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Founder's Office | 150 Impactful Lessons to Drive Better Business Results
What separates great business leaders from the average is largely their ability to take the right decisions more often. And one way to become better at that is by having enough information to guide those decisions.
Sarthak Ahuja works closely with entrepreneurs of all kinds and is one himself. He reads and researches extensively on business and masterfully connects conventional wisdom to the present context.
This book is a collection of actionable insights across leadership, business finance, marketing, pricing, and startups.
With 150 crisp chapters, the reader can pick and choose topics to read based on their interest and need. Every page is structured to provide value regardless of the order of chapters or sections. It’s a perfect companion for the busy and ambitious professional.
From the "This book is a collection of 150 impactful lessons I’ve collated over the 11 years of working with organizations of different sizes and through an extensive study on business in general. Treat it like a deck of cards with each containing a useful note, rather than one long book you need to read in order."
Bonus: A list of 20 books that the author, Sarthak Ahuja, highly recommends to learn about frameworks for scaling up your business.
Sarthak Ahuja works closely with entrepreneurs of all kinds and is one himself. He reads and researches extensively on business and masterfully connects conventional wisdom to the present context.
This book is a collection of actionable insights across leadership, business finance, marketing, pricing, and startups.
With 150 crisp chapters, the reader can pick and choose topics to read based on their interest and need. Every page is structured to provide value regardless of the order of chapters or sections. It’s a perfect companion for the busy and ambitious professional.
From the "This book is a collection of 150 impactful lessons I’ve collated over the 11 years of working with organizations of different sizes and through an extensive study on business in general. Treat it like a deck of cards with each containing a useful note, rather than one long book you need to read in order."
Bonus: A list of 20 books that the author, Sarthak Ahuja, highly recommends to learn about frameworks for scaling up your business.
- GenresBusiness
232 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 2, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
May 12, 2025
Pretty good in the Indian context !
My key takeaways -
1. "Brand", which he calls "better marketing" - Nike is the best example, yeah?
2. "Quality", an attribute that everyone uses to justify why their product is higher priced than the competition. You could say JBL, or Bang & Olufsen, of course, as Greg does.
3. "Price" - that's competing at scale for the masses. Think BoAt in the context of audio equipment/wearables.
4. "Community", or the audience/fandom you've built around your product. I'd say look at all your cohort-based courses or even the MBA programs. The learning
5. from peers and the alum network is priceless.
6. "Technology", which is your patents and designs and copyrights and all intellectual property that you have legal rights to use commercially till China copies your Apple watch Ultra and starts selling it at Rs 3k.
7. And "Network Effects" - that's probably no longer Uber/ Ola, but definitely WhatsApp.
- [ ] SWOT ( strengths, weakness, opportunities, Threats)
- [ ] Know that data is the base of all AI. So if you don't have the right data collected to begin with, even if someone gives you an Al tool for free, you won't be able to use it. So begin capturing as much data as you can in your business that you don't capture currently:
- [ ] , Customer sales funnel
* Organized customer insights
* Revenue analysis of most selling SKUs, average order value for each customer, recurrence rate for each cus-tomer, etc.
- [ ] You can only improve what you measure!
- [ ] Sounds basic, but it's surprising how many small and medium businesses in India measure nothing more than monthly sales! Businesses require measurements in HR, finance, operations, product development, and literally every other function. Most SME business owners do not even have an MIS dashboard in Excel to view weekly per-formance.
- [ ] How much revenue you're hitting this month is futile to measure if you're not measuring things like - new client meetings you had; number of follow-up calls done; conversion rate of ads, etc.
- [ ] Build a ROI Calculator
- [ ] Aim for 70%, launch faster, fail faster, iterate faster
- [ ] Trust = (Credibility + Reliability + Authenticity) / Реср-tion of Self Interest
- [ ] Your trust increases with your credibility, reliability and authenticity but decreases if people think you're doing an action for your own good. Increases when they think you're doing it for the benefit of others.
- [ ] Credibility is if you're qualified, experienced and skilled to do something.
- [ ] Reliability increases through consistent behaviour.
- [ ] Authenticity is you being yourself and not doing something to be falsely perceived as what you're not.
- [ ] Have you found a compelling way to make your customers try your product for free?
- [ ] Millennials and Gen-Zs prefer to buy, and have higher conversions when the message from a business is from an individual than from a "we", "Humanizing" your business gives you higher sales conversions.
- [ ]
- [ ] So, your business must have:
- [ ] 1. Business Brand; AND
- [ ] 2. Preferably an attached Personal Brand that aids in:
* Humanizing your business
* Building relatability with the target audience , Opening doors for you (with investors, advisors, easier access)
* Reflecting thought leadership
- [ ] Finance is more about marketing than finance itself
- [ ] If you have the passion for something and there's a huge market opportunity for it, but unfortunately you do not have complementary skills, you'll probably fail.
