Nistha Tripathi - No Shortcuts

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Nisthas first-person stories make vivid the effervescence that characterizes entrepreneurship in modern Indiathe twists and turns, the ups and downs, the creativity and sheer exhilaration. Read and enjoy!

Tarun Khanna
Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor, Harvard Business School; Director, Lakshmi Mittal South Asia Institute, Harvard University

Entrepreneurs rarely open up as candidly as Nistha has gotten them to. Kudos to her.

Allwin Agnel
Founder/CEO at PaGaLGuY.com

Indian start-up ecosystem needs relatable inspiration, and this book brings that. While it is fascinating to read about Jobs, Musk, Gates and Zuckerberg, our entrepreneurs can learn more from home-grown entrepreneurs whose challenges and approaches are more relevant to our business models. I was especially fascinated to read the story of Girish Mathrubootham.

Balaji Viswanathan
CEO at Invento; Most followed writer on Quora

A fascinating peep into the struggles and successes of varied start-ups that lucidly brings out the diversity of experiences and provides a nuanced introduction to entrepreneurial processes.

Rakesh Basant
Professor of Economics, IIM Ahmedabad

This is a must-read for all entrepreneurs. Nistha has truly captured an authentic perspective of what it takes to build companies in India!

Prashant Mehta
Partner, Lightbox

I worked with Nistha for several yearsshe has a tremendous intellect and a fearless entrepreneurial spirit. This will be a fun read!

Ken Wilson
CEO, Tower Research Capital Markets

The Indian flavour of entrepreneurship is as creative, vibrant and colourful as the country itself. Part textbook and part tour guide, No Shortcuts captures that flavour in a way that delivers both generalizable lessons and insights into the unique character of Indian entrepreneurs in their environment.

Stuart Read
Professor, Willamette University

Entrepreneurship can be a lonely journey, and while every entrepreneur learns valuable lessons each day, not everyones story comes out to inspire others. These stories are important for all aspiring entrepreneurs in the journey. Nistha has done a great job there. A must-read!

Ashish Tulsian
CEO at POSist

Copyright Nistha Tripathi, 2018

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

First published in 2018 by

Published by Vivek Mehra for SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd, typeset in 11/14 pt Adobe Garamond byFidus Design Pvt. Ltd, Chandigarh.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Name: Tripathi, Nistha, author.

Title: No shortcuts: rare insights from 15 successful start-up founders / Nistha Tripathi.

Description: Thousand Oaks : SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd, [2018]

Identifiers: LCCN 2018033750 (print) | LCCN 2018036273 (ebook) | ISBN 9789352808274 (E pub 2.0) | ISBN 9789352808281 (Web (PDF) | ISBN 9789352808267 (print (pb))

Subjects: LCSH: New business enterprisesCase studies. | EntrepreneurshipCase studies.

Classification: LCC HD62.5 (ebook) | LCC HD62.5 .T757 2018 (print) | DDC 658.1/1dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018033750

ISBN: 978-93-528-0827-4 (ePub)

SAGE Team: Manisha Mathews, Apoorva Mathur, Shobana Paul and Rajinder Kaur

To the entrepreneursfor keeping it interesting

To the spouses of the abovefor tolerating supporting them

To the investorsfor adding to the chaos

To the othersfor consuming what they create and populating the market

To the readerfor skipping TV to read this

To HBOfor delaying Game of Thrones and giving me time to finish the book this year

Thank you for choosing a SAGE product!
If you have any comment, observation or feedback,
I would like to personally hear from you.
Please write to m e at
Vivek Mehra, Managing Director and CEO, SAGE India.

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This book is also available as an e-book.

I was happy when Nistha approached me to write this forewordhappy because for all that has been said about Indian start-ups in the media, blogs and other books, there is no concise volume of the journey of so many start-ups that budding entrepreneurs and people wanting to join can refer to and learn from.

Painstakingly compiled for over two years, here are the stories of how Girish of Freshworks builds his marketing, by using experimentation as a primary driver; or how Jaydeep of Faasos hires, by telling people a few years into their dream job, now that you know this is not what you thought it was, come here; and many other gems which are worth more than the weight of this book in gold.

However, before you get into Nisthas work, let me help set some context on why now is one of the greatest times to start up.

Since the first significant wave of Indian start-ups in 2008, till 2017, one question loomed large: Will those who invest their efforts and money ever see a return? This was an important question because US$20 billion+ had been invested in these start-ups, and thousands had quit their jobs in prestigious companies to work out of cramped rooms, giving birth to their dreams. Famous old economy entrepreneurs wrote blogs and gave interviews stating that there was an element of madness to the whole thing, and that the survival of such business models was questionable. The mainstream Indian newspapers during those years screamed the likes off, huge cash burn at start-ups and another start-up shuts down, and further supported these headlines with stories of investors fleeing the fledgling start-up ecosystem.