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No Shortcuts: Rare Insights from 15 Successful Startup Founders
Ranked 100th among 190 countries for ease of doing business, India is not the choicest place for start-ups. Only a handful of founders have been able to beat the odds.
What's in their journey that can be dissected and emulated?
This curiosity led Nistha Tripathi to pursue these founders, who rose from humble beginnings yet made a dent in the Indian start-up universe, including a couple of founders from the Silicon Valley. This book is a record of her 18-month odyssey.
In her incisive one-on-one interviews with 15 ambitious founders from India, including Girish Mathrubootham, Nithin Kamath, Jaydeep Barman, Gaurav Munjal and Tarun Mehta among others, Nistha uncovers the decisions and insights that led these start-up founders to find their unique roadmap to success.
One thing underlined all the stories--the founders' belief in 'No Shortcuts'.
Read the never-heard stories of Freshworks, Faasos, Unacademy, Zerodha, Slideshare, Pulse, Aspiring Minds, Madhouse/Morpheus, Akosha, Ather Energy, Instablogs, Greyb, LikeaLittle, Wingify and Fashiate.
What's in their journey that can be dissected and emulated?
This curiosity led Nistha Tripathi to pursue these founders, who rose from humble beginnings yet made a dent in the Indian start-up universe, including a couple of founders from the Silicon Valley. This book is a record of her 18-month odyssey.
In her incisive one-on-one interviews with 15 ambitious founders from India, including Girish Mathrubootham, Nithin Kamath, Jaydeep Barman, Gaurav Munjal and Tarun Mehta among others, Nistha uncovers the decisions and insights that led these start-up founders to find their unique roadmap to success.
One thing underlined all the stories--the founders' belief in 'No Shortcuts'.
Read the never-heard stories of Freshworks, Faasos, Unacademy, Zerodha, Slideshare, Pulse, Aspiring Minds, Madhouse/Morpheus, Akosha, Ather Energy, Instablogs, Greyb, LikeaLittle, Wingify and Fashiate.
308 pages, Paperback
Published October 1, 2018
17 people are currently reading
187 people want to read
About the author
Nistha Tripathi
4 books71 followersA successful Wall Street professional and early employee in Manhattan startups, Nistha returned to India in 2012 to start her own Indian entrepreneurial journey. After a couple of attempts, she found success in Scholar Strategy, an education counseling company that prides itself in helping 100s of students getting into top universities across the world including Harvard and MIT. This unique lifestyle business allows Nistha to work only 6 months a year, spending the remaining time traveling and writing.
Her first novel, Seven Conversations, interpreted Bhagvad Gita in a modern context and gathered rave reviews. With 35,000+ followers, and 6M+ views on her answers on the popular American QnA based website, Quora, Nistha writes extensively on careers, entrepreneurship and pursuing one’s passion. Her articles have appeared on Entrepreneur, Times, DailyO, DNA, Tribune and other leading media outlets.
Her first novel, Seven Conversations, interpreted Bhagvad Gita in a modern context and gathered rave reviews. With 35,000+ followers, and 6M+ views on her answers on the popular American QnA based website, Quora, Nistha writes extensively on careers, entrepreneurship and pursuing one’s passion. Her articles have appeared on Entrepreneur, Times, DailyO, DNA, Tribune and other leading media outlets.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
November 1, 2018
A wholly biased review since I am the person who lived inside the author's body and mind as she researched on this book and wrote it over a period of 2 years. She was reading Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston one fine evening and enjoying the behind the scenes of how Apple, Paypal, Hotmail and the likes were built. She, having tried and failed at 2-3 ventures herself, was intrigued why such a book does not exist in India.
So, she prepared some material and contacted Girish Mathrubootham (CEO of Freshworks, one of the most admired founders from India) and asked if she can interview him for her book. Despite not coming from a literary or media background, she was able to convince Girish that she would do justice to the story. That was the beginning. She then reached out to 25 other people and finally had 15 interviews. Each interview spanned over multiple sessions (in-person or a call) - requiring endless followups with the busy founders.
Next step was to transcribe these long interview. After ages that it took to do that, she edited them and showed to the founders to verify the facts and figures. Now came the time to convince a publisher to believe in her vision. It took another 4 months to get someone who wouldn't change it completely. But still, they said the interviews need to be changed to a storylike narration and shortened. This took another 2-3 months. The publisher gave the final go-ahead and the book went into the publishing stage.
Next was the phase of meticulous editing. Shall that quote be left as a quote or converted to third personal narrative? How to summarise and end the stories with pithy takeaways? This phase nearly killed the author. What started with 150,000+ words was made into a compact 90,000 words manuscript because otherwise the book would become too expensive. She did it patiently for 18-24 months.
