Harpreet Grover - Lets Build a Company

PENGUIN BOOKS
LETS BUILD A COMPANY

Harpreet S. Grover and Vibhore Goyal are friends who first met as room-mates at IIT Bombay. They fought a lot, survived each other, and decided that was enough qualification to start a company together. They ran CoCubes.com along with a brilliant team over ten years, before being acquired by Aon Hewitt in an all-cash deal. At the time of acquisition, CoCubes had touched 3 million students across India and worked with 1000+ corporates and colleges.

Harpreet is an active angel investorsome of his deals include Chaayos, ShopKirana and Avail Finance, among others. He witnessed the journey of Ola Cabs closely from before the time it started. Beyond work, Harpreet is a mountaineer and ultra hill runner. He lives with his wife, Bhakti, and daughter, Diya, in Mumbai. He is passionate about helping people figure out how to pursue their interests and abilities.

Vibhore is a business-product guy who loves flying. Post selling CoCubes, he pursued that interest and received a private pilots licence. Alongside building CoCubes over the years, he co-founded Babajob and filed seven international patents during a thirteen-month stint at Microsoft R & D. He is now the founder and CEO of OneBanc, a fintech start-up. He lives with his wife, Jasjit, in Gurgaon. (Jasjit happens to be Harpreets cousin, so it is a complicated relationship now, but they are surviving!)

Harpreet tweets at @hsgrover and Vibhore does not tweet at @vibhore_goyal.

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR THE BOOK

The CoCubes journey will enrich the reader with an honest, on-the-ground perspective of starting a company and managing the ups and downs of entrepreneurship. It is a story of friendship, ambition, pragmatism, empathy and inspiration! Harpreet and Vibhore were my seniors in college, and they were inspirations for many, including me, to take the path of entrepreneurship. This book, I hope, inspires many more!Bhavish Aggarwal, founder and chairman, Ola

As a first-generation entrepreneur, Harpreets narrative will inspire many young people. He has a lovely style that makes his book very readable. He comes across [as] authentic. Tells you the stuff the way it really is. In parts tough, in parts full of hope, he tells you the story of an enterprise with the ease of a master storyteller. Harpreet is a great writer; visual, evocative, riveting, romantic. This book blurs the line between non-fiction and fiction in style and literary appealSubroto Bagchi, Indian entrepreneur, business leader and author

Harpreet and Vibhores journey is like a textbook in entrepreneurship and is a must-read for both young founders and wannabe founders. This straight-from-the-heart account of CoCubes, which I only had a chance to watch from a distance, is peppered with lessons that will help young founders learn about how entrepreneurship truly works [the book] is not an account of overnight success but the travails of the founders in taking something from idea to exit with all the drama along the way!G.V. Ravishankar, managing director, Sequoia

An authentic account of an entrepreneurial journeySanjeev Bikhchandani, founder and executive vice chairman, Info Edge (Naukri.com)

A well-articulated narrative by Harpreet Grover and Vibhore Goyal, covering the struggles, triumphs and lessons learnt. As a first-time successful start-up, it makes [for] a very engaging read with quite a few takeawaysS. Ramadorai, former CEO and MD, Tata Consultancy Services

Along with the ups and downs of a start-up, the book offers great reflection on how hiring dilutes culture and on managing complex relationships within a companyR. Swaminathan, chief people officer, WNS Global Services

This is a story with real titbits that make the journey seem personal. As a reader who wonders what it takes to build a company from scratch, I loved reading what goes on in the mind of an entrepreneur Anandorup Ghose, partner, Deloitte

The journey of entrepreneurship is challenging, exhilarating and rewarding. The CoCubes story embodies all these aspects and makes for a fascinating and inspiring read for anyone interested in or pursuing entrepreneurshipKunal Bahl, co-founder and CEO, Snapdeal

