Doglapan, the famous expression from Ashneer Grover of Shark Tank India fame, is also the name of his autobiography. True to his on-screen character, Asheneer gives us a very candid and engaging peek into his life and his journey from being a “refugee” to one of India’s most prominent startup founders and an inspiration to many.

First, kudos to Ashneer for making this book an easy and accessible despite having a lot of financial jargon. Ashneer doesn’t dabble too much in his growing up, and we start with his entering IIT Delhi and later joining IIM Ahmedabad and how he met the love of his life and future wife, Madhuri. After a successful stint as an investment banker with Kotak and Amex, Ashneer dabbles into the entrepreneurship world by joining as Grofers' CFO and eventually building BharatPe from the ground up along with his co-founders.

The transformation of a startup from humble beginnings into a unicorn and the decisions, effort, competition, and luck involved open one’s mind to the scale and complexity of the problems at hand. These are also some of the most exciting parts of the book.

Ashneer also gives us a peek into how Shark Tank India made a reclusive private person like him an overnight celebrity. Coincidentally, his appearance on Shark Tank also started his fall from BharatPe.

For every hero, there is a villain. In Ashneer’s case, he explains how a combination of his co-founders, investors, legal counsel, and media conspired to oust him and his wife from the company he founded most abruptly. While one empathizes with his story, readers can take it with a pinch of salt as this book is from his POV.

Throughout the book, Ashneer gives us his thought processes and the reasoning behind them, his think-big mentality, the mistakes he regrets, and his relentless drive and hunger to battle against all odds to succeed. These insights make him very relatable and make one aspire to be a startup-founders themselves someday, which I believe is his most significant contribution.

One also realizes that the startup world is not all glitz and glamour. If anything, there are as many challenges as any other, where trust and loyalty play a bigger role than valuation and investors.

Ashneer embodies the Indian startup scene and what we call “New India.” He encourages the youth to be fearless and aspire to greatness. He wants to see India and Indians become wealthy and create value for the world, and one must applaud him for his contribution to this endeavor.

Also published here.