Hello Friends,
I am back with yet another exciting book review. My last review was about the journey of an entrepreneur. Today I am going to talk about "How I Almost Blew It" by Sidharth Rao which is a compilation of some of the very successful Indian entrepreneurs' journeys. Hope you guys like it.
The author himself is a successful entrepreneur who started as early as at the age of 19.He has been the founder of one of the leading digital agencies in India named web chutney which was later acquired by Dentsu Aegis Network. He is an angel investor as well. Hence being an entrepreneur it would have been easier for him to relate with fellow entrepreneurs’ journeys ,understand their challenges & strategies and pen them down, which he has done successfully in this book. He selected some of the most exciting journeys from internet business in India which include a handful of very prominent names as well as some of the names whose stories were rarely shared. I have read quite a few books which consist of successful startup stories. But most of them have majorly showcased their achievements, milestones & financial success during the course. 'How I almost blew it' narrates the hardships the founders overcame, the decisions which went wrong & resulted in almost shutting down and fighting back to achieve success from extremely unfavorable situations. Afterall the journey of an entrepreneur is always a roller-coaster ride & that is what makes it so exciting. Isn't it?? You can feel that excitement in the stories narrated in the book.
Stories have been explained in extremely simple language. No complex business terms ,financial abbreviations or detailed business structures mentioned in the stories which can be difficult to understand for a non-business background reader. Every story gives a valuable lesson or two but not highlighted with bullet points. It's upto the reader to understand the underlying learnings in every story & that's what makes this book so engaging to the readers. one of the features of the book is you need not to continue the chapters one after the other. Considering every story is different from the other you can make your own sequence of chapters.
Zomato, Make my trip, Naukri.com, Freecharge, sify, Book my show, Microland, Times internet.. and the list goes on. These are some of the stories mentioned in the book. But what is the common thread in their journeys??Any guesses?? One might say that they started on technology based ideas or may be most of them pivoted quite a few times to reach where they are today. But I feel there are two characteristic traits which are prominent among all the founders mentioned in the book.. sheer determination & never give up attitude. Infact these are the common traits among entrepreneurs of any era. Rather I should go one step ahead & say that these are the common characteristic traits of every successful person in this world irrespective of his/her field of work. But to showcase these traits in an entrepreneur’s journey with no exaggerations is a difficult task. But the author has done that with perfection in this book.
One more very important aspect of this book is that all the stories narrated are of Indian entrepreneurs .They started their journey from scratch without any previous business experience or sufficient funding support at the initial stages. That is why it is so exciting to know their story. Kudos to the author too for combining such fascinating stories at one place which once again emphasizes the fact that our country can produce dynamic business leaders & entrepreneurs who can be idols not only for our country but also for the rest of the world. Their stories not only inspire us but also convey the age old message that there is no shortcut to success. Probably inclusion of some of the women entrepreneurs' journey could have been icing on the cake. Hopefully we can expect them in Sidharth's future books. But for now 'How I Almost Blew It' is a must read for all the young professionals.
Image Credit: amazon.in
Personal Recommendation (Start up stories)
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