From Non-Profit to Net-Zero: Prasoon Kumar’s BillionBricks Is Rethinking Housing

What if your home could power itself - and pay for itself?

In this powerful episode of The Power Within, host Keith Power sits down with award-winning architect and changemaker Prasoon Kumar, founder of BillionBricks, to explore how one man’s vision is rewriting the rules of housing, finance, and human dignity.

Prasoon walked away from a global design career to tackle one of the world’s most urgent challenges — sheltering the billions left behind. From WeatherHyde, the life-saving emergency shelter, to PowerHyde, the world’s first net-zero, income-generating home, this conversation reveals how courage, curiosity, and compassion can turn ideas into impact.

Together, Keith and Prasoon unpack what it really means to:

• Lead with purpose, not ego
• Turn design thinking into global change
• Bridge philanthropy and profitability
• Build teams united by mission, not borders

🔗 Listen, learn, and be inspired to build differently - in leadership, in business, and in life.

🎧 The Power Within Podcast - uncovering the real stories behind leadership and growth.

#BillionBricks #PrasoonKumar #LeadershipPodcast #SustainableHousing #NetZeroHomes #SocialInnovation #PurposeDrivenLeadership #KeithPower #ThePowerWithinPodcast

Tune in for an inspiring conversation that will leave you equipped with the tools to lead with confidence, overcome obstacles and unlock The Power Within

email us at: info@motivuscoaching.com

Subscribe, share and leave a review to help others discover the show

Transcript

Setting The Stage: Purposeful Leadership

Keith Power 0:00

Welcome to The Power Within; the podcast that uncovers the real stories and strategies behind leadership and personal growth. I Keith Power and in each episode I sit down with inspiring individuals who face challenges, build resilience, and discover what it takes to lead within the life. Through their journeys, we'll explore the mindset and tools that drive meaningful success. If you're ready to grow, lead and unlock your true potential, you're in the right place. Today's guest didn't just ask those questions, he built the answers. Prasoon Kuma is an architect who walked away from a global design career to tackle one of the world's most stubborn problems: how to house the billions left behind. What started as a nonprofit in 2013 is now a groundbreaking for-profit movement that's reshaping how we think about shelter, equity, and opportunity. He's won the Singapore President's Design Award, spoken on the TEDx stage, and believes the best minds are too often solving the wrong problems. Today we find out why he thinks like that and what he's doing to change it. Prasoon, welcome to the Power Within. Thank you. So often in leadership, the hardest choice isn't between right and wrong. It's between safe and meaningful. Many of us face that moment when the comfortable path no longer aligns with our deeper purpose. So, Prasoon, you made that pivot. What was the turning point for you?

Prasoon Kumar 2:32

Firstly, thank you for having me here. And I'm looking forward to this conversation. I think it uh not only for I think people who listen to this, but also for me, it gives me a chance to reflect and take a break and think about what I do and why I do that. But I think going back to your question, I don't think there was like one point or one pivot or one of those days or aha moment that I had. I think it was kind of a longest journey uh through which I went on to do what I did.

Keith Power 3:01

A build-up kind of thing.

Conferences, Ego, And Humility Gaps

The 90‑Day Listening Rule

Prasoon Kumar 3:03

A build up over several years. And I think it was really about uh questioning my work and what I do and what I kind of learned in school. And I remember I think one of the key points was in 2009 I was at this uh conference in the Philippines, and it was my first time attending an affordable housing conference, and I'd never been in that space at all. And it was quite an inspiring environment to have people from all over the world talk about the best examples and how the problem needs to be solved and all these beautiful conversations. But I also realized that all these experts were quite detached from the reality. Okay. Because if they all had the answer, then why is the problem not getting solved? And why is no one having the humility to say that we probably don't know? And the purpose of the conference is to find out what we are doing wrong that's not working, rather than coming and deliberating on what has worked, because in reality it hasn't worked. Yeah. Right? And housing the space that we are in, I mean, the numbers of people that need access to homes is rapidly increasing. So it means everything that we are doing is failing.

Keith Power 4:15

So do you think that uh ego plays a part is like for architects and people who are in that space?

Prasoon Kumar 4:22

I think it pays for everyone, that it plays a part for everyone. And I think it probably goes to your question of I think you used a word called unsafe or or being too safe, right? I think we don't want to be in a space we are not aware of. And we have to come across as knowledgeable, especially as we grow. We don't want to come across as something we don't know. And I think those are our inhibitions which let us keep us away from exploring and really being truthful, right?

Keith Power 4:50

And we don't want to be vulnerable.

