Stay Hungry Stay Foolish

by Rashmi Bansal

The inspiring stories of 25 IIM Ahmedabad graduates who chose the rough road of entrepreneurship. They are diverse in age, in outlook and the industries they made a mark in. But they have one thing in common: they believed in the power of their dreams. This book seeks to inspire young graduates to look beyond placements and salaries. To believe in their dreams.

Genres: Nonfiction, Business, Self Help, Entrepreneurship, Management, Biography, Indian Literature

324 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Rashmi Bansal is a writer, entrepreneur and youth expert.She is the author of two bestselling books on entrepreneurship. ‘Stay Hungry Stay Foolish’ features the stories of 25 MBAs who left lucrative jobs to follow the rough road of entrepreneurship. The book created a new record in Indian publishing by selling over 300,000 copies and has been translated into 8 languages.

Rashmi’s second book, ‘Connect the Dots’ focuses on non-MBA entrepreneurs. It has also been a bestseller, selling over 100,000 copies.

Her third book ‘I Have a Dream’, on social entrepreneurs, is releasing in May 2011.

Rashmi is co-founder and editor of JAM (Just Another Magazine), India’s leading youth magazine. She writes extensively on youth, careers and entrepreneurship on her popular blog: Youth Curry.
Rashmi is a columnist on popular Indian news portal Rediff.com. She has been Consulting Editor with Businessworld magazine and Bloomberg UTV, where she hosted India’s first interactive show on careers.

Rashmi is a consultant for international youth research agencies such as The Futures Company (a division of WPP, London ) and Flamingo Research (Singapore ).A guest lecturer at various business schools of repute including IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Bangalore, ISB, S P Jain among others, Rashmi mentors numerous students and young entrepreneurs. She also conducts motivational talks and youth insight seminars for corporates.

Reviews

[Shraddha · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was recommended to me by a friend, so I was looking forward to reading it. The content is generally good. It must have been a challenge to hand-pick these 25 people from a sea of achievers in India. My guess is that the author, being an IIM-A graduate herself, must have heard about some of the stories during her tenure at IIM-A. The 25 stories are a decent mix of IT, education, male, female, etc.

But what disappointed me was the sheer number of typos in this book. Man, how they drive me crazy. There were also some instances of awkward sentence construction. I'm no grammar expert but even I noticed some glaring grammatical errors. Very poor editing, I must say.

Also, and this is only speaking for myself, I could not feel motivated or inspired by stories where the interviewee admits that he cared more about being a success at business, than about giving time to his family.

Anyway, the book certainly deserves 2 stars.

[Harleen · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wonder how this book became a best seller. It is monotonous and mundane. I liked the idea of sharing successful stories and inspiring people.However, the execution is so poor that I struggled to finish it. Poorly written, it didn't inspire or motivate me at all.

I would never recommend it to anyone.

[Jaseem · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book is very repetitive and quite boring from the second half. You start to predict things and they fall in place.

The collection of business stories style seems to be inspired by Business Adventures, which presented 12 very different stories of both successes and failures. The diversity is the key. Almost all the stories presented here falls into the "middle class boy gets into IIMA, finds a co-founder from campus, struggles for a few years and makes it big" category. There might be interesting stories behind the businesses, but the author fails to capture them.

[Vijay Prajapati · Rating 5 out of 5]

The whole experience of IIM guys was so motivating and inspiring that it totally changed my view of doing business and professionalism.

Currently new book comes of Rashmi Bansal: Connect the Dots - http://www.infibeam.com/Books/info/ra...

"CONNECT THE DOTS" is the story of 20 enterprising individuals without an MBA, who started their own ventures. They were driven by the desire to prove themselves. To lead interesting, passionate, meaningful lives. Their stories say one thing loud and clear. You don’t need a fancy degree or a rich daddy to dream big and make it happen. It’s all in your head, your heart, your hands.

[Aditya Joshi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Must-Read for all the dreamers and young entrepreneurs in India.

