has a secret meaning, which we will find out, and Surge as well. The fund is very active in trying to support new entrepreneurs and become more supportive of particularly investing in public policy and venture funds that are going to have some alternate meanings as well. Rajan has been the, just amazing so far.

02:32 Jim Beach: He’s also been India’s national startup advisor council and twice served as the president of the internet and mobile association. The list just goes on and on. Rajan, welcome to the show. My God, what a career. How are you doing today?

02:48 Rajan Anandan: Well, thank you for having me. Thank you for having me. That was a long introduction, but delighted to be here and looking forward to a conversation.

02:58 Jim Beach: Years old. I wish, I wish. I just wish. And he has just released a new book called The Lift-Off Nation. We are entering the Golden Age of Indian Startups. I would have said the golden age of Indian startups is already been here. I’ve been to India. I’ve seen some of your incredible businesses. The golden age just starting now. That kind of.. Provocative.

03:24 Rajan Anandan: Yeah, you know, um, look, so what, um, by the way, it’s great that you’ve been to India and you’ve seen our ecosystem. Look, I think what we are trying to articulate in this book, with data, with lots of case studies and examples is that India today is the 3rd largest startup ecosystem in the world, right, in terms of number of startups, just to give you a sense 10 years ago in 2016, we had 500, Uh, registered startups, you know, the government launched a new initiative called startup India and uh, you know, if you registered a startup, you would get a bunch of benefits.

04:00 Rajan Anandan: That year we had 500 startups. That number is up to 220,000 startups now. Uh, and so that gets us basically to the number 3 spot when it comes to number of startups. And but that we think is just the beginning, right? Because at the end of the day, whoever wants to be number three.

04:18 Rajan Anandan: So what we are, why we are calling this sort of Lift-Off Nation is because we believe that all the building blocks are now in place for real liftoff for innovation and entrepreneurship in India. And we think if India can get it right, meaning, you know, there’s a whole set of things that are going well.

04:37 Rajan Anandan: But if you could also address some of the challenges that the nation has, over the next 15, 20 years, we we genuinely, you know, my co-author, Saurabh Srivastava, and I, we believe that India can be the most innovative nation in the world.

04:53 Jim Beach: Oh, I don’t doubt that at all. Yes, I have loved my visits to India. I have spoken at IIT and Mumbai 5 or 6 times now, and I have won TiE Atlanta, member of the year, I think, 3 times.

05:08 Rajan Anandan: My gosh, that’s that’s incredible.

05:10 Jim Beach: So I’ve been very active in supporting India and Indian business here in the United States, especially here in Atlanta. We, the Atlanta team has won the high school TiE competition more than any other city in the world.

05:26 Rajan Anandan: That’s incredible. You know, I was, uh, I was, uh, a president of, uh, TiE in Delhi for, I think, uh, 2 terms actually. So we have that in common.

05:36 Jim Beach: It’s an amazing organization, even if you’re not Indian, it’s a great organization to be in your local city. It’s in every city in North America. Anyway, back to the book. Okay, I’ll give you all of that. Certainly the infrastructure is there now, but you’re talking about going, you know, 20%, 20%, 20%, 20%, 50%, right? That’s not historically happened more often. Normally we see 20%, 20%, percent, 15, 10, 8, 8, 8, 8, right?

06:06 Jim Beach: We don’t have, I mean, you’re already at the top of the bell curve is what I’m saying. You’re going to make the bell curve bigger still.

06:16 Rajan Anandan: No, so I think the way to think about this is, you know, India today is by far the global leader when it comes to, let’s say, digital payments, right? And I think I’ll take that story for a minute. So in 2016, uh, you know, I was at Google at the time, I joined Google in 2011, uh, 2016, Google launched a product, which is now called Google Pay, it was called Tez at the time.

06:41 Rajan Anandan: India was not in the top 100 countries when it came to digital payments, but 10 years later in 2026, India has over 50% of real-time digital payments, right? And so it’s by far the world leader in digital payments. You take another industry, uh, like space tech, uh, in 2014, which is 12 years ago, India had only one space tech startup. Today we have 9 today we have 400 space tech startups.

07:06 Rajan Anandan: And the interesting thing is space was deregulated in India only 6 years ago, right? So, in a very short spirit of pan, we went from virtually having no space, even not having a private space tech ecosystem. To today, actually, in fact, we had one of one of the Indian startups called Skyroot, actually do a rocket launch that was successful to orbit, right?

07:27 Rajan Anandan: It’s the outside of the US and China, no other country in the world, has had a private sector company launch a rocket into orbit, right? So, so it takes about, you know, 10 years for uh, India to sort of quote unquote, get into a new sector and then build a leadership, either be an undisputed number one, like digital payments or, let’s say, be in the top 3 uh, in the case of uh, space.

07:52 Rajan Anandan: So what we are saying when it comes to, you know, bringing us to this lift of this concept or this, this idea of Lift-Off Nation. We are not actually talking about the number of startups. We are talking about at a minimum sovereignty, right? Being sort of controlling your own destiny in all the critical technologies today, much like many countries in the world, right?

08:14 Rajan Anandan: India is dependent on imports for semiconductors, for a lot of the AI stack, for advanced manufacturing, for machine tooling, things like that. So what we’re really talking about is much like in a period of a decade, India went from being not being in the top 100 countries on digital payments to being number one, undisputed number one, we’re talking about India getting to either number one globally or in the top 3 in all of these critical sectors, right?