Prasoon Kumar 4:52

Yeah, we don't, right? Yeah. I mean, we have people have set some expectations from us.

Speaker 2 4:57

Right.

Prasoon Kumar 4:58

And then if you don't come through on them, then what value am I bringing to the table, right? And I think this reminds me of I think uh this interview from Simon Sinek where he talks about this concept at I think Chanel. They have this rule where if you are a senior leadership that has been hired, then for the first 90 days in meetings, you're not supposed to speak up. Quite right, too. Right? And their purpose is that you have to listen in. Yeah and don't think that you have to bring in your value because you are valuable, that's why we've hired you. Yes, yes. So you don't have to be fast and quick in it, right? And so take time to learn and absorb and also appreciate what works and what doesn't work. And I think that patience we don't have in us, or we've kind of lost that humility to take a pause and say, okay, what is the right thing to do and what shall we be doing? And this is, I think, not only, I mean, I'm talking about housing, but I think it's across the board.

Founding BillionBricks: Pay Cut To Purpose

Keith Power 5:51

I stretched it by 10 days, but I do a program the first hundred days for people who have just come from outside into a senior leadership position. And that's exactly what I talk about with them. It's about learning, observing, keeping your eyes and ears open, going around, not committing to anything, and especially you don't need to show your value at that point. So I don't earn the same money as Simon Sinek, but I'm in the same space as him. Leaders talk a lot as well about agility. You hear it all of the time. But real agility means being willing to reinvent the very model that we're working with. It's about courageously evolving when circumstances demand it. You made a big shift with Billion Bricks. What did that teach you about resilience and adaptability?

Nonprofit To For‑Profit: Why Pivot

Prasoon Kumar 6:46

Yeah, I think I'll probably give a more straightforward answer. I don't think I thought in terms of resilience or adaptability at all when I did it. I think I founded Billion Bricks just because I wanted to do what I wanted to do. And I think we read and talk a lot about following our passion or a purpose. But in reality, I think when most of us are employed in corporate work, and which is where I worked as well, eventually we are actually being paid to do what we are doing, right? So if somebody would ask us to say, okay, would you take a 50% pay cut and continue to follow your passion in my corporate, would we do that? I think that's a question to ask. That's a good one. Right. And for me, I had to take a hundred percent pay cut when I quit my job and founded Billion Bricks just because I wanted to follow. And I think I did that only as a test and experiment to see that is it possible to really do what I believe in? Brave. Sorry? It's very brave. But I didn't think of it at that time that it was brave. It was only when I quit my job. I felt when I read newspaper and you read books that everybody's doing it. It's only when I quit and everybody started saying you're really brave. It really that time I had the fear. What have I done? And have I done the right thing or not? And but then I think by that time it was probably too late. Or I think I didn't want to go back without trying. And I set up a goal for myself for five years to say that the problem that we've taken of solving the housing crisis at scale is something that cannot be done in 90 days or 100 days, and I don't know what has to be done. So I gave myself five years to say, okay, let me see, can I in five years come up with a solution from first principles for it? And that's where agility was very, very important for us. So we didn't we started as a nonprofit but became a for-profit. But it was never about non-profit or for-profit.

Keith Power 8:32

Okay.

Prasoon Kumar 8:32

It was just about, I have this problem, I need to solve it. I don't know how to make money out of it.

Keith Power 8:38

Very pragmatic way.

Prasoon Kumar 8:40

So it ended up being a nonprofit, and that's also, I think, some lack of knowledge because you think if you're working with homeless, you have to be nonprofit, right?

Keith Power 8:46

Yeah.

Three Root Causes Of Homelessness

Prasoon Kumar 8:46

So I don't think I thought so much, but I just wanted to like just quit and get started. So I uh so that's how it happened. And I think as we evolved in those five years, we experimented with a lot of stuff. Uh, we ran a program which we called as Urban X to really see what are the areas that need to be addressed if we have to solve it at scale. So our goal was always to have the audacity, like large companies like Google or Facebook have, to say, okay, we want to organize the entire world's information or we want to make sure the entire world is a community on our platform. And we said that why is it that when it comes to big problems in the world, we want to be very focused and satisfied in our community or in our region. We don't want to build an enterprise which says, okay, I will dominate the problem globally. And that kind of drove us to say, okay, what would it take us to solve it at a global level? And we had kind of learned through our workings over the years on ground that there are three reasons why this problem occurs. One is uh because of disasters. These could be natural or economic or social or political, and people get displaced and they become homeless. The second uh reason was the fact that rural areas today are becoming poorer and poorer, and there's a gravitational shift to urban areas and there isn't an employment. Which governments like. And they like, right, to do for various reasons, right? And the third was really in urban areas, it's the land economics where the land is all privatized, that housing's become so expensive that there's no alternative available. So we said if we can address these three areas with three different solutions and they are each scalable, then we may have a stab at solving the problem at a global level. So for the first case of displacement, we came up with a solution called Weather Hide. The second Weather Hide, which was a uh temporary shelter for people displaced and to make sure they don't die in extreme conditions. The second one for rural urban migration, we came with a house that would generate income for people in rural areas and therefore make them less vulnerable and less attractive to move to cities. And then we came up with an idea called urban hide, which was to relook at land economics and relook at sharing economy around housing. So we had these three ideas, and out of that, power hide, which was this idea of income generating homes, turned out to be financially very positive and gave us an opportunity to become actually a for-profit enterprise.