Those small 25 stories inspires you to go straight on the path, whether you are starting from a scratch or managing a second generation enterprise. These twenty five gurus tell how many stumbles they've had on their way, the challenges they faced and the market-falls they saw. Today all of them hold multi-crore empires. Of course, they also had to decide one choice among their family or business.

However there are a few factors which may upset most young entrepreneurs:
1. All of the listed entrepreneurs are IIM graduates
2. Most of them had highly paying jobs before they started
3. They were present at right place at the right time

Besides, there are little secrets that each one of the 25 have shared in the book. Whether it makes you an entrepreneur or not, I'd recommend this book to everyone who dreams.

[Ayushi · Rating 2 out of 5]

All the research and input into writing this book can be felt. This author is one of the best of the newer lot in India. No complains on the language and literature aspect, it felt as if i am actually reading someone who is into writing but as far as the layout of the book is concerned, it was repetitive. And as this book is a collection about different people, nothing can be said about the authenticity of the book. For people who are in a search of some entrepreneurial guidance, this book can inspire; although better books have been written. For people like me, i.e. is the bookworms, we can pass this book!

[Bharath · Rating 4 out of 5]

Has good stories of people from IIM who turned entrepreneurs and were successful.

[Devangi (SpreadingBook) · Rating 4 out of 5]

It has tasted like an earlier read book by Rashmi Bansal "CONNECT THE DOTS". She walked me through 25 IIM Ahmedabad Alumni entrepreneurs story. By the time things are changing. However, it's not just about following what they did. It's about learning from their distinction. I believe each one should read this book once in their early stage of life.

[Gaurav Dharewal · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is like a Bible for all the dreamers and budding entrepreneurs. This book is for someone who abhors the rat-race and who wants to be at the mercy of none but himself.This is for someone who wants to sit on the driver's seat and lead.It is a beautiful documentation of successful tales of 25 people who believed in their ability, their idea and maneuvered their ship with grit through the rough weather. I don't understand the people rating this book 1.I believe in looking at the brighter side. In my opinion, the author though was not the best at writing but has worked hard to get the stories together and inspire people in and around India.

Life is too small to learn only from your mistakes and this gives you a wonderful opportunity to avoid certain mistakes that these achievers committed. Throughout the book I felt, I must make my to be wife read it before we get married so that she knows that my life is not going to be a cake walk. It will have it's own entrepreneurial share of struggle.

These are success stories, come on, you can't really question them. Some of the most important traits that the book highlights are 1. passion for the company/idea 2. humble/no ego /ready to learn 3. most important- patience and perseverance to wait for the good time 3. self belief 4. competence over loyalty 5. empower the talented employees in terms of equity/bond 6. Don't be attached/ emotional with the company so that it can be sold when it needs to be.

[Arun Subhash · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stay Hungry Stay Foolish is an honest attempt to bring forward Indian Entrepreneurs who began their entrepreneurial careers at different stages of their lives. It is writing in a conversational format and the book contains 25 interviews. The language of the books is not exceptional and at times the author has used Hindi (while quoting conversations).

Some stories are truly exceptional, especially of Mr Venkat Krishnan - GiveIndia. GiveIndia is a not for profit organization in India. It is an online donation platform and aims to channel and provide resources to credible Non-Governmental Organisations across India. GiveIndia was conceived in 1999 by Venkat. He wanted to create a credible link between people willing to donate and credible grass root NGOs which work for the poorest of the poor. Venkat's entrepreneurial journey was inspirational!

All in all a good book and a one time read!

[Awdhesh Singh · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good and motivating book to read. It talks about the life of 25 IIMA graduates who chose to become 'successful' entrepreneurs. However, the style is quite dull and often you have to drag yourself to complete the chapter. The stories start looking repetitive after a time and you lose interest going into the nitty-gritty of the project implementation. If you interested to motivate yourself to become an entrepreneur and if you from IIM, this book can help you leaving your job to take the risk of entrepreneurship. I am sure there must be many-time more IIM grades who failed to achieve success, but we obviously have no interest in their lives.

