JOIN US IRL: www.instagram.com/wisemillennial
Nikhil Krishnan, Founder of "Get Real/Get Smart", sits down remotely to discuss his journey from Columbia University and a "quarter-life crisis" to creating an "online first, offline second" modern community. We discuss how to create diverse and engaging communities generally, different types of revenue business models, how does someone become an “expert” in anything(?), the effect of covid-19 on Millennials, and the concept of "dunbar’s number".
LEARN MORE ABOUT NIKHIL: www.nikhilkrishnan.com
TWITTER: @nikillinit
GET REAL: www.getreal.club
INTERVIEW QUESTIONS:
- Tell me briefly about get real/get smart and also your new venture out of pocket?
- You are a native New Yorker. You went to hunter high school and Columbia university. You studied sustainable development and business management. How do you connect that to community and healthcare?
- A few topics:
- Inclusivity and making friends. 1) Why is it so hard for people to open up and be vulnerable?
- 2) And how are you able to stay so neutral and not let your own ego get in the way? If it’s your role to allow people to feel accepted, are you allowed to have opinions on people. Are you even allowed to react negatively against someone in your own community? How do you balance that?
- Diversity
- You have an incredibly diverse audience. Who is your main demographic? Especially in a place like New York City, how do you get people from very different walks of life, different socioeconomic situations, and different attitudes come together?
- Do the demographics change when you start charging people? If so how? People who want something for free. On the flipside there are ppl that are attracted to things which cost money who may not have been attracted before?
- Covid 19 and the future of community. My question is, now that everything is virtual, and we spent years trying to reduce our screen time, is this a step forward or a step backward for millennials?
- Monetization. For any entrepreneurs and influencers listening, what’s the strategy nikhil in converting followers among different platforms to convert into dollars? How do you do that? Is it a 2 year curation cycle of giving them free content? That’s not economically sustainable.
- Internet person. What’s defines an expert? What are you an expert of? Is it bringing people together? Looking at things differently? I’m curious what is the unique skill you bring to the table? And i only ask this because 1) many millennials struggle with discovering their own unique talents and 2) how does one become an expert when there’s so much noise online and everyone is positioning their own projected opinion as some kind of fake authority
- Ask about you:
- What personal challenges or fears do you face building these communities, especially being an entrepreneur and recently making the plunge to do this full time?
- Do you ever get tired of meeting people? How do you manage and maintain all these friendships? How deep can you really go when the quantity gets so high?
- What’s your all time favorite meme?
- What is something you wish someone had told you 5 years ago, or you had told yourself, that you had to learn on your own? But would have made life so much easier had you known.
- How can people get involved and learn more about you?