Keith Power 11:18

So, what are the key elements of the um the viability of these in terms of like uh power in electricity, et cetera? What's what's the secret to it? What's the secret source?

WeatherHyde, UrbanHide, And PowerHyde

The Real Barrier: Financing, Not Design

Prasoon Kumar 11:33

So the secret source was that Billion Bricks was originally founded with the principle to not design poorly for the poor. And we believed in that good design can really push forward the agenda of addressing the housing issues. But in my journey over the many years and uh after impacting, I think about 15,000 people in the first five years of the work, I learned that it's actually not a design problem and it's not a construction problem, and it's not even a materials problem. It's really a financing problem. And the reason you and I can own a home is not because we have enough money in our banks, it's because the banks trust us to lend us and allow us to have access to homes. But poor people are considered too risky to lose money on them. So the financial system today is designed so you're willing to lose money on large corporations or rich corporations if they are not able to return the money millions of dollars, but you are not willing to take that same millions of dollars and risk on the poor because you don't think you can return it back. And in order to address this financing issue, we said that could we create a mechanism through which the house itself can generate income and pay for itself. Right. And the idea came, I still remember very well, I was on a flight in India between two cities, and I was reading this magazine on the flight, and it had an article on solar farms. And it talked about the fact that how at that time, not today, at that time, solar farms could actually uh be able to become profitable in about seven years. And that's when people would exit and then they could continue to generate energy for the community that they are operating in. So I said that if seven years they can generate this money and become self-sufficient, in housing, the mortgages are like 21 to 28 to 30 years. Yeah, even more. Which means if I can generate this income not for seven, but for four extra time, then I can use the additional profits to actually pay for the house for the people.

Keith Power 13:38

Right.

Prasoon Kumar 13:39

That was the idea that I kind of came in. And then I still remember doing these back of the napkin calculations to see, okay, can it be done? And I designed the first house, which was a tiny house, about 30 square meters, but with a 70 square meter roof, and the roof could generate enough power to pay a hundred percent of the construction cost of the house in about 21 years. Wow. And that's how the idea came in. We began went in and built it in India and two prototypes in the Philippines to really see if this works.

Solar Roofs And Income‑Generating Homes

Keith Power 14:10

How do you convince banks, building societies, and other lenders of the viability of this, though? What's the key to that?

Prasoon Kumar 14:22

So the short answer is we cannot.

Keith Power 14:24

Right.

Prasoon Kumar 14:25

There are two risk averse for anything innovative or anything new which has not been proven. So what we are doing is that we have very successfully, and I think I'm quite uh privileged that there are people who are financing us to take us to a level where we can prove it through different levels of funding and delivery of this work. So philanthropy basically. I would say it's not 100% philanthropy. But I think my my pitch to these people is that Billion Bricks is a for-profit enterprise, so it's designed to make money. But if you have enough money where you are risking on different enterprises, and some of them will succeed or not, then why don't you give Billion Bricks a try?

Convincing Capital: Risk, Proof, Patience

Keith Power 15:10

Yeah, yeah.

Prasoon Kumar 15:10

If we failed, we'll be like another startup who failed. You probably lost a couple of million dollars. But imagine if we succeed, then what would we have done for this world and then of course for everybody else? So I think people have come in to support us with the idea that yes, it can succeed, but it needs a lot of patience, and it's a very high-risk proposition. But someone got to take that risk.

Keith Power 15:34

But there's still a level of philanthropy there. It's not a pure investment. Because I'm sure if I had millions and I was helping that out, at least it makes you feel good on the journey.

Prasoon Kumar 15:47

So I think the the thought is probably maybe more philanthropic in the back end, but I think our pitch and why people have joined us is I think not 100% on philanthropy.

Keith Power 15:59

It's a commercial pitch.

Prasoon Kumar 16:00

It is commercial pitch.

Dignity By Design: WeatherHyde Story

Keith Power 16:01

I don't know if you know this, but I was chair of the largest homeless charity in Wales, my country. And yes, I did think uh locally. I thought about Wales only. We never, and I'm thinking back now, why didn't we? We never thought outside ourselves, other than perhaps to talk to people in England and Scotland about what we can learn from them. Never ever to do something bigger, never a thought. We're always solving day-to-day problems, basically. Fascinating, and my other side of my career comes from energy and uh started experimenting in uh generating energy from various different ways, but again, all of these things are done locally, even though the company I work for were global, they experimented and expanded this one is a recovery within uh a boiler system in Austria only. Why? The government supported it and sponsored it. Correct, it's so broken down, right? It's so fragmented, the thinking is fragmented, whether it's government or commercial. So you're I will go back and say you're brave, and perhaps you don't think that, but it's quite brave to take on something that is global by nature, a really big problem. And as I said in my introduction, that people are given the wrong brains of working on the wrong things, basically. So I I I will applaud you for taking this on. It's gonna be your life's work. This isn't a career, right?

Prasoon Kumar 17:44

I didn't think what I was signing up for at that point in time.

Keith Power 17:46

It's for life, and it doesn't seem like there's an exit clause for you. Maybe there is for your investors, but not for you. At the heart of leadership is remembering the human being behind every decision. Dignity isn't a nice to have, it's essential to lasting impact. You built that into Weather Hide, we just talked about how did that philosophy shape your work and what can leaders learn from putting humanity at the center?

Charity Misaligned With Real Needs

Prasoon Kumar 18:15

I'm glad you asked that question. In fact, it goes back to your point earlier of looking at things very locally as well, right? And Weatherhyde was designed um soon after I quit my job in 2013. There was an incident in India where some 30 children had died when they'd been rendered homeless after some communal riots and were sleeping in these fields. The temperatures dropped at a night, and and so this happened. And I was shocked that in the 21st century we don't have the ability to save our children from something as trivial as cold. And I come from Delhi and I've seen growing up every winter where there are these drives for blankets and for warm clothes to be donated for the homeless. And it's been going on for 40 years. Right? And so we have not been able to solve these things, but we keep coming on television and conferences and keep talking about what the solution is. So whether height was designed very specifically to say what would it take so people and children don't die of extreme cold and extreme heat as well.

Keith Power 19:22

You talk about solution, but what is done is just a stick in plaster, but it's not a solution, right? It uh assuages your conscience, it makes you feel good for this winter.

Prasoon Kumar 19:36

Correct. And then what? Correct, right? Because charity is not about the person on the ground. It's more about what we like and what we think the problem should be solved. And I can give you a great example just with related to this issue of people dying on the streets because of cold. In India, a lot of people provide blankets to the homeless in winter. And what happens is a lot of homeless would go and sell the blankets or whatever one they want to buy. And we put the blame on the homeless, saying that they didn't care for the blankets that we provided. So what authorities or what people started to do is that when they would donate blankets, they will cut one corner into a triangle so they cannot be resold. So we are forcing them to use something that you think they need. Yeah. While for them the priority is probably tea or hot water or whatever they need to survive that winter. So we've always designed charity for what we think is right, not what they need.

From Grants To Venture: Funding Pools

Keith Power 20:32

You're absolutely right.

Prasoon Kumar 20:34

And the further burden in charity is that when we do solutions for poor, we want them to be extra perfect. So while we want to provide them with blankets, we want to make sure that we empower the people, we make sure that they are sustainably sourced and environmentally friendly, and we want to make sure they are the cheapest. So the core problem of saying we want to make sure these people don't die in winter is secondary.

Keith Power 21:01

Yeah, there's other priorities before it.

Housing Meets Energy And Climate

Prasoon Kumar 21:04

It's everything else becomes a priority. So WeatherNight was designed to say we want to save lives, we want to be able to provide something in the shortest possible time. So we had this tent that we designed, which worked on the principle of trapping your own body heat to keep you warm. And this is for the entire family. And it looked like I took my jacket to China and I got it manufactured there. So very high-quality tent that you would get, and we would manufacture it in China, ship it across the world, and I think we ended up impacting more than 10,000 people through those shelters. But it still failed because nobody as an authority and as organizations wanted to buy them. It worked very well if I give you testimonials from people who used it. It worked very well. In fact, I think the first of those were distributed in 2018 in Delhi. And I still get pictures, including in last week, from people who are still using it.

Keith Power 21:56

Wow.

Prasoon Kumar 21:57

But nobody wanted to buy because they didn't meet their standards of sustainability. They were like they are not locally built.

Keith Power 22:03

Yeah.

Global Vision, Local Alignment

Prasoon Kumar 22:03

And they didn't meet the standards of affordability because they cost $300. Right. And they didn't meet the standards for empowerment because I hadn't employed the homeless to build it on their own. But it focused on the fact that people would not die and they could use them for 10 years if they need to use it because the help is not coming. And that's the problem in this in this system. Yeah. That we are not focused on what is needed to solve the problem. We are focused on how we need to solve it. So Weatherheight could never win any tenders by large organizations because they had never imagined a tent or a shelter which was this innovative material which has these inventions in it. Yeah. And they didn't know how to process it. And I have pictures when we shipped them to Bangladesh during the Rohingya crisis of what the UN organizations were providing, which were, which would meet the criteria of empowerment and sustainability, were these bamboo poles and tarps. But didn't do the job. But didn't do the job. And when I got the feedback from Bangladesh, weather heights were being used by women for shower and for changing clothes because they could provide them privacy and dignity, which the shelters that were being built there in millions would not provide. So it's the weather heights is a strange story.

Keith Power 23:21

It's an upside-down world of success and failure. Yeah, yeah. Well, it's a success that failed, if that makes any sense, right? Well said, yeah. Really? We touched on is finance. So sometimes a breakthrough comes when we realize we're solving the wrong problem, which you've just touched on. Leaders who reframe challenges often unlock entirely new possibilities. You said the real challenge isn't design, but finance. How did shift in that perspective open doors then for billion bricks? And does it continue to open doors?

Building Networks And Partnerships

Prasoon Kumar 23:55

Yeah, so I think it was a huge pivot for us. I mean, not only did this whole idea of income generating homes make this a pivot from nonprofit to for-profit. Um, we talked about the capital, so we could raise venture money as opposed to philanthropic money. And just the pool of resources have increased tremendously for us.

Keith Power 24:15

That was a big flip. Going from nonprofit to profit meant the finance sources changed. It's changed completely, right?

Prasoon Kumar 24:21

And I think it was just on this idea of these income generating homes that we had. And I think the other thing that we did and what we learned in the previous five years of the nonprofit billion bricks is that housing is very difficult to fund, especially for the bottom of the pyramid. And another reason for that is the fact that you cannot build cheap houses, right? So you need at least $10,000, $15,000, $20,000 to build a house which is safe anywhere. Very difficult to rose-raise philanthropic money, which is looking at how many people I can benefit with one dollar that I give. Here, with $10,000, you can only claim you've benefited five people, probably.

Mentoring Through Stretch Challenges

Keith Power 24:58

Sorry to interrupt you, but there are people who believe they're doing great things, but they are only solving a small piece of the problem. And you mentioned the Philippines earlier, and a certain famous world champion boxer, he's provided hundreds, even thousands of homes. And it's great. But where's the scale on that? Where's the continuity of that? It's brilliant you do it, but it doesn't resolve there's still homelessness across the Philippines, right? Correct.

Prasoon Kumar 25:28

So I think that's what probably sets William Bricks apart. And I think that's also what makes life hard for us. Yeah. Because we are not satisfied by building a hundred homes or or like we we help about 15,000 people.

Keith Power 25:40

You could easily pat yourself on the back. Right.

Prasoon Kumar 25:42

But that's not the goal. Exactly. In fact, I think our numbers show that we wanted to solve the problem at a global scale, but in our first five years, we impacted only 0.000083% of the problem that we had set out to do. So I think that's what pushes us a lot. And I think what worked for this new idea of generating income in the homes and using renewable energy, I mentioned about the solar farm or the solar panels being put on the roof, was that we could now attract capital, which typically would not go into housing. So our first investors in this idea were actually energy companies.

Keith Power 26:20

Not a surprise.

Prasoon Kumar 26:21

So we could now diversify the sources of funding that it could come. And then we also learned as we got deeper into the houses that we were building, is that because of the solar panels that we put in such large quantity, we can offset the entire carbon footprint of the house, both the embodied and the operational energy, making it completely net zero. And therefore, it could actually now serve the climate agenda as well. Yeah, yeah, which is very hot. So now we had these three pools of money housing, energy, and climate, that could come into a space where we couldn't come in. And I think that really made a difference for us where we were more aligned with the new trends in the world, instead of pushing us into the market and saying, okay, this is what needs to be done, we were being more pulled by the forces that exist as well.

Innovation Meets Systemic Resistance

Keith Power 27:08

So the door that you're trying to push open is wide open for you then, right? Yeah. It's again, it's just thinking differently, coming from a different angle. That's correct. I did work for one of the big energy companies. Uh I won't name them on here, but I'll try to connect you because they do care about the environment and the future, but of course they're a for-profit, but they're a family company, 100 billion uh euro revenue. So they're very big and global. You should talk with them. True leadership is tested when vision meets reality, especially across borders, cultures, and systems, which we've touched on. Scaling isn't just operational, it's deeply human. How have you built teams and partnerships that stay aligned to your mission while aligning locally?

Policy, Poverty, And Political Reality

Prasoon Kumar 28:04

The perspective that we've always had is to build a solution and an enterprise which is global. And I think that was your start point. That's that's our starting point, right? And and we also inherently believe that while we are different in different cultures, we are also inherently similar as well. And I think the task in today's day and age is a little bit easier considering the fact that the exposure we have with the internet and our lifestyles are kind of more converging than being more diverse. Yes, yes, right. So I come from India. I had a different lifestyle when I lived in India. I went for my studies to the US. I could live in a house which was not designed for my lifestyle, but still adapt and was totally fine. Nobody designed a house which was designed for an Indian student living in the US. Gotcha. Right. Then I come to Singapore and before that I lived in Hong Kong as well. And I could adjust to whatever houses were there in India. In Singapore, I lived in an HDB. You're from Haryana. From I'm from Delhi.

Keith Power 29:01

Yes, so from Delhi itself. But even in Delhi alone, the difference in the design in homes there is so diverse, exceptionally so. And I know the one thing that stands out regardless of the home you go in, the kitchen is the center of the universe in an Indian home, right? Correct, correct. It absolutely is. Correct.

Prasoon Kumar 29:22

The bigger, the better. Yes, exactly.

Keith Power 29:24

You know, you sleep in a small room and small, that's it. But you'll have a huge kitchen. That's correct. Anyway, we we digress. So uh but back to this this alignment. You think from a global perspective to start, but you need to pull in people locally. And when they're local, the thinking is local. How how do you engender that?

Personal Growth, Pressure, And Ownership

Prasoon Kumar 29:45

I think what helps us is the is the is our vision. And I think people do connect strongly with it. Inherently, I think most of us want to do the right thing. Yeah, but I think oftentimes there are not enough opportunities. Yeah. And I think billion bricks becomes an opportunity where they feel that I can probably do what I wanted to do, but I didn't know how to do it.

Keith Power 30:09

I can buy into that kind of thing, right?

Prasoon Kumar 30:11

Correct. Cool. And I think we find that both when we work with partners and stakeholders, uh, plus with our team members as well. If some enterprise or some leader struggles with motivating their teams to align on a single purpose, for us that's not a struggle. Right. I think people get the idea very quickly. And I think the way when I went into, for example, Philippines, I still remember my first trip in 2018 or 19 when we were just exploring is Philippines the market to be in. I took a flight from here. I didn't even know how to go and start exploring. I had no connections, et cetera. My idea was to rent a car and go around and start speaking to some property agents and try and figure out how to build some housing and community there. And just a friend of mine connected me to one person in one town about three hours outside of Manila. And I have built now a network of thousand people that I know in the Philippines just from that one. And people believe in what we are doing, and they open doors openly without anything for themselves. And they are very willing to help us out. They're not holding it themselves, their connections, et cetera.

A Bold Ask: Fund Housing At Scale

Keith Power 31:19

People, they become selfish, defending their world, etc. But in our core, we want to help. That is correct. We really do. But usually it's not so easy to do so, it's not so visible.

Speaker 2 31:33

Correct.

Keith Power 31:33

And I think you've tapped into something there. You've tapped into something that I think is in all of us, no matter how tough they appear on the outside. We all have this inner thing. You want to do something, you want to do good.

Speaker 2 31:45

Correct.

Keith Power 31:45

But how do I do it? How do I make a difference? That is correct. You're showing them away. A thousand in such a short time from one connection is.

Closing Reflections And Next Steps

Prasoon Kumar 31:54

Yeah, I remember once I was in this taxi in the Philippines and I got a call to meet with the Secretary of Housing, which is the equivalent to a housing minister out of nowhere. And I didn't even know who connected me to his office, and they were asking me to come and meet with him, etc. And it took me three days to trace back as to where the connection happened. But somebody knew that I should speak to him. That's great. And people just do it.

Keith Power 32:21

That's great. Well, I feel I'm thinking as you're talking, like, how can I help? So, my skill set these days, I'm a coach, right? A leadership coach. I'm offering you here and now, so it's recorded, so I can't back out. I'm happy to provide coaching for your team, either remotely or in Singapore. Pro bono, no, no problem. That's my contribution, then. We can talk about that. Thank you so much.

Prasoon Kumar 32:48

I mean, and this has been on my mind for my team. I think my team also doesn't work in an easy environment. Yeah, it's not an easy problem in a business that we are building. So we would love to talk about that for sure.

Keith Power 32:59

Let's really appreciate that. I know we're both traveling soon extensively. We're not letting the viewers know we missed each other quite literally a couple of times here. So, on mentorship again, every leader has a responsibility to grow other leaders. So, mentorship isn't about giving the answers, it's about shaping mindsets. You've been candid about the gaps in education and learning. How has that influenced the way you guide and mentor others?

Prasoon Kumar 33:28

Oh, I thought the question was coming about who are my mentors to make me. No, I want to know.

Keith Power 33:34

No, this one is on you. We'll come on to your mentors because they're important in life. But now the shoes on the other foot. Where do you see your role then in mentoring your team, the people who are around you?

Prasoon Kumar 33:49

Yeah, I think the timing of this question is very, very apt because this is literally on a day-to-day basis. We're working on this. In fact, um, we set out on a new challenge for our team 45 days ago. It just ended yesterday on the 2nd of October. And the challenge was that my team is uh people who are in RD, uh marketing, and operations. And we wanted to see is our house, which we call CNR, this net zero house, can it be sold outside of the communities that we are building in the Philippines as well? Just wanted to experiment. So we set out to change the entire team and make them into a sales team for 45 days. All right. And I wanted to really push them.

Keith Power 34:33

I wish I got involved in that.

Prasoon Kumar 34:34

And we ran this campaign for 45 days to see can we get reservations from people to get a net zero C in a home. And we just midnight yesterday, we had 50 was our target, and we completed it. So that links to the mentorship part that we I push my team. I tell them that while you may have certain skill set that you may have learned in school, et cetera, in reality, that skill set is just one part of your personality. Yeah, yeah. You are a lot more than it. Yep.

Keith Power 35:03

You need to be adaptive.

Prasoon Kumar 35:04

You need to be adaptive.

Keith Power 35:05

Yeah, yeah.

Prasoon Kumar 35:05

And in a company like ours, you need to be able to mold to what we need at what point in time. Uh, and that's you have to look at that as learning as well.

Keith Power 35:14

Now, don't name names, but tell me out of the departmental people who were the most successful in adapting to this commercial world. RD, marketing, or others.

Prasoon Kumar 35:29

I think it's it's maybe not by department, it's more by individuals. Right. Right. So I'm thinking on their personality. It's an attitude thing, then it's an attitude thing.

unknown 35:38

Okay.

Keith Power 35:39

I'll stop there because otherwise I know you're going to end up, you'll be identifying someone and they'll be watching this and we'll all be in trouble. I'll save you from that. Leadership always in any environment isn't smooth sailing. Correct. It's setbacks, doubt, and moments when walking away would definitely be easier. But resilience is forged in these cushables. Prasoon, what personal challenges have you faced? And how did you keep going when the weight felt its heaviest?

Prasoon Kumar 36:09

I think the biggest personal challenge was losing my hair. Also I grew a beard as an alternative.

Keith Power 36:14

Yeah, that's the compensatory approach, right?

Prasoon Kumar 36:18

Well, I think the challenge has been, I think, um, I think the life in what we are doing is very hard. Right. I think both physically and I think mentally. Um, while it seems it's a great vision um and it should happen. Um, and I think but the execution is extremely hard. I think I feel the world is designed for innovation to fail at every stage. Right? It's all the way from design to financing to construction. People are averse to change. Yeah. And I have also learned that even with money, you cannot bring in change. So we've tried people to build our house, like when we built the first net zero home, we wanted to build a certain way with some of the technologies that we are inventing and patents that we have. And we wanted contractors to work on that house, but nobody was willing to do it. No structure consultant would want to certify it because they're like, we haven't done a house like that. So, how do you push the market into this area? We wanted to pay the contractors much more than what they had wanted, but there are much more jobs that they can do with much more laziness and without having to push themselves. This is tough. Yeah. That even money cannot buy innovation. And I think that has probably been my hardest challenge with how do I move that system around?

