Interviews and press

Media

My interviews, to watch here, with the key moments in each marked by the minute. Below them, the press coverage of Shark Tank Nepal and Agni Group.

Interviews: Four: three in English, one in Nepali
Formats: A walking day-in-the-life, two long-form podcasts, and a five-shark panel
Press: Twelve published sources, linked below

A Day with Shark

Twenty minutes, mostly on foot. It opens with him still in bed reading the news and the football scores, then follows him to the warehouse, on to the training centre, and finally onto the showroom floor. By his own count it was roughly his second extended time in front of a camera.

Runtime: About 20 minutes
Format: Day-in-the-life walking interview
Channel: TechPana
Full title: A Day with Shark — क्याबिनेट श्रेष्ठसँग शार्कदेखि शोरुम सम्मका कुरा

What he says in it

“We learned so much the other way around.”
On the founders who pitched: forget about them learning from the sharks.
“EV I think is now getting more refined. Tech is moving really really fast.”
On electric vehicles, from the showroom floor. Charging in around 45 minutes, he says, will change the whole game.
“You get better concept, simple as that. More choice, better.”
How he commissions design work: give designers two words, put every concept together, then choose.
“It’s like home where the heart is.”
On why an office should be somewhere you want to stay, with coffee whenever anyone wants it.

On Air With Sanjay #663

The longest sit-down of the three, with a host he has known since about 2008 — back when Sanjay was running an internet radio station and he took an interest in it. It is also the least guarded: why he started a business instead of taking a job, where the name Agni came from, the Scorpio years, electric vehicles going back to 2012, and a long stretch on vehicle tax and domestic manufacturing that has no other home on this site.

Runtime: About 97 minutes
Host: Sanjay Silwal Gupta
Format: Long-form podcast interview

What he says in it

“Good for business, good for government, good for everybody, except for the end user.”
On Nepal’s vehicle taxes, at 300 per cent and more. He would put at least half of that revenue back into the roads.
“Assembly is just one part of it.”
On manufacturing in Nepal: beyond assembly, there could be industries in tyres, batteries and seats.
“I’ve had four, five failures.”
Asked about the ventures that didn’t work. One, an animation company, was way too early for its time.
“I would look at products that can be scaled up and exported.”
Asked where he would put his own money now. Any sector, so long as it scales outside the country.

How Sharks Are Making Money III

A panel, so for most of two hours and twelve minutes he is one voice of six. He is introduced as the final shark a little past the forty-eight-minute mark, and what follows is his fullest account of the beginning anywhere: the pressure that started it, a distributorship nobody thought much of, seventeen years of losing money, and the contract that ended them. The host comes back to him near the end for the electric programme and one thing he would ask of government.

Runtime: About 132 minutes
Format: Five-shark panel — he is one of six voices
Channel: What’s With
Full title: EP10 — How Sharks Are Making Money III: Remittance, Automotive, Agribusiness

Where he speaks

Introduced as the final shark, and handed the floor
The host turns back to him — “coming to you, the Scorpio man”
The last stretch: failures, the shape of the portfolio, one policy ask

What he says in it

“Definitely… 100% in… Everything sounds correct. If the technology works.”
Put on the spot with a pitch: a 23-year-old in Biratnagar with a portable, rooftop solar EV charger, asking Rs 50 lakh to put 50 across the country.
“There’s too many constant policy changes… sometimes it hits you out of nowhere. A person changes, there’s a new policy.”
Asked what he would change with five minutes in front of government. He points to Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, where policy for the private sector carries on.

Behind Nepal’s Shark Tank

A podcast conversation, mostly in Nepali: how he came to Shark Tank Nepal, how long a pitch really runs in the room, why the startup boom came after COVID, and how he runs the business now, from its systems to travelling the country end to end.

Show: The Sushant Pradhan Podcast, episode 448
Host: Sushant Pradhan
Language: Mostly Nepali
Full title: Ep: 448 — Behind Nepal’s Shark Tank: Post-COVID Business Insights with Cabinet Shrestha

It’s in Nepali, so this site quotes it in paraphrase only. It’s behind lines in Shark Tank and Lessons on the home page.

In print

Published coverage, and the company’s own record at the end of the list. These are the sources behind the numbers used elsewhere on this site.

Where these end up