The Book ‘Doglapan: The Hard Truth about Life & Start-Ups’ is written by Ashneer Grover, the Founder of Bharat Pe.
The Book is auto-biographical in nature and the author narrates about his life with its ups and downs.
The author was a bright kid who went to IIT-Delhi & then IIM-A.
He then got into investment banking at Kotak where he was part of some marquee transactions. Kotak was the merchant banker for the Reliance Power IPO and one of the Kotak employees remarked : ‘Reliance Power was at the time a company with one table and two chairs in Ballard Estate’
So they knew what they were selling to retail investors.
Subsequently, he left Kotak to join Grofers.He had differences with the Founders there and was let go. After a brief stint with PC Jewelers, he joined the Founding team of Bharat Pe.
The author was one of the driving forces of the co and helped raised funds, design products etc
His ouster from the co is public knowledge and currently legal cases are on
The author has used the Book to promote himself and show his side of the story. But unfortunately, he comes across as a bitter, vain, obnoxious and self-serving jerk who is incapable of building a company. This probably explains why he wasn’t able to get along with his team, investors etc
Towards the end of the book, he has some advice for startup founders- Some of it good (Focus on customer), some of it bad (get family members into the co)
I would recommend this Book only to those interested in Indian startups.
One reply on “Book Review: Doglapan”
Interesting. Ofcourse autobiography of such cadre would like to speak more about his side of story. Media or public view wasnt focused on what Ashneer was going through or made go through. It was more of how BharatPe was being dealt with from outside lenses. Nothing wrong in the way book has panned out.