Keith Power 37:40

Ask you a question about India. I know India fairly well. It's probably a country I visited most, India and China. I always had a feeling in India that, um, like a few other Southeast Asia countries, that the government seemed to be relaxed, even happy about keeping people at a poverty level. That might sound a little bit not so nice, but they're malleable, controllable. And then you see when the elections come up in India, suddenly they're spending on the poor population, and then for the next four years, nothing again. First of all, do you agree with that analysis? And secondly, do you see that as a a barrier for you globalizing what you're doing?

Prasoon Kumar 38:23

So I would say that there is definitely some truth to it, but it may not be a direct conscious effort, right? I think the the framework is designed so one person can stay in power, whichever way possible. So if it's through poverty or if it's through making them more empowered, it could work both ways. Um but I think there is people I think oftentimes poor are kept poor, not because we want to keep them, but I think we just don't know enough on how to bring them out of that situation as well. And we don't we are so involved in us, right?

Keith Power 39:00

The cynical side to me just says it doesn't matter how poor they're the vote is. You you know, there's that element to it.

Prasoon Kumar 39:06

Yeah, and I think in in India, especially since you mentioned this, I I remember this incident. I was working in a village in India, and that village had been seeing um drought for I think three years in a row. And I went to this family's house uh who invited me over. They had very little food. They offered me food, so I was feeling awkward to kind of eat in such a situation. And I asked them, so what kind of support you get from the government, etc., in such a situation. They said we don't get much, and it's been like three years, so it's been very, very hard to actually survive and feed our kids. So I said, then what keeps you going? And they said it's actually not the government's fault or politicians' fault, it's actually God's will. And I realized that there are two ways to look at this statement, right? This faith that they have keeps them motivated, doesn't get them into depression. But this is what I think some of the politicians and leaders then misutilize in saying that people are not protesting or they're not blaming us. So let it be the way it is, and we can be happy.

Keith Power 40:07

It's not just India and I'm a bit unkind and unfair. You can look closer to home in Malaysia, Indonesia, similar approaches. We're gonna we're gonna wander into territory we probably shouldn't now. So leaders often talk about impact in terms of numbers, especially numbers with dollar signs. Homes built, uh, people served, capital raised, but impact is also deeply personal. How has this journey changed you as a leader and as a person? And what do you hope your legacy will inspire in others?

Prasoon Kumar 40:45

I think what I feel most privileged about the fact that I have had the opportunity to actually literally pursue my passion and purpose with no compromises. What puts more pressure and what also motivates me is that I have no reason and no excuse to even give for my failure or success. So if I fail in a couple of years, it will all depend on me. I have no dearth to say I didn't have capital or I didn't have people or I didn't have a team or I didn't have mentors, I didn't have family. I think everything that's an ecosystem is needed for someone to perform, I do have it with me. So it's really the onus is on me that can I succeed with all the challenges that we have and can I overcome and be creative and keep myself motivated and keep going on and on. And I think that's the piece that I find most exciting about the situation in which I am in. And I think a lot of people want to follow their passion and purpose, but there are multiple reasons they cannot. Right. And I think even beyond bravery, right, there's so many considerations that we have in our lives that doesn't allow us to do it.

Keith Power 41:56

There's lots of reasons. There are. But you you did, you do, you are. So, and you're building a team around you as well who carries that forward also. I'm mindful we're gonna run out of time, but I don't want to go without this question. Leadership is about bold vision, it's about daring to ask for what seems impossible, because that's often where change begins. If you had the ear of a global leader or investor, what's the one bold ask you'd make for the future of housing?

Prasoon Kumar 42:31

I think the future of housing can really transform the entire world. I think housing, and really not that I'm in that field, but I think it's the start of both emotional and financial success of our societies and bringing them out of poverty. And I think they shouldn't refrain from looking at each housing project as a financially sustainable and a viable project. They should look at from a larger perspective, and I think they should really allocate enough funding to actually build it, make it easier, and really prioritize without thinking too much, without overcomplicating it. Just build it, and I think the value will get created in the countries and economies and at a global level for everyone.

Keith Power 43:18

To paraphrase from a famous movie, build it and they will come. They will come. They will come. Prasoon, it's been an absolute pleasure, insightful. You've inspired me enough to want to jump in. I hope that this uh podcast also forces other people to think in that same way. Appreciate your time very much. I wish you every success and uh let's keep talking.

Prasoon Kumar 43:42

Definitely. Thank you for having me here and looking forward to what the podcast comes out as. And any feedback, please send it across.

Keith Power 43:49

We'll do. Thanks a lot.