Title: Entrepreneurship Simplified: From IDEA to IPO
Authors: Ashok Soota and S. R. Gopalan
Publisher: Penguin Random House, India.
Number of pages: 233
Price: Rs. 499
We are living in the era of Start-ups. Innovation, venture capital, finance, entrepreneurship, etc. are the buzz words. Book shops, websites, blogs and other social media platforms are flooded with this content. “Entrepreneurship Simplified: From Idea to IPO”, stands apart as unlike the western or more particularly American content, this step- by- step guide addresses the issues and concerns of the aspiring Indian entrepreneurs.
The book is authored by Ashok Soota and S. R. Gopalan. Ashok Soota is the founding chairman of MindTree and Happiest Minds Technologies. Prior to this he led Wipro’s IT business for 15 years. S. R. Gopalan is the founders of Dawn Consulting and Bizworth India, which provide advisory services covering finance, regulation, taxation and strategic aspects of business and the valuation of enterprise and intangibles.
According to Ashok Soota, it was a practical guide and therefore it should help budding entrepreneurs in deciding: what and what not, why and why not, how and how not, when and when not. Moreover, they illustrate each point with their own stories of two successful ventures — MindTree and Happiest Mind. The authors are passionate about grooming the entrepreneurs and dispassionate while writing the book. With the rise of Infosys and Wipro, India witnessed new generation of entrepreneurs. They were not traders, neither had they inherited any conglomerate or big business. They worked hard to create new companies with mission, values and finally new culture. Entrepreneurship is hard but it need not always be so, is the aim of this book.
The book has ten chapters: Idea Generation and Validation, Funding, Winning with VCs, Mission Vision Values and Culture, Organization, Business Strategy, Marketing Strategy, Wealth Creation and Sharing, Initial Public Offering, Failures and Success. At the end of the each chapter, key takeaways are listed. Therefore the book becomes everyday companion for budding entrepreneurs.
Some of the takeaways are as follows:
About this book, Nandan Nilkeni has rightly remarked, “Required reading for any aspiring entrepreneur…,” adding that, “Even after so many years of co-creating and growing Infosys and then doing the Aadhar project, I found many essential lessons in Soota and Gopalan’s book that will help me better as I mentor other companies.”