Of course, putting in so much efforts does not mean that the outcome is good. That was known when few early readers told her they found the book helpful. She wasn't looking for lavish praises, all she wanted to know was that the book was easy to read and will help young founders from India.
I believe in the author and I think she has worked on this project with utmost sincerity and I wish her well. She can be a bit quaint sometimes and starts talking in third person. But otherwise, she is a pretty cool person. I give this book a fabulous five stars <3
So, she prepared some material and contacted Girish Mathrubootham (CEO of Freshworks, one of the most admired founders from India) and asked if she can interview him for her book. Despite not coming from a literary or media background, she was able to convince Girish that she would do justice to the story. That was the beginning. She then reached out to 25 other people and finally had 15 interviews. Each interview spanned over multiple sessions (in-person or a call) - requiring endless followups with the busy founders.
Next step was to transcribe these long interview. After ages that it took to do that, she edited them and showed to the founders to verify the facts and figures. Now came the time to convince a publisher to believe in her vision. It took another 4 months to get someone who wouldn't change it completely. But still, they said the interviews need to be changed to a storylike narration and shortened. This took another 2-3 months. The publisher gave the final go-ahead and the book went into the publishing stage.
Next was the phase of meticulous editing. Shall that quote be left as a quote or converted to third personal narrative? How to summarise and end the stories with pithy takeaways? This phase nearly killed the author. What started with 150,000+ words was made into a compact 90,000 words manuscript because otherwise the book would become too expensive. She did it patiently for 18-24 months.
Of course, putting in so much efforts does not mean that the outcome is good. That was known when few early readers told her they found the book helpful. She wasn't looking for lavish praises, all she wanted to know was that the book was easy to read and will help young founders from India.
I believe in the author and I think she has worked on this project with utmost sincerity and I wish her well. She can be a bit quaint sometimes and starts talking in third person. But otherwise, she is a pretty cool person. I give this book a fabulous five stars <3
November 1, 2018
No Ola and No Flipkart on a book on Indian startups. That was my first reaction to the cover. I got the book anyway and started reading. On reaching the third story, I was already glad I did.
I had never even heard of Wingify, started by one guy in New Delhi, bootstrapped and profitable with a revenue of 15 million USD per annum. This is the inspiration that I was looking for. You see I am not able to relate to Steve Jobs or Elon Musk, they seem too larger than life and have such a singular focus on their work. I am more inspired by Pieter Levels who started Nomadlist and remoteOk. And this book introduced me to more than one of his Indian counterparts.
When you scale a startup, you have to hire, when Jaydeep expanded Faasos from Pune to Mumbai, he hired local food industry veterans, as you would expect if you have tried to do business in India, they tried to fleece him at every possible occasion. Now this is such a Indian problem. It needed tremendous amount of persistence and out of the box thinking for the founders to overcome challenges like these.
By the end of the book I was full of gratitude for the founders featured in this book, they are the ones who have created their own paths and left the trails behind for us.
I had never even heard of Wingify, started by one guy in New Delhi, bootstrapped and profitable with a revenue of 15 million USD per annum. This is the inspiration that I was looking for. You see I am not able to relate to Steve Jobs or Elon Musk, they seem too larger than life and have such a singular focus on their work. I am more inspired by Pieter Levels who started Nomadlist and remoteOk. And this book introduced me to more than one of his Indian counterparts.
When you scale a startup, you have to hire, when Jaydeep expanded Faasos from Pune to Mumbai, he hired local food industry veterans, as you would expect if you have tried to do business in India, they tried to fleece him at every possible occasion. Now this is such a Indian problem. It needed tremendous amount of persistence and out of the box thinking for the founders to overcome challenges like these.
By the end of the book I was full of gratitude for the founders featured in this book, they are the ones who have created their own paths and left the trails behind for us.
January 6, 2019
After reading Founders at Work I was thinking is there any equivalent of that book covering Indian startup founders interview and guess what I was not able to find any good book. So if you are a startup founder or you are interested in doing a startup and want to understand what it takes to build a successful startup then rather than taking shortcuts read this book No Shortcuts: Rare Insights from 15 Successful Start-up Founders — by Nistha Tripathi
Nistha Tripathi has done an excellent job to get inside the minds of startup founders to write a detailed honest and insightful story.
One of the main reason for me to pick up this book was because of my interest in learning from other successful startup founders. This book turned out to be a fantastic read and even in terms of knowledge I have learnt some exceptional insights which I will be applying to my startup.
Although all the interview featured in No Shortcuts are fantastic but if I have to pick up the best ones then it will be the below:
1) Girish Mathrubootham: Freshworks — Girish has shared some real insights right from how he started Freshworks and the way they gained initial traction. This interview is full of good lessons in people management and marketing.
2) Paras Chopra: VWO — After reading this interview I understood the power of content marketing and how VWO created awareness around A/B testing as many marketers did not understand it fully. Value-based pricing is another key insight which I learnt from this interview.
3) Amit Ranjan: Slideshare — One of the hardest problem which any startup founder face is related to hiring. Amit has shared some fantastic insights on attracting talent, and I loved their idea of blogging which helped people in knowing Slideshare and building trust. Apart from hiring if you want to understand how Slideshare product evolved and the choices they took then read this powerful interview.
4) Prasanna Sankar: LikeALittle — I believe an entire movie can be made based on their story and once I started reading this I was not able to keep the book down as it was that interesting. Although LikeALittle was not a financial success, I have never read any failure story as interesting as LikeALittle. If you are a startup founder and if you believe that funding will solve all problems then you are wrong as LikeALitte was backed by one of the leading VC firm Andreessen Horowitz. One of the most popular terms in the startup world is “Growth Hacking” and Prasanna shares in this interview why it doesn’t work always, and there are constraints in the way it works.
5) Ankur Single: Akosha — Since I have met Ankur and know some behind the scenes story I can vouch for the authenticity of this interview. If you are of the view that to build a successful tech startup you need tech people in founding team, then you are wrong because Ankur is from Law background. If you want to know how he built a successful tech startup around consumer complaints, then wait no further pick this book. Right from product evolution to fundraising and creative business model this interview has been the best I have read ever on Akosha.
6) Jaydeep Burman: Faasos — How many of you know the real meaning behind the name Faasos? Of course, its a very crazy story and I will let you find that out. How many of you believe that to build a food-on-demand company you need an understanding of the food industry? Then let me tell you Jaydeep had no background in the food business, he was a management consultant, and it was inspiring to read his story on how being passionate is the key to build anything successful. It was fascinating to read some out of the box hiring steps the founders have taken, and one of them was FER (Faasos Entrepreneurs-in-Residence), and this was the turning point in Faasos journey and the people they hired in FER they had zero experience in food but a tremendous sense of ownership.
7) Sameer Guglani: Madhouse — Measuring everything in terms of funding raised and exits can be misleading. If you want to read a counter-argument story on how startups can be a massive success in terms of learning, then this is the interview you should read. This interview contains one of the most exciting examples of how you can translate happy customer experience to both marketing and hiring. After reading this interview, I realised how burning money to attract or please investors is not the right way to build a startup.
8) Tarun Mehta: Ather Energy — I am sure you must have read many stories about Tesla Motors, and I am a huge fan of Elon Musk. Now you must be thinking what is the link between Elon Musk and Tarun Mehta? Then let me tell you Tarun Mehta is the co-founder of Ather Energy and it is the one of the most promising attempt at creating India’s own smart electric scooter. India is very behind in successful product hardware development, and there are very few VC firms funding hardware startup. Often we hear why equity dilution is bad, but Tarun altogether has a different perspective to that. After reading Ather Energy story I can truly say there are No Shortcuts and if you want to build a strong technology company then you have to own all its engineering, and you have to build the product from scratch.
I am thankful to Nistha Tripathi for creating this book and in Hindi, we use the term ‘Paisa Vasool’ when anything is value for money, and No Shortcuts is one of those books.
Nistha Tripathi has done an excellent job to get inside the minds of startup founders to write a detailed honest and insightful story.
One of the main reason for me to pick up this book was because of my interest in learning from other successful startup founders. This book turned out to be a fantastic read and even in terms of knowledge I have learnt some exceptional insights which I will be applying to my startup.
Although all the interview featured in No Shortcuts are fantastic but if I have to pick up the best ones then it will be the below:
1) Girish Mathrubootham: Freshworks — Girish has shared some real insights right from how he started Freshworks and the way they gained initial traction. This interview is full of good lessons in people management and marketing.
2) Paras Chopra: VWO — After reading this interview I understood the power of content marketing and how VWO created awareness around A/B testing as many marketers did not understand it fully. Value-based pricing is another key insight which I learnt from this interview.
3) Amit Ranjan: Slideshare — One of the hardest problem which any startup founder face is related to hiring. Amit has shared some fantastic insights on attracting talent, and I loved their idea of blogging which helped people in knowing Slideshare and building trust. Apart from hiring if you want to understand how Slideshare product evolved and the choices they took then read this powerful interview.
4) Prasanna Sankar: LikeALittle — I believe an entire movie can be made based on their story and once I started reading this I was not able to keep the book down as it was that interesting. Although LikeALittle was not a financial success, I have never read any failure story as interesting as LikeALittle. If you are a startup founder and if you believe that funding will solve all problems then you are wrong as LikeALitte was backed by one of the leading VC firm Andreessen Horowitz. One of the most popular terms in the startup world is “Growth Hacking” and Prasanna shares in this interview why it doesn’t work always, and there are constraints in the way it works.
5) Ankur Single: Akosha — Since I have met Ankur and know some behind the scenes story I can vouch for the authenticity of this interview. If you are of the view that to build a successful tech startup you need tech people in founding team, then you are wrong because Ankur is from Law background. If you want to know how he built a successful tech startup around consumer complaints, then wait no further pick this book. Right from product evolution to fundraising and creative business model this interview has been the best I have read ever on Akosha.
6) Jaydeep Burman: Faasos — How many of you know the real meaning behind the name Faasos? Of course, its a very crazy story and I will let you find that out. How many of you believe that to build a food-on-demand company you need an understanding of the food industry? Then let me tell you Jaydeep had no background in the food business, he was a management consultant, and it was inspiring to read his story on how being passionate is the key to build anything successful. It was fascinating to read some out of the box hiring steps the founders have taken, and one of them was FER (Faasos Entrepreneurs-in-Residence), and this was the turning point in Faasos journey and the people they hired in FER they had zero experience in food but a tremendous sense of ownership.
7) Sameer Guglani: Madhouse — Measuring everything in terms of funding raised and exits can be misleading. If you want to read a counter-argument story on how startups can be a massive success in terms of learning, then this is the interview you should read. This interview contains one of the most exciting examples of how you can translate happy customer experience to both marketing and hiring. After reading this interview, I realised how burning money to attract or please investors is not the right way to build a startup.
8) Tarun Mehta: Ather Energy — I am sure you must have read many stories about Tesla Motors, and I am a huge fan of Elon Musk. Now you must be thinking what is the link between Elon Musk and Tarun Mehta? Then let me tell you Tarun Mehta is the co-founder of Ather Energy and it is the one of the most promising attempt at creating India’s own smart electric scooter. India is very behind in successful product hardware development, and there are very few VC firms funding hardware startup. Often we hear why equity dilution is bad, but Tarun altogether has a different perspective to that. After reading Ather Energy story I can truly say there are No Shortcuts and if you want to build a strong technology company then you have to own all its engineering, and you have to build the product from scratch.
I am thankful to Nistha Tripathi for creating this book and in Hindi, we use the term ‘Paisa Vasool’ when anything is value for money, and No Shortcuts is one of those books.
November 6, 2018
The book ‘No Shortcut by Nistha Tripathi’ is about 15 successful start-up stories and rare insights from the successful founders for the readers to learn and understand the background. The best part about the book is that the author tells you ‘how to read the book’ and ‘what to expect from it’ in the very beginning. The language is super simple, conversational, and reader-friendly, just the way I like it! For a budding entrepreneur, this book will prove to be a gem as it gives in-depth stories of 15 successful companies and tells you how they were built from scratch. The process of ideation, fundraising, growth, and mistakes are listed out quite impressively. After every chapter, there is a summary where interesting pointers are listed down.
You will be amazed to learn about some of the well-known companies and how they were started. Author Nistha Tripathi has taken all the pain to bring valid information and useful material from the business minds for all of us. The interview and the quoted sections are candid and fun to read. I am a self-help genre lover, so such books are a delight for me. Although, it took me a little longer to read it than usual because maybe I was trying to understand things in detail. Another interesting aspect about the book is that you don’t have to read it from start to end chronologically. They are 15 individual stories and can be read anyhow, that is how I chose to read it! Overall a great learning experience.
Instagram: @meghanazexpress
https://ideasthroughwords.com/book-re...
You will be amazed to learn about some of the well-known companies and how they were started. Author Nistha Tripathi has taken all the pain to bring valid information and useful material from the business minds for all of us. The interview and the quoted sections are candid and fun to read. I am a self-help genre lover, so such books are a delight for me. Although, it took me a little longer to read it than usual because maybe I was trying to understand things in detail. Another interesting aspect about the book is that you don’t have to read it from start to end chronologically. They are 15 individual stories and can be read anyhow, that is how I chose to read it! Overall a great learning experience.
Instagram: @meghanazexpress
https://ideasthroughwords.com/book-re...
March 19, 2020
Earlier I used to never read books by Indian authors as I used to detest the prevalent style of dumbing down the prose and content. But recently after having read a few books by Indian authors, I find a certain sense of comfort that I will not have to use all of my concentration to understand the book unlike thinking fast and slow, atomic habits etc.
