It is so inspiring to even read the title. We have heard about this statement from many people including Steve Jobs in his commencement speech at Stanford University and now the new excitement which I just loved to do is reading the book “Stay Hungry Stay Foolish”. This book is about the inspiring stories of 25 Indian Institute of Management, Ahmadabad graduates who chose to thread a path of their own making.
I promise you, you start reading the book; you will get goose bumps while reading it. It is just awe-inspiring to read about the successful entrepreneurs. This book categorizes the stories under 3 heads: “the believers”, “the opportunists” and “the alternate vision”. Rashmi Bansal – the author of this book, has brilliantly executed this work and the way she went on interviewing with entrepreneurs and getting this book done is inspiring. I salute her spirits in creating such a wonderful book which could help so many budding entrepreneurs just by reading it.
Few weeks back, I got an invitation on my Gmail from the Barcamp group saying that there is an event in Royal Orchid on July 2nd and IIMA is planning to set up its Centre for Incubation, Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) in Bengaluru. The objective of CIIE is to assist all the budding entrepreneurs in Bengaluru with their mentoring program. Since the invitation was open for all entrepreneurs, not only IIM Alumni, we thought of attending the same. More than anything, I saw Rashmi Bansal is releasing her book in Kannada version. I just wanted to meet her once and thank her for the wonderful creation.
Today the event started at 6 pm as scheduled and we could see a lot of entrepreneurs walking in. There were many IIT and IIM alumni who were all looking forward to contribute their bit to the entrepreneurial fraternity. As we walked in, the feel itself was so good that we started interacting with people. I could get to meet good people and surprisingly few of them were working on the same areas on which even we are working on. The hottest area and the successful business model these days is the area of “Education”!
We were told during the event that when they started this project, they were not looking at the number of copies to be sold and they certainly did not have big number in mind to sell. But it was surprising to hear that it is one of the highest numbers of book copies sold of any of the IIM Publication. It has reached the number of 1 Lakh copies in India. They actually released the 100001th copy today. And it is also getting translated to many languages on demand. It was released in Guajarati and today it got released in Kannada and it is coming up in 5 more regional languages. All this is happening out of demand; People are approaching them to get it translated in their regional languages. Is it not great? It is not priced heavily as well. It just costs 125Rs if you buy a hard copy and if you do not want to pay, you can download the e-copy from their website for free of cost. I was just so happy about their commitment in spreading the awareness on entrepreneurship in such an inspiring way. This was the reason I wanted to meet Rashmi and thank her.
While she was sharing her views on stage, she read out couple of emails she received from readers which were quite interesting. One person had thanked her saying he quit his company after reading this book and ventured out with in no time on his own. And there was one more interesting story wherein he purchased this book without knowing much about it and ended up starting his own venture. Yes! I do agree that if you read all the 25 stories of this book, you do not feel like what you are doing currently. All you do is to think on your own to create your own to contribute to the fraternity.
After the event, I went to Rashmi, thanked her for this wonderful work.
Other than that, the event was very helpful and CIIE is a great initiative to be in Bengaluru so that many of the budding entrepreneurs like us would get access to good resources and mentorship.
So! Please read the book and get inspired by the stories.
Stay Hungry Stay Foolish!
I promise you, you start reading the book; you will get goose bumps while reading it. It is just awe-inspiring to read about the successful entrepreneurs. This book categorizes the stories under 3 heads: “the believers”, “the opportunists” and “the alternate vision”. Rashmi Bansal – the author of this book, has brilliantly executed this work and the way she went on interviewing with entrepreneurs and getting this book done is inspiring. I salute her spirits in creating such a wonderful book which could help so many budding entrepreneurs just by reading it.
Few weeks back, I got an invitation on my Gmail from the Barcamp group saying that there is an event in Royal Orchid on July 2nd and IIMA is planning to set up its Centre for Incubation, Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) in Bengaluru. The objective of CIIE is to assist all the budding entrepreneurs in Bengaluru with their mentoring program. Since the invitation was open for all entrepreneurs, not only IIM Alumni, we thought of attending the same. More than anything, I saw Rashmi Bansal is releasing her book in Kannada version. I just wanted to meet her once and thank her for the wonderful creation.