I thought I would read the book over a few days, but then I found I couldnt put it down and read [from] cover to cover in a day! A must-read for first-time entrepreneurs as Happy [Harpreet] and Vibhores CoCubes story is very relatable and the easy-going writing style makes one feel that one is actually present! I found the second half of the book very interesting, when Happy shares his life and company-building lessons with an intimate look behind the scenes of the journey. [A] very refreshing and unique read which entrepreneurs will enjoyAvnish Bajaj, founder and managing partner, Matrix

Lets Build a Company is a candid commentary on the joy, heartache and journey of the rollercoaster ride that is start-up life. Happy and Vibhore are relatable entrepreneurs and their well-captured journey and relatable experiences are a great summation of the people they are and what they set out to build!Rohan Malhotra and Arjun Malhotra, founders, Good Capital

Having been one of the earliest founders in the tech start-up ecosystem, the authors have presented their valuable entrepreneurial experience from ground zero in a manner that any reader will benefit from the sameAnand Lunia, founding partner, India Quotient

Harpreet S. Grover . Vibhore Goyal . Ankur Jindal . Sameer Nagpal . Manpreet Kaur . Srikanth Reddy . Himanshu Dixit . Nilay Kothari . Avirup Das . Shashank Shekhar Mishra . B. Giridhar Mohan . Nishant Ahuja . Tarun Sharma . Rohit Kumar . Vinay Singh . Naina Gupta . Ranjit Singh . B. Prashanth Shet . Ishita Mehta . Prerna Kakkar . Deepti Sengar . Prakash Singh Rawat . Munmun Sinha . Mradul Sharma . Nitya Nair . Parag Ghatpande . Amber Nigam . Aakash Roy . Vikas Bhadoaria . Dhruv Mathur . Kunal Bedarkar . Puneet Ahuja . Chinmoy Dhali . Arijit Paul . Shipra Ghatpande . Abhyudya Sharma . Sarthak Barwa . Dharmendra Chauhan . Lovish Khatri . Karan Parpyani . Gaurav Namdev . Amit Das . Suraj Narayan . Sahin Sadik . Amit Singh . Pradeep Kumar . Bandhav Bhatia . Ajoobi Srivastava . Jaun Abbas . Nidhi Dad . Nisha Ganeriwal . Rohan Bhardwaj . Monica Tyagi . Anvita Misra . Surinder Kaur . Rajeev Sharma . Abhishek Jain . Farhan Hafiz . Avisek Chakraborty . Hasmeet Sapra . Kamal Kishore . Ajay Kumar . Nikhil Pateriya . Chhaviraj . Geeta Gandhi . Rahul Gupta . Harmeet Kaur . Tanya Joshi . Rahul Yadav . Manpreet Singh Saini . Naman Khatri . Dinesh Kumar Gupta . Somil Shrivastava . Ricky Sur . Rishabh Saxena . Sonal Matta . Disha Kashyap . Rajul Goel . Nitin Soni . Sanjay Kumar Jaiswal . Aravindan S. Rahul Pant . Prerna Nandle . Samiksha Sharma . Rahul Pandey . Anupam Bhandarkar . Siddharth Jamle . Akhtar Ahmed . Divya Prabha . Guruprasad Shetty . Rajeend Kunnil . Sanjay Arora . Naman Ahuja . Hasan Fuaad Sadaq . Soumava Naskar . Jayanth Balamurugan . Chaitanya Saxena . Jyotsna Singh Chauhan . Alok Rustagi . Anuj . Himanshi Mukhija . Pushpa Pandit . V. Shriram . Sumanta Guha . Utkarsh Mishra . Satish Bedre . Anupama Garg . Manish Sharma . Manish Mirchandani . Amanjeet Saluja . Vibhooti Kayastha . Gulshan Thakur . Syam Chand . Rahul Kumar . Nabil Ahmad . Aditi Das . Sugitha Mohan . Akshay Seth . Avinava Srivastava . Pratik Marwah . Gurpreet Singh . Kunal Seth . Rahul Choudhary . Yash Girdhar . Aakriti Mehrotra . Ashok Shankar . Zuhaib Ahmed .