08:40 Rajan Anandan: So from AI, and we should talk more about AI to semiconductors, to advanced manufacturing, to quantum computing, to defense, right? For instance, in defense, the country has, you know, quite a large number of very, very interesting startups. But, you know, we need to become self-reliant in defense, right? And every large country, given what is happening around the world.

09:00 Rajan Anandan: I mean, you all are living in the middle of it, and we are impacted by it sitting here in India. I think it’s very clear that we need to become self-reliant. So the Indian governments had a very, very big focus on what’s called, you know, building sovereign technology. And what I mean by that is, you know, become self-sufficient. And having best-in-class technology, but self-sufficient in all these areas.

09:23 Rajan Anandan: So when we say Lift-Off Nation, where can India be? What you should really be thinking about in, call it the 10 or 15 most important technology areas as well as let’s take even energy.

09:34 Rajan Anandan: You know, we have a very, very rapidly growing new energy ecosystem in the book, you know, we have a whole bunch of companies that are profiled, uh, that are in solar to electric mobility to recycling, to green hydrogen, uh, to biosciences, right? We need to be self-sufficient because, you know, if we continue to import several $100 billion of energy, oil, uh, you know, as our economy grows, you know, last quarter, we grew 7.8%.

10:00 Rajan Anandan: That gets to be very, very difficult on our currency and economy. So that’s really what we’re talking about. It’s less about, I mean, obviously today India is the 3rd largest startup ecosystem when it comes to number of startups, but, you know, when we think about 15, 20 years, it’s probably less going to be about just quantity of startups, but the quality of startups and true undisputed leadership in a whole set of very strategic sectors.

10:27 Rajan Anandan: So long answer to the question, but hopefully that gives you a sense of it.

10:32 Jim Beach: So I think you only mentioned government twice in that answer. The Japanese government has an organization called meaty, METI, the Ministry of Export, Trade, and Industry. It used to be meaty, M-I-T-I. And inside of meaty. There’s another organization called Jetro, J-E-T-R-O, which is the Japan Export Trade Organization. It’s Nihon Boeki Shin Kokai. I worked there for 2 years. My 1st job out of college, was working for the Japanese government.

10:58 Jim Beach: They, meaty is world-renowned and a 1000000 books have been written on this on planning the Japanese economy, telling the startups. Okay, you’re going to get extra funding in the space sector because we really want it. So your loans will be extra cheap. And the government is picking winning and loser sectors and industries and companies. What are your thoughts on on that and what is the equivalent in India? What’s happening with government planning in India?

11:26 Rajan Anandan: Yeah, so look, I am not at all familiar with what Japan has been up to, so I can’t really comment on Japan. But look, the Indian government has been planning.

11:38 Jim Beach: Government planning.

11:39 Rajan Anandan: Yeah, yeah, no. So look, the government’s been very, very progressive. Uh, you know, for instance, in 2016, the Indian government launched an initiative called Startup India, uh, which was really to bring to the forefront. Why startups are important to the economy, highlight all the challenges that startups facing systematically trying to address all of those challenges. So everything from launching sort of an intermission mode to try to enable startups all the way through.

12:04 Rajan Anandan: You know, we have something that is now called, you know, digital public infrastructure, but it’s uh, think of it as uh, the India stack, so everything from a digital ID, 1.4 billion Indians have a digital ID today. We have a, Payment rails called unified payments interface, it’s bank to bank payments transfer for small value transactions, it’s 0 MDR merchant discount rate, all the way through, you know, an open data sharing network.

12:29 Rajan Anandan: So building out sort of the digital public infrastructure has been a big deal. The government launched a $1 billion fund of funds, again, also around 2016, 2017 that led to the creation of over a 100 new domestic venture funds. Then the governments privatized several sectors. So, for instance, in space. In space tech.

12:47 Rajan Anandan: The reason we have 400 startups today is because in 2020, uh, space got deregulated prior to that space was the domain of Isro, which is the national space uh, space uh, uh, space organization. Same things happen in defense, right? Defense was not really open to private sector participation, certainly not open to participation from startups. That’s completely changed. We have 100s of very, very interesting space tech startups.

13:10 Rajan Anandan: And then most recent initiative that they’ve launched, which is very exciting, is the Indian government will invest $11 billion over the next several years. Um, uh, you know, over $2 billion a year to, to, to encourage private sector, um, uh, private sector innovations in deep tech industries, right?

13:27 Rajan Anandan: So think about semiconductors, quantum computing, advanced manufacturing, space tech, uh, energy, new energy, uh, anything that requires sort of deep R and D, because one of the areas where India uh, has a long way to go is on R and D. And in fact, we have our longest chapter in our book. He’s on R&D. We start with Y is R&D so low, it’s .65% of GDP.

13:50 Rajan Anandan: You know, India spends only .65% of GDP on R&D. That number, by the way, compares to the US is at 3.5% and China is a 2.6%. And to give you a sense. Israel, with only 10000000 people, spends more on R&D than India does with 1.4 billion people, right?

14:07 Rajan Anandan: So, uh, so, so, so this, this attempt of this, call it 11 or $12 billion fund uh, is focused on beginning to chip away at how do we get private sector to invest a lot more in R&D, how do we have more deep tech focus venture funds?

14:23 Rajan Anandan: So, so those are some of the things that the Indian government has done over the last decade, but, uh, you know, what we’ve tried to do in this book Lift-Off Nation, as you mentioned, is try to capture, uh, both what has already been done so far and as well as we, we suggest a whole set of ideas or what else needs to happen.