Today the event started at 6 pm as scheduled and we could see a lot of entrepreneurs walking in. There were many IIT and IIM alumni who were all looking forward to contribute their bit to the entrepreneurial fraternity. As we walked in, the feel itself was so good that we started interacting with people. I could get to meet good people and surprisingly few of them were working on the same areas on which even we are working on. The hottest area and the successful business model these days is the area of “Education”!
We were told during the event that when they started this project, they were not looking at the number of copies to be sold and they certainly did not have big number in mind to sell. But it was surprising to hear that it is one of the highest numbers of book copies sold of any of the IIM Publication. It has reached the number of 1 Lakh copies in India. They actually released the 100001th copy today. And it is also getting translated to many languages on demand. It was released in Guajarati and today it got released in Kannada and it is coming up in 5 more regional languages. All this is happening out of demand; People are approaching them to get it translated in their regional languages. Is it not great? It is not priced heavily as well. It just costs 125Rs if you buy a hard copy and if you do not want to pay, you can download the e-copy from their website for free of cost. I was just so happy about their commitment in spreading the awareness on entrepreneurship in such an inspiring way. This was the reason I wanted to meet Rashmi and thank her.
While she was sharing her views on stage, she read out couple of emails she received from readers which were quite interesting. One person had thanked her saying he quit his company after reading this book and ventured out with in no time on his own. And there was one more interesting story wherein he purchased this book without knowing much about it and ended up starting his own venture. Yes! I do agree that if you read all the 25 stories of this book, you do not feel like what you are doing currently. All you do is to think on your own to create your own to contribute to the fraternity.
After the event, I went to Rashmi, thanked her for this wonderful work.
Other than that, the event was very helpful and CIIE is a great initiative to be in Bengaluru so that many of the budding entrepreneurs like us would get access to good resources and mentorship.
So! Please read the book and get inspired by the stories.
Stay Hungry Stay Foolish!
8 comments:
Dear Srikanth,
Thank you for bringing my attention to the book, Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish.
It is thrilling to see that the book has sold 100,000 copies. Maybe, finally, Indians are making a fundamental break from looking up to government as kamadhenu. Hope the book is translated into every major language in India.
Nehru did wonders for India in creating a liberal democratic society. Like many great people, however, he also did much damage and killed the entrepreneurial spirit with his focus of Fabian Socialism.
It is great to see Bansal and people like her reigniting the entrepreneurial fire in India. It would be outstanding if management schools in India broke from the American business school model. It is late in the day to say that American MBAs preoccupied with the quarterly financial reports brought the American economy to its knees. Maybe, this is the best time for Indian management schools to rebrand themselves as entrepreneurial schools. Such a thorough rebranding would represent an original contribution to the world.
I will get hold of the book and read the 25 successful case studies.
Very sincerely yours,
Narasim
Thank you sri for creating an eagerness to read the book.
It is definitely inspiring me to write something.
shailaja
Thank you for your kind compliments, for taking out time to come to the event and writing this beautiful post! It really means a lot to me.
Thanks Srik for such an informative blog.
I will definitely read this book.
Sudhi
I and Ranganath, Editor - Kannada Prabha wanted to translate it to Kannada. Anyway, now I know that we missed the chance. What's the title of the book in Kannada? Who translated it?
http://twitter.com/RaviHegde) I was here to read your blog via @rashmibansal tweets.
Hello Ravi... Thanks for leaving the comment. I am not too sure who translated it but the title reads as "Sadhanega Mithiyilla, Sadhakarige Koneyilla" - ಸಾಧನೆಗೆ ಮಿತಿಯಿಲ್ಲ, ಸಾಧಕರಿಗೆ ಕೊನೆಯಿಲ್ಲ!
Hi Srikanth,
Thanks for the info, i was desperately seeking for the kannada version
Rather interesting site you've got here. Thanks for it. I like such themes and everything connected to them. I would like to read a bit more on that blog soon.
Sincerely yours
Timm Clade
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