Entrepreneurship Simplified: From Idea to IPO

Dr. Sridhar Mitta is the Managing Director and Founder of NextWealth Entrepreneurs Private Limited. He was the first employee at Wipro and Chief Technology Officer since its inception in 1980. During his tenure Wipro became the highest valued company in India. Dr. Mitta was also a Trustee of TiE Global, the world’s largest organization fostering entrepreneurship.Review of the Book ‘Entrepreneurship Simplified’ by Ashok Soota and SR Gopalan.Ashok and Gopalan explained their reason for writing this book is to share their decades of experience into a concise, comprehensive and practical guide for all entrepreneurs.As a person whose career ran parallel to the Indian Information Technology (IT) industry for nearly forty five years, the ideas presented in the book resonate well with me.I read many books on entrepreneurship and management by eminent authors who are either professors from academia or successful media persons. Such books present the theme very nicely as a story with too much of overheads running into several hundreds pages and you get tired by the time you complete reading the book. Ashok and Gopalan, a combination of an engineer and a finance person, makes their point more directly and straight forward in a fraction of the pages. There is very little jargon and puff. It is all matter and no gas!These ideas were articulated in a simple yet powerful manner that can set a lot of triggers in your mind. Examples given are real, current and drawn from actual experience. I specifically find two chapters are of very high value – Winning with VCs and Business Strategy (specifically pivoting strategy).In my early career as young electronic design engineer I used to refer to ‘Electronic Design Reference Handbook’ that provided me with useful tips and similar examples to aid in the design. This book may be seen as ‘Entrepreneurship Reference Handbook’.I was impressed with the humility of the authors who have admitted some mistakes they made and shared them as lessons for others to avoid.Associations like TiE and Nasscom offer mentoring programs for young entrepreneurs by experienced senior members. The mentees will be doing a favour to themselves if they read ‘Entrepreneurship Simplified’ and then meet mentors with right questions.I should admit that Ashok and Gopalan have succeeded in meeting their objective in writing the book.I strongly recommend ‘Entrepreneurship Simplified’ for all entrepreneurs who are in the process of setting up their ventures, those who are managing small-medium enterprises and the senior manager of business units of large enterprises who are increasingly becoming intrepreneurs. I am sure that it can open up many new avenues for building new businesses.

Well explained. Absolutely suits for aspirings to become entrepreneurs. But format of the book is not good. Even it is Hard cover , the outer cover is removing and it looks like a diary

Ashok Soota is widely regarded as one of the 12 gems who helped build the Indian IT industry. He has been conferred with Lifetime Achievement Awards by Unicom (2015), Financial Express (2016), Dataquest (2017) and IDG Ventures (2018).“Entrepreneurship Simplified: From Idea to IPO” is authored by Ashok Soota and the late SR Gopalan. The book traces Ashok’s impeccable record of intrapreneurial experience (Shriram Refrigeration and Wipro) and entrepreneurship experience (MindTree and Happiest Minds). This book is an essential read for all business professionals and especially so if you are planning/or have embarked on an entrepreneurship journey. The book is a practical guide for an entrepreneur and helps in deciding:- What and what not- Why and why not- How and how not- When and when notThe book has extensive chapters dedicated to:- Idea generation and validation- Funding and winning VCs- MVV, Culture and building organizations- Business Strategy- Marketing Strategy- Readying for an IPO A few gems from the book:- Now is the best time ever to be an entrepreneur. There is more money available then fundable ideas in all the entrepreneurial hotspots of the world- Entrepreneurship is all about value creation through a partnership between the investor and entrepreneur- Cultures can turn toxic from time to time and some pockets of toxicity will emerge occasionally. Recognize the problem and identify root causes quickly. Most acquisition failures are due to cultural incompatibility.- Don’t just call your company and team a family without being able to demonstrate the same through the way you behave, particularly in difficult times- You need a continuum of strategies, including a start-up strategy, a scale-up strategy, a strategy to compete against much larger players, a strategy to pivot if required, a strategy for risk reduction and a strategy for acquisition. For every inflection point in your company or major externally induced change, you need to revisit your business strategy- Experienced and late-stage entrepreneurs have a higher probability of success due to an ability to attract funds and talent based on their past track records- You should be passionate about your venture, but don’t get consumed by it and let it destroy your personal life.I have thoroughly enjoyed reading the book and am looking forward to Ashok’s next book.