This book chronicles the journey of some known and some not so known startups in the Indian ecosystem like Faasos to GreyB. This book moves away from financial graphs and charts, it takes a look at a more intimate and personal journey of these entrepreneurs like how they started, what challenges they faced and how they were able to overcome.
The narrative style of the book is similar to the book booming brands but this felt better cause a lot of the stories in the book had a definite end be it acquisition or shut down completely. This book is great to read but again there is always a desire that the author should have further deep dive into the details with a timeline. There are mentions of the troubles but the author could have done a better job to make the people feel the anguish of the entrepreneurs.
Recommended for a quick weekend read.
This book chronicles the journey of some known and some not so known startups in the Indian ecosystem like Faasos to GreyB. This book moves away from financial graphs and charts, it takes a look at a more intimate and personal journey of these entrepreneurs like how they started, what challenges they faced and how they were able to overcome.
The narrative style of the book is similar to the book booming brands but this felt better cause a lot of the stories in the book had a definite end be it acquisition or shut down completely. This book is great to read but again there is always a desire that the author should have further deep dive into the details with a timeline. There are mentions of the troubles but the author could have done a better job to make the people feel the anguish of the entrepreneurs.
Recommended for a quick weekend read.
Read
January 5, 2019Interesting book about successful startup founders of India...the book is written in an interview form and even though it gets repetitive at some instances, some of the interview answers throw a light on the start up process in India..the author could have done more work to amalgamate and write a more cohesive story with the material she had!
May 22, 2021
It is rare that I read Indian author non-fiction books because I feel the startup culture in India was still in nascent stage when the books were written. But this book provides some good insights as it constituted stories of 15 different startups in different times.
One might not have heard about half of the startups but that's because they were started a long ago. Few stories are on startups that started in early 2000s to that's understandable.
Anyway the main crux of the stories is that startup is a journey with so many unpredictable ups and downs. And in that time you have to think creatively and out of the box. What worked for other might not work for you as there are lot of parameters in the equation and you cannot control most of them.
One might not have heard about half of the startups but that's because they were started a long ago. Few stories are on startups that started in early 2000s to that's understandable.
Anyway the main crux of the stories is that startup is a journey with so many unpredictable ups and downs. And in that time you have to think creatively and out of the box. What worked for other might not work for you as there are lot of parameters in the equation and you cannot control most of them.
October 23, 2018
Nistha Tripathi is an entrepreneur herself and this clearly reflects in the rigor which she has put in her book. The book talks beyond the general 'gyaan' and gets into specifics of entrepreneurship. The book helps set realistic expectations with anyone trying to get into something of own, at the same time has valuable insights coming in from India's top entrepreneurs who have been there, done that. Kudos to Nistha on this book. I read her first book and loved it. Since then I waited for her second one, this one is worth the wait!
April 5, 2023
Since this is the 3rd time I am reading this book , I mostly breezed through it and yet stumbled upon some super new helpful points.
This book was a gift and the knowledge from it came handy time and again for me. The book follows the code of the title, No shortcuts!
Bootstrapping A company from its core is not easy. The Author-though- has made an inspiring effort of making it look effortless with Interviews and key take aways.
Books can never let you down. Every page you read you are closer to Victory. What's victory ? Victory = peace of mind.
@laila_abuwani1 (insta)
This book was a gift and the knowledge from it came handy time and again for me. The book follows the code of the title, No shortcuts!
Bootstrapping A company from its core is not easy. The Author-though- has made an inspiring effort of making it look effortless with Interviews and key take aways.
Books can never let you down. Every page you read you are closer to Victory. What's victory ? Victory = peace of mind.
@laila_abuwani1 (insta)
November 4, 2018
One of the best books I have ever read about startups. This book gave me a very good insight of how to build a startup. If you are a person who is interested about startups then you should read this book. I follow Nistha Tripathi on quora. That is where I found about this book.
March 26, 2019
Good read!!!
Nice compilation of 15 stories coming for the starups in various different fields. Good read!!!
Some real good intresting insight into the troubles faced by entrepreneur in starting their journey.
Nice compilation of 15 stories coming for the starups in various different fields. Good read!!!
Some real good intresting insight into the troubles faced by entrepreneur in starting their journey.
December 31, 2018
Insightful book about Indian entrepreneurship
April 30, 2020
Amazing read if you are interested to know more about the Indian startup ecosystem.
August 9, 2020
Very unique collection of start ups but the writing style is a collection of individual yourstory articles
October 30, 2021
Access to much valuable insights needed to startup
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews