Doglapan The Hard Truth about Life and

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.

I can feel the pain and ageny you and you're family went through but sadly I feel sad for you co-founder who had early exit must have gone through similar pain and still continued working as a silent member but eventually his quietness turn to be the biggest manipulator and may he hence for some reason he wanted you to go through which again all happened due to jealousy or he may wanted to be inducted back in the board which never happened but overall thanyou for sharing your insides . Surely a great learning but your biggest plus was you and and your wife stuck together during think and think .I Recommende this book only if you want to read at a go...Eventually Ashneer pe's !

Ashneer, dialogue bolte hue acha lagta hai; likhte hue nahi.

I would recommend this to anyone who little bit knowledge in business.

Good lessons on people management being more important than any other management work. Wrong hires will sink the ship. Its a good read overall, especially the journey through some of the most reputed institutions in India but disheartening to know about the grey side of these

Ashneer ki story se ek baat to saaf he, founders ko daru peena chahiye :) Jokes aside, it's Ashneer's story. He was a co-founder who was removed from his company by investors. He is not the first one who faced this fate. Many including Steve Jobs have faced it. In his case, the whole episode started with him abusing a Kotak rep which as per Ashneer never happened. To me, even if it happened, had no relation with his work at Bharat Pe. So, even if the pretense for his removal was the call, there must be other things that must have transpired his removal. He seems to have a sharp business mind, so I am pretty sure he will bounce back from this setback. It's an interesting read.

He does provide brilliant advice in the book, and that advice alone is worth buying and reading it. It is truly simple, yet million dollar advice.The rest of the book, as per my understanding, is a tale of a boardroom battle to sack a co-founder, who has all the qualities of a good businessman, and how the rapid success he got especially in the last 3 years of his entrepreneurial stint, actually turned him into a braggart. The book is filled with boasting like my Porsche or my this or that. For me, those things represent zero because at the end its not success, rather than a byproduct of it.If you go for the advice he's given, then you've extracted the nectar out of this book.