[Utkrisht Fella · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rashmi Bansal's book is a powerful collection of real-life stories about IIM-A graduates who chose the path of entrepreneurship over lucrative corporate careers. Each profile is a dose of inspiration, offering practical lessons and raw insights into the challenges and triumphs of building a business. It's not just a book about business; it's a book about courage, passion and the spirit of innovation. A highly motivating read for any aspiring entrepreneur.

[Heena Garg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Best insights about great IIMA alumni. Everyone does not chase money rather many chase dreams. Some dreams are beyond any common man's imagination.
Totally inspiring book with true successful stories including their hurdles.
What I liked the most are Give Foundation & Basix stories, which changed my entire perspective of living just for profits.

[Jay Sutariya · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book for all aspiring entrepreneurs. A must read for all those people who think that starting a business is kid's stuff. The book gives insight about some famous businessmen, despite being in IIM alumni have to face great challenges for their business and how they overcame that challenge.

[Muhammad Yunus]

Inspiring.........

[Yogiraj · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a motivation for me. It made me realize that there is no limit unless we impose some on ourselves.

[Kaustav Banerjee · Rating 2 out of 5]

SUMMARY

Stay hungry stay foolish by Reshmi Bansal is a fundamental book of entrepreneurship. Whoever is seeking for simple ideas before starting his/her own startup, might look for it. It’s not a hardcore business book wherein you will get bucket of golden nuggets for entrepreneurship. This book has been devided in three plot. For me it mustn’t have been a worth reading but disaster of time and energy. I wasn’t able to fall in her writing style and ideas which was absolutely as boring as herself. Unnecessary stuff are written in this book which doesn’t make any sense. It starts from a lots of promise as if you will get all solutions after completing but you can get only little red lollipop from it. Don’t jump in to it with lots of expectation otherwise you would get disappointed. I’m unable to find behind the logic how 3,00,000 copies have been sold but you may perhaps!


THE BELIVERS

Books start from several promises

Reshmi opened up from what if questions means regrets.


Ideas can come from anywhere

Entrepreneurship is about dozens of small leaps of faith over that you have to contrarian stand.

Entrepreneur are seeker and they are always open to chang. There are different kind of pressure having each stage that you have to learn to cope up with.

There are two questions is always important because going to start up.

Is the business inherently scalable ?

Is the market opportunity learge enough?

Being an entrepreneur is an art and science of creating values.

Being an entrepreneur time sacrifice is much more expensive than monetary sacrifice.

Some key principles always must keep in mind that

Is the opportunity big enough?

Am i able to make contributions and fundamentally change something that generates value ?

Always listen your inner voice with much clarity and take action with conviction.

Be patient always.

Always atlest 50% more money to stand by.

Multi location of Midsize companies creats problems of managment focus.

Manufactureing base company creats long turm employment and strong any economy than Service base .

You need to have staying power.

Always learn business you want to get into couple of years.

Always look every possible root which leads to your business and products

Always go for PVT ltd co instead of partnership

Any business for first 4 years is very much challenging

Always push your limits

Great companies are created by great people which one individual can't achieve it all alone.

Make plans but always open to all possibilities.

To get a problem solved you always have to think creative and out of the box.

Before taking a decision take time to think but if once you have taken don't step back.

You have to start off and jump off it.

THE OPPORTUNISTS

Choose your field very carefully and there must be huge market and potential.

Don't hesitate to hire people who is more better than you, and have to trust them. men always are your worst enemies.

Don't focus too much on exits. Concentrate on building on solid business.

Never have equal partners. 2 to 4 partner is okay but ideally not more than 4.

You have to have emotional staying power. 

Be an extreme knowledgeable on finance.

Aim to create lasting value. 

Combine reson and intuition. 

Longevity of field is the most important.

Always prepare for failure. 

You have to be negotiator and diplomatic working with team.

