Successful Entrepreneurs in India
"Stay Hungry Stay Foolish" is a series of interviews with successful graduates of Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA), arguably the best business school in India. It is written as a series of interviews with the founders of many successful businesses in India, in industries ranging from engineering, education, agriculture, hotels, investment banking, business process outsourcing, clinical research, analytics, and others. The graduates range from the class of 1967 to the class of 2004. Of the 25 individuals featured here, 18 graduated in the 70s and 80s.
Each story profiles the entrepreneur, his background, previous attempts at entrepreneurship, founding the company they are currently associated with, and some words of wisdom to potential entrepreneurs. (Some of the entrepreneurs had recently sold their companies.)
This view of Entrepreneurship in India is a great read, in order to trace the story of India's growth and opportunities. Most of the profiled firms started growing really fast in the mid- to late 1990s, when the Indian economy started its growth. I recommend this book to everyone who is thinking about becoming an entrepreneur, since it is an incredibly optimistic and passionate storybook.
However, there are a couple of caveats.
Firstly, this is a very biased sample. These are the 25 best entrepreneurs from over 40 years of IIMA graduates. It recounts only the successes, not the failures.
Secondly, as a prescriptive book, the attributes of successful entrepreneurs (that it lists) are not necessarily the attributes behind their success.
To learn more about entrepreneurship (albeit in the US, not India), read "The Illusions of Entrepreneurship" by Scott Shane.
Finally, Ms. Bansal wrote another book- "Connect the Dots", about successful Indian entrepreneurs WITHOUT an MBA. That is another excellent read.
