Entrepreneurs giving writers a run for their money

The books by entrepreneurs are becoming a big success on all the reading platforms. The books by entrepreneurs and start-up founders like Ashneer Grover, Ankur Warikoo, Mukesh Bansal, Shaili Chopra and Tarun Raj Arora are the recent trends of the market. The hungry readers have shown up their interest in knowing the life stories and success mantras of these highly successful entrepreneurs. The publication houses have also shown up their interest in working with these entrepreneurs. In the recent past the Information Technology minister Rajeev Chandrashekhar joked that the most searched keyword on 'Shaadi.com' is not IAS or IPS, but 'Start-up founder'. The mindset of a normal Indian towards entrepreneurship has tremendously changed in a positive way in the recent past. This has enormously impacted the direction and content of the books, the taste of readers and consequently the work of writers and publication houses. A trend of entrepreneurs converting into authors has been observed and this has impacted  GenZ the most.

The writing patterns of these books serve the needs of the fast paced twenty-first century.  They are divided into the crisp and clear small chapters, the thumb rules and some amazing ways of being smarter. In 2022 alone, several successful founders, including those of unicorns, have wielded their pens. A few have even got multiple books published. CEO of Cult.fit and founder of Myntra Mukesh Bansal published No Limits: The Art and Science of High Performance; WhiteHat Jr founder Karan Bajaj has The Freedom Manifesto to his name; Nearbuy co-founder Ankur Warikoo’s Get Epic Shit Done, Branding Agency High Volume’s Founder and CEO Tarun Raj Arora’s Haar Ke Us Paar and SheThePeople founder Shaili Chopra’s Sisterhood Economy: Of, By, For Wo(men). These are the examples of the books by entrepreneurs which are slaying with pride  in many bookshelves.  The book by Ashneer Grover has been the best selling book. His book Doglapan which means hypocrisy in Hindi is marketed as his memoir delivering hard truths. Ashneer is the former co-founder and managing director of the Indian fintech company BharatPe. He came into limelight when he appeared as an investor on the reality TV show Shark Tank India season one. He became viral for his straight-to-the-face comments in the show and his famous word “Doglapan”. Which eventually became the title for his book. This book was released on Amazon in both Kindle and Hardcover versions on 10th December 2022. The Penguin Classics published book was an instant hit and then bestseller on Amazon. 

Karan Bajaj who has been an author before establishing Whitehat Jr has also changed his original gener after his entrepreneurship. He is now into the business motivation books reflecting his own experiences in his writings. Previously he has written three fictions and now he shocked his readers with his recent book The Freedom Manifesto. He has shared his operational experiences in the industry of Indian start ups. While explaining the difference between operational and theoretical business learning he says  that "I learnt a lot from hardcore founders’ work about their lived and operational experiences — like Peter Thiel’s Zero to One and Paul Graham’s works. But I couldn’t find anything contextual to India. That was always on the back of my mind.”Ankoor Warikoo has also been seen drawing out his own experiences in his book Get Epic Shit Done. This book is the compilation of 36 questions which are frequently asked about life. Ankur has given a conversational figure to this book. It is a student-teacher conversation. “The prescriptions that follow are drawn from my own life. But I do start the book by saying that this is the worst thing about the book. It may seem like these are the right answers, but that isn’t true. How you should read it is not to assume that whatever the teacher says is right, but, instead, through their answers, you get to yours,” he says.

Motivational Speaker, serial entrepreneur and branding strategist Tarun Raj Arora has also launched his book 'Haar Ke Us Paar' on 19th of this April. This book has ranked #1 in the Self Help Book category and #6 in the E Book Best Seller category on amazon. This book provides the biographies of twenty tremendously successful entrepreneurs. The book majorly speaks about the failures of these twenty people and the strategies they used to overcome. Tarun Raj Arora while talking about his book says that, "Everyone is talking about success but the ground reality always walks through many failures." Tarun emphasized that if someone scrolls any social media handle for say ten minutes he would definitely come across some content about success. Haar ke us Paar is majorly a keen study of the major mistakes of these twenty entrepreneurs. The book is divided into crisp chapters, learnings and  facts. Which is very convenient for the readers.

The formula for these start-up books has seemed to be very simple. Majorly the authors use small chapters, no reputation and the tips to get 'smarter'. And Gen Z, which has little time to dig into long and thick books, can’t get enough of it. This trend has also affected the publishers as they are eager to work with such entrepreneurs and come up with more of such books. 

Himanjali Sankar, editorialdirector at Simon & Schuster India, says that many of the start-up founders, who are young, educated and ambitious have recognized publishing a book as an effective way of branding. And this has become more lucrative as there already is a hungry group of readers which is waiting for such books. “Memoirs are a very popular genre currently. They can be inspiring even while outlining tribulations and hardships. They hold out hope and make for interesting reads,” she adds.