- [ ] If you have the skill and there's an opportunity, but no pas-sion, you might make money, but with drudgery. How long can you keep working on something which you are not passionate about? Eventually, the energy will fizzle out.
- [ ] If you have the passion and the skill, but there's not a big enough opportunity, then you'll have fun while working on it , but will probably not end up among a lot of money
- [ ] Curiosity, grit, hunger, self control, zest, social intelligence, optimism, gratitude, hustle
My key takeaways -
1. "Brand", which he calls "better marketing" - Nike is the best example, yeah?
2. "Quality", an attribute that everyone uses to justify why their product is higher priced than the competition. You could say JBL, or Bang & Olufsen, of course, as Greg does.
3. "Price" - that's competing at scale for the masses. Think BoAt in the context of audio equipment/wearables.
4. "Community", or the audience/fandom you've built around your product. I'd say look at all your cohort-based courses or even the MBA programs. The learning
5. from peers and the alum network is priceless.
6. "Technology", which is your patents and designs and copyrights and all intellectual property that you have legal rights to use commercially till China copies your Apple watch Ultra and starts selling it at Rs 3k.
7. And "Network Effects" - that's probably no longer Uber/ Ola, but definitely WhatsApp.
- [ ] SWOT ( strengths, weakness, opportunities, Threats)
- [ ] Know that data is the base of all AI. So if you don't have the right data collected to begin with, even if someone gives you an Al tool for free, you won't be able to use it. So begin capturing as much data as you can in your business that you don't capture currently:
- [ ] , Customer sales funnel
* Organized customer insights
* Revenue analysis of most selling SKUs, average order value for each customer, recurrence rate for each cus-tomer, etc.
- [ ] You can only improve what you measure!
- [ ] Sounds basic, but it's surprising how many small and medium businesses in India measure nothing more than monthly sales! Businesses require measurements in HR, finance, operations, product development, and literally every other function. Most SME business owners do not even have an MIS dashboard in Excel to view weekly per-formance.
- [ ] How much revenue you're hitting this month is futile to measure if you're not measuring things like - new client meetings you had; number of follow-up calls done; conversion rate of ads, etc.
- [ ] Build a ROI Calculator
- [ ] Aim for 70%, launch faster, fail faster, iterate faster
- [ ] Trust = (Credibility + Reliability + Authenticity) / Реср-tion of Self Interest
- [ ] Your trust increases with your credibility, reliability and authenticity but decreases if people think you're doing an action for your own good. Increases when they think you're doing it for the benefit of others.
- [ ] Credibility is if you're qualified, experienced and skilled to do something.
- [ ] Reliability increases through consistent behaviour.
- [ ] Authenticity is you being yourself and not doing something to be falsely perceived as what you're not.
- [ ] Have you found a compelling way to make your customers try your product for free?
- [ ] Millennials and Gen-Zs prefer to buy, and have higher conversions when the message from a business is from an individual than from a "we", "Humanizing" your business gives you higher sales conversions.
- [ ]
- [ ] So, your business must have:
- [ ] 1. Business Brand; AND
- [ ] 2. Preferably an attached Personal Brand that aids in:
* Humanizing your business
* Building relatability with the target audience , Opening doors for you (with investors, advisors, easier access)
* Reflecting thought leadership
- [ ] Finance is more about marketing than finance itself
- [ ] If you have the passion for something and there's a huge market opportunity for it, but unfortunately you do not have complementary skills, you'll probably fail.
- [ ] If you have the skill and there's an opportunity, but no pas-sion, you might make money, but with drudgery. How long can you keep working on something which you are not passionate about? Eventually, the energy will fizzle out.
- [ ] If you have the passion and the skill, but there's not a big enough opportunity, then you'll have fun while working on it , but will probably not end up among a lot of money
- [ ] Curiosity, grit, hunger, self control, zest, social intelligence, optimism, gratitude, hustle
July 27, 2023
A brilliant book in an innovative format. I loved the fact that each chapter is small and concise. The book covers multiple lessons on entrepreneurship, business, sales, marketing and others. I was able to read it in 3 sittings. A brilliant collections of frameworks and ideas. Kudos to your Sarthak. Can't wait for your next title.
August 2, 2023
Fantastic book! Just loved it. Sarthak Ahuja has yet again released a masterpiece. I loved his book ‘Daily Coffee and Startup Fundraising’ and this book is a wonderful next launch from him. Founder’s office is a must read for all entrepreneurs. It’s an easy read, entertaining and so so insightful! ♥️
January 28, 2024
To the point lessons for anyone wanting to learn more about startups and the journey of startups.
March 26, 2025
A crash course to keep u afloat in the Startup/ investment-funding roles .
April 22, 2025
So this book is basically notes on startup. It’s a good one time read with Indian startups in mind
April 26, 2026
Just the basic principles of building businesses, and that's the beauty of this book.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews