Article

Margins Are Earned from Desire, Not Utility, says CRED founder Kunal Shah

Kunal Shah · Outlook Business Free Intermediate India

A short interview where Kunal Shah argues margins come from desire, which design creates, rather than from utility alone. It is a crisp Indian case for treating look and feel as a business lever, not vanity. Read it alongside the ship-fast material to decide which side your product sits on.

  • Desire, which design shapes, is what lets you charge more.
  • Purely utilitarian thinking can leave loyalty and margin on the table.
  • Polish is a positioning choice, not decoration.
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It answers 2 questions

  1. How do I do user research when I'm building something nobody has seen before and can't describe what they want?
  2. How much should I invest in design polish for an MVP versus just shipping something functional?

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