This book is a refreshing new take on start-ups. The author Ramachandran Gopalakrishnan, has drawn on his immense experience and learning’s and painted an extremely realistic picture of start-ups. While delineating his success stories, he has also dwelled on the downside of startups by narrating incidents from his failed ventures. He has painted the canvas of the startup culture with rich hues of anecdotes and his valuable insights.

In the modern-day world riddled with entrepreneurial ventures and chest thumping success stories this book acquaints you with this journey in its entirety, thread bare and real. This book without being instructional, judgmental or biased, guides entrepreneurs in their start up journey.

GR with all his entrepreneurial wisdom seeks to address the various myths regarding startups. One pertinent one that he dispels is that a successful entrepreneur needs to be armed with great ideas. Successful startups go well beyond just ideas and their categorization into two distinct compartments - good and bad. The nurturing of ideas and adaptation to the modern environment is crucial. An idea, bred in a conducive external and internal environment coupled with the necessary entrepreneurial skills catapults to success in no time or else sinks into quick oblivion never to be resurrected again.

It is a must read for all aspiring entrepreneurs as well as those who have started their journey, are mid-way into it, those facing crisis situations or even those who are highly successful.

G Ramachandran

A mentor capitalist with an impeccable entrepreneurial spirit and financial expertise, who has evolved beyond spreadsheets and scripted corporate success stories.

GR as he is fondly called, has had an amazing ability to start, scale and sell or divest unlisted entities, having 9 multibaggers in the last fifteen years. He has been instrumental in nurturing 15 startups. 9 of the startups were extremely successful and profitable and were scaled to sell. He displayed astuteness and foresight when he realized that 3 of the ventures were not performing well and closed them well in time to prevent further losses.

He is a well-known speaker at a National and global level. He is also actively associated with all IITs and IIMs to promote incubation seed funding, coaching and mentoring, and is invited as a key note speaker and guest of honour in start-up jury and award functions.