14:45 Rajan Anandan: Just to give you a sense, if India, you know, if you were to ask us, we were magic wand, and we could have one thing happen in India, that would, that would accelerate our journey, uh, you know, uh, to get to sort of global leadership or innovation.

15:01 Rajan Anandan: We would say it’s R&D. Annual R&D spends in India today is about $18 billion You know, it’s a tiny fraction of what the US and China spend, but that 18 billion at current GDP levels in India needs to be a 100 billion, right? So we need to be 5X you need to be spending 5X more and that’s both public sector as well as private sector.

15:23 Jim Beach: What is the situation of the AI industry in India? I’ve heard that there’s a Chinese competitor to, you know, the American companies, AI, and all of the others. I have not heard of an Indian competitor. That says more about me than the industry, I hope.

15:42 Rajan Anandan: Yeah, no, so you’re talking about foundation model companies. You know, I’ll get to that. Look, I think the way you should think about India is India is building the full AI stack from applications to tooling to models to compute to data centers to energy, right? And we are at various stages of building out this AI stack. And again, you know, this comes back to where the world is heading.

16:06 Rajan Anandan: I think it’s very clear if you’re a large country like India, uh, you need to be self-reliant, uh, right? There are periods in time, even over the last 2 years, where the leading edge technology was not allowed to be to be to have access to, even even a country like India, right? Which is which is quite a neutral country.

16:26 Rajan Anandan: So when we see this sort of global dynamic probably continuing to get more intense over the next five, 10, 15, 20 years. So, so it’s very clear that we need to, as a nation, build out, build out the full AI stack. Today where we are at is, look, we have a very vibrant application ecosystem, an interesting data point for you is India has more funded consumer AI startups than the US.

16:51 Rajan Anandan: I know there’s been a lot of excitement about the new personal agents that have been launched instinct and news from meta and so on, but if you look at the total innovation across all of consumer, consumer AI, India has a lot more consumer AI innovation on the enterprise side. Also, we have quite a large number of companies that are going after vertical use cases, industry use cases, etc. So that’s number one.

17:15 Rajan Anandan: I think 2nd is we have, you know, over time, because we’ve had a large software developer population. We have got quite a number of exciting sort of tooling and AI infrastructure companies come out. At the model layer, which is what you are beginning to refer to is, look, India entered the model race AI model race this year.

17:34 Rajan Anandan: In February of this year, we had a company called Sarvam, which is the leading sovereign AI company, launched 2 models, a 300 million parameter and 105 million parameter model, and over the last seven, 8 months, we’ve had several other companies launch these models. So I think the India strategy, when it comes to foundation models, will be quite a bit different, right? So if you think about it, the US is going for AGI.

17:59 Rajan Anandan: What does that mean? Scaling laws are live and well? You keep throwing more and more compute? You try to build 5 and then 10 and then 200 billion parameter models, which require billions of dollars for every single training run, right? The reality is Indian startups or Indian government or Indian companies can’t really afford to do that.

18:18 Rajan Anandan: Now, here’s the interesting thing that very few people know is that 90 to 95% of what enterprises need can be developed. You know, AI, AI, AI applications can be developed using models that are 30, 50 or 100 billion parameters, right? The only 2 use cases in an enterprise where you need a model that’s bigger is coding, uh, and uh, and cybersecurity. Both probably require like a 100 million parameter model.

18:42 Rajan Anandan: So already, uh, because, you know, if I think about it, right, you don’t need a 100 million parameter model to build a accounts payable agent. You know, I mean, it’s just not a complicated agent to build, right? You need much smaller models that are much more efficient. And these smaller models are also much more efficient, right?

19:01 Rajan Anandan: So if you look at voice AI, uh, voice AI, by the way, as inflicted in India, uh, after coding will be the 1st $1 billion revenue, enterprise AI category in India, uh, voice AI models are only 20, you know, like at most 200 million parameters, right?

19:17 Rajan Anandan: And, uh, and, uh, you know, the, the, you know, I’d say probably 4 out of the 5 leading companies in voice, AI, actually Indian, uh, Indian companies that actually, many of them actually own their own voice AI models.

19:30 Rajan Anandan: So the path that you’ll see Indian companies take, and that’s probably why you don’t see, you don’t read as much about a company like Sarvam, but, you know, if you talk to Indian enterprises, Sarvam is growing very, very fast.

19:43 Rajan Anandan: Most of their revenue today comes from private sector, but you know, they will over time also have a very large, uh, uh, you know, government sector, government, uh, government business, but currently it’s, it’s almost entirely uh, private sector, but they’re winning because they have these uh, smaller models, but they work really, really well for what enterprises want and they’re extremely affordable.

20:04 Rajan Anandan: So one of the things you need to keep in mind about India is if you really want to get massive scale, you have to have what I call extreme levels of affordability, right? So that’s what’s happening at the model layer, and then at the compute layer, look, we had very little compute, AI compute last year, at the end of 2025.

20:24 Rajan Anandan: But in the last six, 7 months, we were about $400 billion of AI Capex that has been announced by the hyperscalers. We had 3 large Indian conglomerates that each was committed to over $100 million each. So now that still pales in comparison with the US. US is going to spend $800 billion. This year, India’s announcements are, you know, three, 4 billion over the next three, 4 years. But that compute constraint is also being unleashed.

20:49 Rajan Anandan: And lastly, at the semiconductor layer, I’ll say that’s the long pole in, that’s the long end of the pole. But even there, you know, we have companies, for instance, there’s a company called Agrani Labs, that is building inference GPUs. That’s a very seasoned team from Intel AMD. So I’d say, look, uh, uh, things are beginning to happen, uh, in India, we still, you know, keep in mind, you know, we should always keep in mind.

21:14 Rajan Anandan: It takes a decade, you know, from the, from the time India enters the race to, uh, you know, to really knowing where India can be, takes about 10 years and, uh, you know, I’ve said this uh, publicly over the last couple of months, which is 2026 is a year that India entered the AI race. So, you know, watch the space.

21:38 Jim Beach: I love it. I love it. That a great line. We will tweet that one out. Are you at all worried about the negative consequences that we all see in the movies and hear about and the new book if we build it? We all die. What are your thoughts on the dangers?

21:56 Rajan Anandan: Look, so, I mean, look, there is no question that these models are going to get more and more powerful, right? And already you have recursive self-provement, which is, you know, models are actually training the models. So we absolutely need to have guardrails. But I think my 1st thought is, look, The companies that are building these frontier models, right? Need to be the ones that are 1st and foremost accountable for keeping them safe, right?

22:22 Rajan Anandan: So the analogy that I use is if you’re a Pfizer or Merck, right? Or Genentech and you launch a new drug and the drug ends up killing a 1000000 people, who’s accountable, right? It’s the pharmaceutical company, right?

22:35 Rajan Anandan: So I think that’s the 1st thought I have, which is, look, you know, whether you slow down or, you know, whether you pause or slow down or whatever it is, I think it’s important to keep in mind that, you know, the frontier model companies and including the ones in India, right? Whether it’s Sarvam or others, they need to be fully accountable for launching models that are safe, right? So that’s number one.

23:00 Rajan Anandan: I think, It is going to be very, very important, let’s take enterprises, right? Enterprises are going to have to dramatically improve. Uh, you know, the, the, the effort, the investments uh, that we are actually, that they’re going to put into AI safety, right? Because the last thing you want is your financial services institution and the underlying models that you’re using, you know, have taken control of your systems, right?

23:24 Rajan Anandan: I mean, you can imagine economies collapsing with that. So I do think both from the model side, as well as from the enterprise side, there needs to be, uh, you know, a significantly higher effort that’s going to be put into it. But look, I do think the concerns, I mean, there should be concern, right? Because these models are getting so powerful now.

23:45 Rajan Anandan: And if you let the models go unchecked, then clearly bad things are going to happen, right? But we should also keep in mind that, look, with every technology, right? Let’s take the internet, let’s take desktop computing. Let’s take the main mainframe here, right? With every technology, you know, there will be bad actors and bad actors will try to do bad things.

24:09 Rajan Anandan: And so you’ve got to be able to defend consumers, defend enterprises, defend nations by having the right sort of counter technology, if you will.

24:17 Jim Beach: Tell me about surge and the investments you’re making there. It is part of the Peak XV organization. Oh, and we we promised we were going to tell people what Peak XV means, but we didn’t do that. Why is Peak XV?

24:31 Rajan Anandan: It’s actually… Yeah, it’s Peak XV. Maybe I’ll start with Peak XV. So Peak XV is the 15th peak in the range. Mount Everest. So our firm was formerly Sequoia India, and Southeast Asia. So Sequoia had 3 businesses, the US, China, and India. A little over 3 years ago, the China and the India businesses became independent. We rebranded ourselves to Peak XV.

24:51 Rajan Anandan: It’s peak PEAK and then XV with Roman numerals, X and V. And then our former partners in China. They rebanded the SEMs to HongShan. So both Peak XV and HongShan are now global firms. Peak XV is uh, so think of us as a global veg capital firm now with deep roots in Asia. We have about $10 billion under management. We have 500 active companies. We have 50 unicorns in our portfolio.

25:15 Rajan Anandan: We’ve taken 35 companies public. In fact, last year you’d be interested. We had 6 IPOs, 5 in 5 weeks. You know, I don’t think there’s been a single venture firm in the history of the world that said 5 IPOs in 5 weeks.

25:29 Rajan Anandan: Now, coming to surge, surge is the approach that we take to seed stage investing, where we invest capital, we invest up to $5 million 1st check, we have a full-time investment team and an operating team that works with the company.

25:43 Rajan Anandan: We also have a company building immersion where it’s an 8 week, uh, program. You know, it’s both hybrid online and offline where we help founders deeply understand what does it take to build enduring companies, right? Because the decisions that you make in the early days of a company, as you know, are the ones that really determine that’ll either increase or lower your odds of long-term success. So we really try to help founders understand that.

26:08 Rajan Anandan: It’s a very exciting 8 weeks. We start with 3 days in person. In fact, our most recent calls are last week. 3 days in Bangalore, then we go offline. Actually, this time around, we’re going to China for a week, which is quite exciting. And in November, and then we’ll end in the USA in San Francisco, late February for 3 days. And then lastly, we have a community.

26:33 Rajan Anandan: You know, when we started, when we launched search 7 years ago, we had no community today, we have 170 or 180 companies, couple of 100 founders. And we do a lot of programming, you know, community level activities, et cetera. But the whole idea is, as you know, building a company can be a very lonely journey.

26:53 Rajan Anandan: And we want to make sure that we support companies not just with capital, lots of hands-on support from everything, from engineering product to go to market, but also with knowledge that will help them improve their odds of success. So long answer to your question, but that’s what surge is. Excellent. Excellent.

27:10 Jim Beach: Well, we are about out of time, Rajan. What one thing have we not talked about that you would like to get out there? Not your URL and how to get in touch with you, but real content. What have we not talked about that’s important to you?

27:26 Rajan Anandan: Yeah, I think, uh, you know, I think what India will sort of show the world how to do and we’ve started doing these scenarios like payments, uh, even even shared mobility, uh, you know, you’d be, you’d be interested to know that the most successful uh, shared mobility company in the world is Uber, right? Um, uh, you know, uh, Uber, Uber is not the number one company in India.

27:49 Rajan Anandan: You know, there’s a company called Rapido that started, you know, I think less than 10 years ago that started off with shared mobility on 2 wheelers. India is the largest 2 wheeler market in the world. So a car is 4 wheels, right? Two wheels is sort of a bike. A scooter or a bike. It’s the largest 2 wheeler marker in the world.

28:11 Rajan Anandan: They kind of started with 2 wheelers, built a, built a very, very interesting ride sharing platform and now have expanded into 3 wheelers as well as 4 wheelers. So, so I think the, the, the India, because of the large population that we have, 1.4 billion people, and also the low income levels, right? India is still a, you know, our GD people capital is $2,800, right? The US is now over $90,000. So you can imagine.

28:36 Rajan Anandan: So what Indian entrepreneurs have become very good at is developing products and services that are extremely, that have high quality, but are extremely affordable, right? And because when you need extreme levels of affordability to scale it to a 1 billion people. So, uh, one of our leading technocrats, um, and and founders and also, uh, uh, uh, probably the best known sort of technocrat in our country.

28:59 Rajan Anandan: Nandan Nilekani has this coin, term that he coined called population scale, right? So building population scale innovation, scaling, you know, you know, new products and services to a 1 billion people. That is something that I think India is, and the only other country that obviously has a population to do it is China and you’ve seen China do it in things like e-commerce, you’re going to see a large set of innovations coming in that.

29:24 Rajan Anandan: I’ll give you end with this last example. Uh, you know, we have a very, very interesting research, uh, uh, deep research project to build artificial thoughts, uh, at one of the IT, since you’ve been to IIT Bombay, it’s IIT Kanpur. Currently, if you wanted to get an artificial heart, it cost you about, you know, call it 80 or $90,000, right? The Indian artificial costs heart will cost you one 10th of that. Right?

29:51 Rajan Anandan: Because no Indian can afford. Very few Indians can afford to spend 80 or $90,000 for an artificial art. But if you can get it down to 8 or $10,000 and cover it with insurance, then every Indian that needs an artificial heart or is it being heart failure? Nobody needs an artificial heart. When you have heart failure, you basically get an artificial heart, and then you can be up and running, right?

30:16 Rajan Anandan: So we already have dozens of examples, and I think in India over the next 10, 15 years, you’re going to see 1000s of these examples where Indian entrepreneurs would have innovated that population scale, not because it’s nice to do, because that is absolutely what’s required in the world’s largest democracy in the world.

30:38 Jim Beach: Fantastic. Sir, how do we get in touch with you find out more? Get a copy of the book.

30:49 Rajan Anandan: Yeah, it should be, uh, it should be on Amazon in the US. By the end of the month. And then, you know, you. Oh, it’s already there? Okay, it’s probably on pre-order or something. So yeah, okay, absolutely.

31:04 Jim Beach: That’s great. Fantastic. Rajan, thank you so much for being with us and we’d love to have you back. Thanks a lot.

31:11 Rajan Anandan: Sounds good, thank you.

31:12 Jim Beach: And we will be right back. For some reason, the first minute and a half did not record the guests, and I’m incredibly embarrassed and apologize, Kristen, that is my error, and I blew it somehow. I spent an hour trying to fix it, and I can’t. And so the 1st minute or so is gone. Luckily, oh, what we do then is say hello to each other and that kind of thing.

31:41 Jim Beach: And 90% of the good quality is still there. So I apologize to everybody and here is the interview parts that we have. I’m so sorry. You know, as entrepreneurs, we have to go out there and negotiate and present our side and listen to the other side and come to some sort of agreement. That is the essence of actually getting something done. And if you can’t come to an agreement, you’ll never get anything done.

32:13 Jim Beach: Our next guest is going to help us learn how to do this better, how to negotiate like the pros. Please welcome Kristen Prinz to the show. She is the principal of the Prinz Law Firm and author of the New Rules of Negotiation, How to Shift Power and Get What Matters.

32:33 Jim Beach: She’s been very successful and has worked or been recognized as a super lawyer, a leading lawyer, and best lawyer in Chicago community, Crain’s Chicago Business list, and has been on the Chicago network and tons of other forums and events and economic clubs and all that kind of stuff. Pretty impressive. Kristen, welcome to the show. How you doing?

32:54 Kristen Prinz: Being very short term and that happens. That’s what we do when we negotiate with ourselves. We’re thinking in the short term instead of like keeping the eye on the long term goals.

33:04 Jim Beach: All right, how do I win that negotiation?

33:07 Kristen Prinz: Oh, take a breath? I mean, it sounds so basic, but most of the things I think about having a great life are simple, but not easy at all. So, really stopping before you’re making a decision or before you’re speaking and thinking through, okay, what do I want to do? Just even counting to 10 can reshift, you know, your brain and how you’re going to respond to things. So that’s the 1st step.

