Doglapan: The Hard Truth about Life and Start-Ups

I sincerely wish Ashneer would achieve what he felt as unfinished business via Bharat Pe, some day soon. Amazing story telling , enjoyed so much , that I can easily imagine the characters and then googled to have a face to the real life names in order to remember.Unprecedented betrayal led by Suhail and other “Chors” reminding me of Kauravas.Congratulations to Mr Grover in winning the case in HC.

From Shark Tank I always admired Ashneer's brutal honesty, that is deeply lacking in today's pointlessly pleasing, sugarcoating environment. Nowadays, you have to sugarcoat everything single damn small thing, god knows for what reason, part of it, I contribute to the social media plague.Anyways, this book made me understand, that this guy is incredibly smart, extremely intelligent and very hard-working, in a nutshell, great guy, worth his salt.After reading it, I would definitely put it in the must-read list for aspiring entrepreneurs.

A no holds barred, honest and straight from the gut narrative by Mr. Ashneer Grover, co-founder of Bharatpe and icon of Shark Tank India.This is not an autobiography per se though it does provide a fleeting glimpse of author’s life growing up as a kid in the joint family at Delhi, studying at IIT-Delhi and thereafter at bluest of the blue IIM-A.As can be inferred from the writing style it is pretty much evident that Mr. Grover doesn’t believe in beating about the bush and calls a spade a spade, which can be interpreted either as him being an honest and straightforward person or a blunt and “muhfatt” fellow. He doesn’t mince his words when he talks about his lifelong hatred for consultancy firms (sab baton ka khel khelte hain or words to that effect). He mentions his pay package and emoluments (read Stock options) at Kotak Bank (first job post MBA), American Express, Grofers, PC Jewelers and E&Y (which by his own accounts must rank as the shortest stint in the history of shortest stints).The author provides a detailed account of how Bharatpe was founded, the efforts he had to put and the obstacles he faced at Bharat pe as well as his pervious jobs. He lauds his fund-raising ability and smart business acumen in the fintech market. He is also prudent enough to point at his own mistakes as well as the mistakes committed by his competitors. He also explains as to why he left or switched a certain job and that too not on account of money as he took a pay cut when he joined Grofers as CFO after having left AmEx.All in all “Doglapan” (Mr. Grover should apply for copyright for this word) is an engaging read, if you were enamored by the author’s persona in Shark Tank or remember him from the Kotak funding fiasco then do read this book. If not for anything else you will get to see the sheer hard work, dedication and perseverance he has put in whatever he has touched as well as his hands on expertise in the financial market. His not so ceremonious exit from Bharat pe is chronicled in the last chapter wherein he has painstakingly detailed the motivations of his board members for doing what they did and how they did it. The proverbial backstabbing by the ones whom he had recruited or joined hands with is painful to read especially with regard to the anguish Mr. Grover and his family had to undergo. As stated in the book Mr. Grover remains the single largest individual shareholder in Bharatpe.Doglapan is an object lesson for startups and Mr. Ashneer Grover is the new age fintech guru, I am not sure if he is on Goodreads or will he be reading my review on Amazon but I only have one question for him, “How does one buy a BMW or Mercedes by being a teetotaler?!!!”

My rating of the book - ★★☆☆☆I had not watched even a single episode of Shark Tank India or the USA so far. I just knew Ashneer Grover as the founder of BharatPe and picked this book just to understand his entrepreneurial journey.This is nothing but a book of complaints. A shallow book indeed (with irresistible Hindi words in between). The hard truth of life and startups are just a selling point tagline in my opinion. I'm an avid lover of entrepreneurial journeys. I chose this book with the impression that this journey is from my own country and I want to know this. But I was wrong!This book is fully about how Ashneer Grover is right and others are wrong. He may be right indeed, but why should a reader pick this book? Just to learn how many wives and affairs Suhail has and eventually became CEO without a 'fire in the belly'? Or how Shashvat bagged crores by being quiet the entire time? Or how did Bhavik having criminal charges end up in the entrepreneurial journey with Grover? What exactly is the hardest truth here?Unfortunately, I need to compare this book. See, I had read 'Shoe Dog' (Nike's journey) as well as 'That will never work' (Netflix's journey). In both books, the entrepreneur explains how they survived or how they lost something in their valuable journeys. For example, in Shoe Dog, Knight would explain how he was disappointed when Tiger Onitsuka gave him a hard time in shoe distribution in the USA, in the case of Netflix, Randolph journey with an 18 months runway for saving Netflix with a layoff and most importantly how he came up with the 1-month free trial (a master stroke model till date) saved Netflix and made it enter the FAANG group is an extraordinary inspiration in itself.There is nothing in this book like that. Ashneer's connections are mostly big shots. You and I will never have a circle in life and in spite of having such huge connections and people like Grover himself were unable to withstand a termination from a company that he himself built (as he claims to be).Lastly, imagine if Steve Jobs writes a book narrating each incident on how John Sculley fired him. Would you read it he calls it the hard truth of life and startups? It is an inspiring story that became a couple of films only because Steve Jobs bounced back and became the Greatest of All Time CEOs of Silicon Valley. Else no one would've batted an eye at his unceremonious termination from Apple.Ashneer Grover is a "Straight A's" and his first and the biggest failure of his life led him to think, that this is the hardest truth of life. I respect him for a meteoric rise through his business model to tap the 1 Trillion Dollar Indian market using an interoperability QR Code, but this is not worth reading. Absolutely a book of lamenting and not at all inspiring.The best takeaway from this book possibly is "A job cannot make you rich.". Which we already knew.

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