You can't be control freak as a grocery shopkeeper. 

You have to systematically study who are the people out there with cash.

Passion is most important as well as courage.

You have to play multiple role and having various shades. 

If you having angel investors then you must be prepared for outside control. 

There is no problem to take time to be industry expert before starting anything. 

You must carefully make a plan how will you be financially sustainable.

Start small then expand. 

[Maxi Wangchuk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Happy i completed the book Stay Hungry and Stay Foolish authored by Mrs. Bansal of IIMA, India. The author has interviewed and written stories of 25 inspiring entrepreneurs (who graduated from the prestigious institute of Indian Institute of Management, IIMA Ahmedabad, India) who started their own businesses after completing their MBAs. Not all were really inspiring to me but found quite few stories really powerful, inspiring and motivating. The best part of the book was the advice the entrepreneurs got to share to the world at the end of their story. Almost all the 25 entrepreneurs have some powerful tips to share to the people especially to the aspiring and existing entrepreneurs of the world. I learned alot from the book though the language of the book was not up to normal standards of writing. Nevertheless i was able to grasp the message of the entrepreneurs. I was inspired by the stories of the founders who started Naukri.com, MakeMyTrip.com, the Sintex Company, Giveindia.com and Mastek. These are the few companies started from scratch in India and expanded globally and now all these companies are valued unimaginably. Everything starts with a vision and a purpose in life. A purpose not to make money but to solve a community problem. A purpose very clear to serve the community and add value to the customers. One must be loyal to the purpose of the start-up of the company no matter what situation one goes through. Almost all the start-ups i mentioned above have failed several times in the initial stages took minimum of 5 years to sustain. What made them persevere and sail through all the problems and challenges were their clear vision, being truthful to the purpose and building a great team. These are some powerful common qualities i found that almost all the 25 entrepreneurs highlighted in the book. This is my first eCopy book i completed and it was not a good experience. It pains alot to read from the screen. Just my experience. Rated 4 for the stories and language i would rate zero.

Highly recommended to entrepreneurs both aspiring and existing.

[Mohit Titar]

Stay Hungry Stay Foolish is a book about 25 entrepreneurs who all post-graduated from IIM Ahmedabad written by Rashmi Bansal who herself is an IIMA alumni. The author of the book makes a conscious effort to inspire everyone who want to be an entrepreneur. Rashmi interviewed some alumni of IIMA who are now successful at their businesses and asked all of them about their entrepreneurial journey. The books goes through the struggles, efforts and sacrifices made by these people to run a successful company and explains what it takes to be an entrepreneur. This book made us believe that if a sensible, smart and conscious effort is made to achieve the dream; all can do it irrespective of their family background, wealth and age. After every interview the book features a separate advice to the young entrepreneur’s page in which each of the 25 IIMA alumni share their opinion and suggestions to the young ones out their which is noteworthy and we can take a lot of learning through it. This book is not a fictional novel but a real world story so it also focuses that everyone have made mistake but they learn from it and eventually succeeded with a never giving attitude. This book is a must read if you are planning to be an entrepreneur.

[Akshay Naidu · Rating 3 out of 5]

25 stories of 25 IIM Ahmedabad MBA graduates who decided to start their own business rejecting placement offers from big MNC companies. How they struggled, what kept them going on despite hardship. A kind of book that should be read by college students.

But the following facts might make you think twice before you decide to get into entrepreneurship.. :
- The book also highlights how giving it all to the firm affected their relationships with family.
- in the book there were 3-4 stories on female entrepreneurs, all of them were childless.

[Elliot Watson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rashmi, the only foolish thing about this book was ever putting it down👏👏👏

[Shubham Kabra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good collection of stories about IIMA startups. Short & quick read. Two quick feedback
1. The book needs an upgradation with time - All stories end at 2008 and the world has changed a lot after that
2. Stories are about hardcore business, the tech-driven startup has little to learn from references but core phenomenon remains the same - persistence!

[Shruti Agrawal · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do." Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
- Steve Jobs
Too late to read this book!
I know. But nevertheless जब जागो तब सवेरा।
Author @rashmibansalofficial captured the moments of struggle of 25 IIMA grads. who strived and thrived to become Entrepreneurs. There are few things which is common among all and might be somewhere we all know those factors to move forward and grow, but someone need to tell us..THIS TUSSLE IS ALL PART AND PARCEL OF LIFE, EVENTUALLY ALL HURDLES WILL BE OVERCOME AND THE SEA WILL BE SAILED. THE SHORE IS NEAR.
The 10 things I comprehended -
1. Grab the opportunity.
2. Heart over mind.
3. Own your shit.
4. Keep your ego in your pocket.
5. You don't know everything and you can't do everything.
6. If somebody is better than you, accept it and hire them.
7. The real strength appears during hard times.
8. The attitude of going forward and perseverance.
9. Knowing correct time to part ways.
10. It's not money but your idea, dream and passion that should keep you awake.
Must be boring for many, but I thought I should share something this book conveys. I don't know why I left this book halfway...मेरी आधी अधूरी पढ़ी हुई क़िताब।
Now after years picked this book and completed. Feeling content and inspired.
Happy Hump Day.
Love,
S.

[Aboobacker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stay Hungry Stay Foolish - Rashmi Bansal

Experiences & evolving history of 25 IIMA graduate enterpreneurs. An inspiring read.

[Abhinav Agrawal · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is essentially an IIM Ahmadabad marketing material. It contains details about indian entrepreneurs and their success stories

The big issue with the book is that its like a mixed vegetable dish in indian restaurant menus. Like the dish wherein fresh and in season veggies are mixed with cheap & old vegetables to complete the look and charge a premium, in the book some excellent examples have been mixed with mediocre success stories just because the person is from the respective IIM. There could have been numerous other example of Indian entrepreneurs which have made it much bigger in the same time period

Do not spent more than 3 hours on the book and you can finish it in a single sitting

[Narendran · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up this book in a roadside bookstall, had never heard of this book before, but boy! what a gem it turned out to be. A truly inspiring book, the narrative is fluid, never glossing over unnecessary details, with well grounded takeaway summaries at the end of each chapter. The book will make you impatient to take the plunge if you are the one like me hovering around the fringes of entrepreanourship thoughts constantly :-), the solid practical wisdom that shines through in this book will remain as a lantern to wade through challenging times.
Rashmi Bansal, Way to go! you have written a brilliant book. Hope to see similar gems in future.

[Harsh]

Well....its inspiring to some extent....but then History is nothing but the winners account of things....so i read it mostly as a 25 business stories just to gain an insight how does a person who has a backup in the form of a IIM A degree take a RISK????

My personal favourites are the story for the Sugar industries, Sintex corporation but the best one is of GIVE INDIA!!!!

I would recommend it to aspiring entrepreneurs who dont have an inkling abt what Entrepreneurship is all about especially the above 2 stories.....!!!!

[Aju Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've always wanted to an MBA, but I've had my doubts about what to expect if I set out to be an entrepreneur. This book has cleared a lot of ideas I had about being an entrepreneur because it speaks from the experience from 25 passionate people, their success and failures, and the idea that doing your own thing is going to be easy has changed, but the other effect it had on me was that I've never wanted to do anything more than an MBA. This book I think speaks about how to chase your passion and what to prioritise on your way doing that.

[Sandip Balakrishnan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not worth the read.Sometimes you feel that getting inspired is not about people around you but about you yourself.This book gives you that very feel and I would rather not read a Rashmi Bansal going forward given the bland way of inspiring a cause without the heart making you go for it.Lets move on.

[Praveen Agarawal · Rating 4 out of 5]

I always loved the title of this book, it is highly motivating and teaches you patience. When everyone is doubtful of your actions you continue with a passion and sheer love of your work. The book is a collection of IIT Alumni stories who go their way to become great entrepreneurs. The book is motivating and thought provoking.