33:33 Kristen Prinz: Um, and then also like being intentional, writing things down. And, uh, It’s just so hard because we’re also busy. We’re all running through the day. We’re all trying to like manage our family, negotiate with that, manage our careers. Hopefully have some friends, have some fun along the way as well. And so I think sometimes actually, we’re not really thinking, what are we trying to get to? Like, where are we going?

33:59 Kristen Prinz: That’s what, what, what’s the talking head song? You know, this is not my beautiful life. It’s like people literally get… Yes, people get to this point and they’re like, what? This is not what I was trying to achieve, right?

34:16 Jim Beach: You really dated yourself with that song reference, Kristen. That’s 1980.

34:20 Kristen Prinz: Okay, thanks.

34:21 Jim Beach: I was right there with you, though. I’m right there with you. That movie that they did in Texas was one of the most bizarre movies of all time, but one of my favorites, just an absolutely great group. So, I don’t know whatever happened to them. They just kind of disappeared. I guess. I don’t know.

34:42 Kristen Prinz: No, actually, yeah, um, what’s his name? The lead singer, he’s doing this theater of the mind trying to change people’s perspectives. So. In, it’s in Chicago right now actually.

34:55 Jim Beach: Oh really? Okay. Yeah, like I’m sharing secrets with you here. I, uh, took my kids to Chicago and we were able to go to the Blue Man group and we were sitting on the front row corner and that’s the seat that they bring on stage and give the painting to and stuff. So my kids got, uh, you know, the blue man painting that they did on stage. They still value it. 15 years later.

35:26 Kristen Prinz: That’s awesome. And they probably still love Chicago too.

35:29 Jim Beach: Yes, we had an amazing trip. It was one of those trips where everything just works out perfectly. Imagine this, Kristen. I reached into my pockets and realized I had lost our 3 day passes and we were in the Chicago, uh, Science museum down south of town, right? The one with the train. What’s that one called

35:48 Kristen Prinz: Museum of Science and Industry.

35:50 Jim Beach: . There you go. And 5 minutes later, someone came up to me and gave them back to gave them to me. They had found them and realized I was the person that was missing them and I got them back. What are the odds?

36:05 Kristen Prinz: I love it. That’s Chicago. Like people actually do stop and think about other people sometimes, you know?

36:11 Jim Beach: Well, Chicago has its own rules of negotiation, doesn’t it?

36:15 Kristen Prinz: Yes, uh, sometimes I think part of the rules of negotiation are being a little bit self-deprecating. Um, and you know, that can go a long way. Actually, I do talk about that in my book too, just being underestimated. I think a lot of times Chicago is underestimated because people talk about things like safety or, you know, assume that maybe it’s dirty.

36:43 Kristen Prinz: I mean, Chicago is actually really safe and beautiful city and I think when people get here, they’re very surprised. And so just being underestimated is such a great negotiation tool because honestly, how do you, like, if you’re a business owner, how do you, like, deliver, you actually have people underestimate, you under promise, and you over deliver? It’s that is a negotiation tool.

37:04 Jim Beach: I love it. So how do you underestimate? In practice? So do I come in and say 4000 instead of 5000 or I do it in 2 weeks instead of 3 weeks?

37:15 Kristen Prinz: No. I mean, negotiation, the thing is, it’s so funny, and most people think negotiation is about what we want, which I, yes, spending, I do spend a lot of time thinking through and planning what you actually want. But once you’re getting to the table, negotiation is much more about the person on the other side. And I think it’s about asking questions, doing your research.

37:36 Kristen Prinz: Uh, people spend so much time researching market data, especially now because it’s so accessible. And I don’t think that people spend enough time researching the actual humans that are going to influence whether you get what you want.

37:51 Kristen Prinz: Like if you come in and you’re talking to a boss, for example, and you’re asking for a raise, you might have gone out there and like, ask your buddy Claude or, you know, chat GPT or whoever had gotten all the market data. But if you come in to your boss and you’re sitting across the table and you start telling your boss, who decides your pay, that, hey, you don’t know the market, you’re underpaying me.

38:17 Kristen Prinz: I mean, basically you’re coming in and saying, you’re cheap. I know more than you. And by the way, pay me more. That’s not a good strategy. So yes, know all that data and use it to maybe anchor what you’re looking for, but really most of your time in a negotiation. To be spent asking questions and assessing the person on the other side.

38:40 Kristen Prinz: Like if I came into this interview and you’re just in a bad mood and having a bad day, I mean, I’m going to have to think through how I’m going to approach this conversation to make sure it’s interesting because, you know, if you’re not going to be interested in me, I need to make something interesting so that this actually is beneficial to your audience. So you’re like, you know what?

39:06 Kristen Prinz: That was actually really good, Kristen. Right? But if you’re having a good day and we’re both excited and we’re both like interested in the topic, then I can probably ask a lot more of you than otherwise. So just getting to like know the person and paying attention to are they having a good day, a bad day. What’s going on with them? Like, did their, is their kids sick today? Are they stressed out?

39:32 Kristen Prinz: Are their parents, you know, having a crisis? Those sorts of things all play in. And I don’t care how logical people say they are. In fact, actually the research says that the higher your IQ, the more the less logical you are, the more you’re making decisions with your emotions and then justifying them with your smart brain.

39:56 Kristen Prinz: So, you know, we all have to, we should take into account what’s going on in people’s lives because their emotional bodies, their emotional thinking will impact whether you can get what you want.

40:07 Jim Beach: Very well said. Yes. So when I am getting ready for a negotiation, a meeting, and you said, get to know the other person, what do I do? Scour their LinkedIn and social media and kind of stalk them.

40:20 Kristen Prinz: Yeah, why not? I mean, we have so much access to information. I mean, when I go into the meeting, yeah, I do research as much as I possibly can. I also ask other people I know, you know, let’s not like get so overreliant on the digital world that we’re not asking people because, you know, the digital world is like what we’re putting out there.

40:43 Kristen Prinz: So like that’s the stuff I want you to know about me, you know, or you want me to know about you, but then also asking people who have interacted with that person because that’s where we’re really going to get, you know, the secret information, the things that people won’t publicize, but are really important because it’s a small world.

41:07 Kristen Prinz: I mean, literally, I was just at New York this week and I ran into a friend from Chicago. I had no idea that, you know, there was no tie mutually that I would have expected to see her there.

41:21 Kristen Prinz: So, I mean, We just underestimate what a small world it is, and you can easily find out, you could use LinkedIn to find out who knows that person and then call your friend and ask them, you know, what’s going on? What’s going on with Jim? Like, Is he nice? Is he mean? Do I have to get a little bit mean? Do I have to be, you know?

41:47 Kristen Prinz: Do I have to be more deferential, less deferential, that sort of thing.

41:52 Jim Beach: Okay. And a lot of that’s personality. What if you learn, you know, where they went to college or anything like that, something like that. Do you use that to, um, become friends? Do you try to negotiate, uh, in in the 1st 5 minutes, become buddies so that we all work for the same goal together? Because we all went to Notre Dame.

42:14 Kristen Prinz: Yeah, well, okay, so I try and do things a little bit different. Maybe I’m going to test out the, um, I guess the, flexibility or stretch of things 1st so I might actually be a little bit aggressive and rude 1st and then see how that response is and then build the rapport and then start talking about like if I know you’re a baseball fan, I could start talking about, oh, awesome, the White Sox are doing or if I know you’re a Cubs fan, I can apologize.

42:45 Kristen Prinz: For the loss last night, that sort of thing. So I think you want to, you don’t want to jump in. It’s actually also a little bit insincere to jump in and immediately just be best friends if you already know that you guys are adversaries. Now, if you’re coming in and both people are really just trying to get to a deal, then yeah, you come in and right away. We both went to Notre Dame.

43:13 Kristen Prinz: I mean, People do make decisions based on commonalities. So if you can find something and it’s something that like, if you’re putting out there on the web that you went to Notre Dame and you’re so excited, then I know that that’s something important to you. And so yeah, I would, I would use that.

43:37 Jim Beach: All right, what are, so we have the underestimate tool. What are some of the other tools or pieces of advice from the book?

43:48 Kristen Prinz: So the book is about two-thirds talking the preparation because I think most negotiations are one or lost before you even get to the table and then a 3rd talking about tools. And the tools include, yes, being underestimated, but also silence. England is so uncomfortable for people. Um, and it’s extremely powerful. There’s a saying in sales that if you’re explaining you’re losing.

44:12 Kristen Prinz: So being able to make a statement and feel confident about it and then stop.

44:16 Jim Beach: That is good advice. I’ve used silence, especially with kids.

44:20 Kristen Prinz: Yes.

44:21 Jim Beach: I love it.

44:22 Kristen Prinz: With kids. So. You know, bringing up kids, I feel like one of my favorite tools, which actually, when I started practicing law, I was really uncomfortable with, is persistence, and my youngest daughter has taught me how powerful, asking the same, like going after the same thing, but kind of, you know, like reconvening and going after it from a different perspective is so powerful.

44:45 Kristen Prinz: She will ask me, especially when she was younger, she would say, kind of watch a show? No, can I watch the show? No. And then she would come back a few months later, she would ask me in a different way, and then this is where she really learned. We would wait until I was on a work call, actually a really important word call.

45:08 Kristen Prinz: The door was shut and she would start knocking really loud and then ask again, can I watch a show? Can I watch a show? So it’s like, just keep coming back to not having any embarrassment whatsoever about asking for the same thing over and over again.

45:24 Kristen Prinz: And I mean, obviously we can’t be, you know, like, uh, children and obnoxious in that way, but I do think it’s so powerful to just keep coming back and keep trying and finding a new avenue to go after what you really want because if it’s really important to you. Is something you really want to achieve. Why would you just take one no?

45:49 Kristen Prinz: You know, you got to keep coming back and be willing to get really comfortable with rejection and know and not be embarrassed about coming back and coming back and coming back.

46:00 Jim Beach: I don’t know. I think she should get punished for that. When I got off that call, she would lose TV for a day or something, you know, because…

46:10 Kristen Prinz: Well, she does. Yeah, as you get partners for that, but I’m saying she also taught me to not be embarrassed to use it myself. I mean, yes, she should be punished for that. I agree with you but at the same time. I think like, we learn a lot. We do try to teach children to like. They just take no.

46:33 Kristen Prinz: And the fact is, if you really want to achieve things in life, you cannot just accept no. You can’t. You have to keep coming back.

46:43 Jim Beach: Especially for entrepreneurs and everyone listening to this show. We believe that 100%. Uh, you have to ask until you get the sale and you just keep changing the pitch and being polite and moving forward and see what they’re, you know, eventually how you can help them with a service or a product. I agree with that 100%.

47:03 Jim Beach: So that’s why I was so good at dating because I was able to have a 100 projections before I got one girl to say yes. So.

