HarperCollins The Biography of a Failed Venture: Decoding Success Secrets from the Blackbox of a Dead Start-Up

This is one of the good books I've read in many years. Its an honest acceptance of one's failure. Written in a very simple language. Very few people have the courage to accept their failure so candidly.What I derived from this book is that even the best of education, adequate funding, managerial skills, confidence or being well connected with the right set of people is no guarantee of success in the real world of business.I'm sharing my learnings from this book -1. Have a clear perception about your product. You cannot call something "Indian" when it is fully manufactured in China. He was just carried away by an illusion that he was building a 100% Indian brand and therefore every Indian will embrase it will open arms.. Not understanding the basic nature of an Indian consumer.2. Business is not about greed or money alone. Never do business if you're doing it just to become a millionaire or a billionaire.3. Never think that a very good education or great connection with the industry experts would guarantee success.4. Listen to your critics. Spend time with your critics to understand why they criticize your ideas.5. Start small. Do not do too many things at a time. Go slow.6. Focus on building a business first. Then go to brand building.7. Do not over spend. Get some success and then increase your spending on marketing.Prashant could have made this venture a success if he would've done this -1. Established a distribution network to penetrate the retail market rather than establishing expensive brand outlets. He could've done this at least for the first 5 years before setting up an exclusive brand outlet. This would've saved them from all the unnecessary expenses that bleeded their company.2. Focussed online with Amazon. They took the online business too much casualy as it it was a piece of cake.

A extremely realistic and vulnerable account of how a founder's vision for a "Made in India, for India" shoes brand faced challenges in implementation and had to shut down eventually. Through this book, the author, Prashant Desai helps peer entrepreneurs navigate through the pitfalls that startups potentially face from ideation to implementation. Written more like an autobiography, tracing the author's childhood through adult years to the decision to move onto entrepreneurship from a well established corporate employment - the book touches upon both scientific as well as philosophical elements of the journeyOne of the first things I did after reading the book, was to hop onto Amazon to look for whether a "D:FY" product was still available on sale? It was, and I ordered one, not because I needed it, but as a souvenir of the vision, the passion, and panache that Prashant Desai attempted something that so many industry stalwarts were dead againstOne of the most inspiring business books that I've read this year! Definitely recommend reading!

I read this magical book after recently exiting my own venture which I ran for 4+ years and I ended up highlighting something at every page of the book. NONE of those legendary NYTimes bestsellers on fancy startup gyan, come even a bit close to the honest (and hence immensely useful) narration Prashant has done! Specific examples, exact information, no-hiding any names - BRAVE. Ruthlessly introspected own self - without worrying about his public image or anything... I am so proud of this book being written in India, the whole world should read it.

Good book, and something all entrepreneurs *must* read. The author has been ruthless with himself in doing a critical analysis of the mistakes he committed both, during the inception phase, as well as during execution. As harsh as it may sound, the reality is that brands are made in developed markets, while developing markets only follow along. This is because the consumer in advanced markets is more conscious of the benefits that the product per se has to offer. On the other hand, consumers in developing markets are more inclined towards tertiary benefits like brand image and the product's prestige value. Like they say, hindsight is 2020, but Kishore Biyani was spot on when he gave his feedback. Anyway, I don't want to spoil the book for you. Make sure that you don't miss the concluding chapters where the author analyzes his mistakes, because that's where the real value of the book lies.

Over the last two weekends, consumed this incredibly Authentic Honest Fearless yet Insightful book THE BIOGRAPHY OF A FAILED VENTURE by Prashant Desai. 📚It's an interesting memoir about – Rising through Poverty – to Hard Work – to Academic Excellence – to “Work-Study Balance” – to THE RISE amongst the Tycoons ----- and being an Entrepreneur with an ambition to create a truly homegrown Indian brand ----- and then THE TRYST with Greed-Speed ---- and alas !!Story of Hunger – Determination – Conviction – Aspirations --- and ‘Learnings’ 👌The book takes you through some fascinating corporal end-to-end Business Scale-Up– From An Idea to Seamless Execution– From Consumer research to Product Obsessions to perfecting the Product Market fit– From creating Solid Differentiation & Competitive Advantage, followed by Product Expansion– to an Exceptional Brand Building – Pricing – Positioning – Messaging– to a very interesting G2M execution with Omnichannel playAnd how it all unfolded… 💥So in spite of doing everything right, why did the venture fail?👉👉 Do yourself a favour – READ the book to find out, Read it to enjoy & Read it to ‘Learn’ !And as the author mentions a quote from Warren Buffet in the book --“Its good to learn from your mistakes. But its better to learn from other people’s mistakes”A must-read for every Business Management professional.P.S. Loved the "Acknowledgement" too !