47:14 Kristen Prinz: Well, and I love what you say about punishment too, because you also have to be willing to accept the punishment. Like, you have to be willing to put yourself out there and say, you know what, this might fail. I might really like lose something. I might get in trouble. I might lose TV for a week from doing this, but I don’t care. Going to go for it, right?

47:42 Jim Beach: Yes. I know that you’re big into sleep and mother issues, you’re on, uh, the new mom’s board and you’re a board member for the National Sleep Foundation. Have you ever run across Baby Wise by Gary Ezzo?

47:57 Kristen Prinz: No, I am not.

47:59 Jim Beach: Oh my god. My wife is going to kill me. There’s a sleep method. Oh, called Baby Wise, and the author was Gary Ezzo, E-Z-Z-O. And it’s how to get all your kids to sleep through the night by 5 weeks. And I have 4 children and they all slept through the night. That means 8 hours by 5 or 6 weeks. And the 2nd part of it.

48:25 Jim Beach: And the reason I bring this up is that they have a 1st time obedience rule. And that on the 2nd time you ask, you get punished because I already said no. And that’s why I was so jumped out at you about the TV with your daughter because you should, I already said no. You know, so be quiet about it. So, um, and then those kids sleep awesome.

48:50 Jim Beach: Those kids can fall asleep in the middle of a baseball game at the stadium if they want to. What are your issues?

48:57 Kristen Prinz: My kids are great sleepers.

48:59 Jim Beach: Well, I mean, interest in sleep and all of the boards that you’re on.

49:05 Kristen Prinz: Well, my interest in sleep is that I feel like you can’t be your best. You can’t make the best decisions. You’re actually not negotiating your best. Nobody is their best. With a lack of sleep. And so, um, that is, to me, you know, something that you should always prioritize. I feel the same way, like your kids, you want to teach them a good sleeping habit from the beginning.

49:28 Kristen Prinz: That’s part of just wellness and taking care of yourself. Uh, and being on boards. So I was asked to be on that board originally by a client, on the national sleep foundation board, and then new moms. I reach out to them. That’s actually a local, uh, organization that supports moms, young moms who are struggling with housing and job insecurity and it provides job training, housing, coaching, support.

49:52 Kristen Prinz: So it’s like, yeah, it’s a pretty amazing organization. You help multiple generations. You’re helping their kids. You’re helping these women, you know, get economic security. So I reach out to them because as a person who has tons of resources, I have a very supportive and involved spouse, um, who also has a big job and, you know, we struggle sometimes with having, uh, the pressures of working and parenting.

50:21 Kristen Prinz: And so to admit, to not have job security, to not have economic security and to not have housing security and be trying to raise a child. To me would just be. So difficult. So I really wanted to help.

50:34 Jim Beach: What a great organization. I love that. We have time for one more rule of negotiation, one more content piece, Kristen. Give us one more thing to learn about negotiating.

50:44 Kristen Prinz: Yeah, so the biggest misconception is there’s like one right way to negotiate or I think there’s a lot of things about there’s one personality, you have to be, uh, to be a great negotiator, and the whole point of my book is to say, we all have unique skills, and we should lean into those, and then also that negotiation is a skill. So, how do you become good at anything?

51:13 Kristen Prinz: You need to get your reps in. So practice, consider it something that you actually are working on and keep trying out these tools and build a whole toolbox so that you can negotiate the life you really want.

51:26 Jim Beach: So the subtitle is Shift Power. Do I, how do I… I guess I want to shift the power toward me, right? So how do I do that without uh, belittling the other person?

51:37 Kristen Prinz: Well, power is so much perspective. And I think a lot of times people go into negotiations and underestimate their perspective, especially when it’s an individual and you feel like you’re negotiating with a company, this happens for entrepreneurs too. You know, they’re a smaller organization and they’re negotiating with a big behemoth. The whole point is making sure that you’re seeing the value that you’re bringing, that you’re not. You’re not trying to get someone.

52:02 Kristen Prinz: You’re not trying to settle to someone. You’re trying to tell them that you’re going to provide value, that they’re getting something out of this interaction and that you, you do have more power. And so I just think people underestimate their own personal power. I’ve seen it so many times, even with CEOs or COOs, they’re coming in and they’re telling me that they don’t have any power. And I’m thinking, okay.

52:27 Kristen Prinz: If this, if you’re really providing value to this organization or if you really present a risk to this organization, you have so much power. Uh, and so let’s make sure that you’re using it and you’re acknowledging it because if you just like give up your power before you even come to the conversation, you’re never going to get everything that you want. You know, you have to see yourself as powerful.

52:52 Kristen Prinz: You have to see yourself as being able to achieve these things. It’s so much about, uh, it’s about perspective. You know, actually, my oldest daughter says that she thinks that, uh, the biggest thing standing in everyone’s way in terms of achieving success or whatever it is that they want is themselves. And I find that to be so true.

53:14 Jim Beach: Very true. Great. I love this book. I hope it sells really well for you. How do we find out more? Get a copy, get in touch, all that stuff, please.

53:24 Kristen Prinz: It’s available now for pre-order on Amazon, Barnes and Noble. You can go into your local bookstore and say please order it and they will. Um, you can reach out to me. I’m on TikTok and Instagram and of course, LinkedIn and I do share a lot of my tips and just everyday stories on all of those. So please reach out, follow all of that.

53:45 Jim Beach: Thank you so very much for being with us and congratulations. We’d love to have you back.

53:51 Kristen Prinz: Thank you. Yeah, this is great. I really appreciate you having me. Thanks Jeff.

53:55 Jim Beach: Thank you. And we’ll be right back.