Book Review BOOK DETAILS Name of the book :Connect the dots Author: Rashmi Bansal Place of publication:

Publisher: Eklavya Foundation Date of publication: April 2010 Number of pages: 305 INTRODUCTION About the author Rashmi Bansal is a writer, entrepreneur and a youth expert. Rashmi is cofounder and editor of JAM (Just Another Magazine). She writes extensively on youth, careers and entrepreneurship on her blog Youth Curry. 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. An economics graduate from Sophia College, Mumbai and an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad, she lives in Mumbai. Before working with JAM she worked for The Times Group Other books by Rashmi bansal: Stay Hungry Stay Foolish, I Have a Dream, About the book It tells the stories of courage, determination and inspiration of 20 people from different backgrounds who chose to become entrepreneurs without doing an MBA. This is her 2nd book. Her 1st book Stay Hungry Stay Foolish was a similar story of famous entrepreneurs. But the difference was that all of them had done their MBAs from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. When you pick up the book, you cant help but notice the cover page. The title is written inverted and even both her book titles were famous quotes of none other than Steve Jobs. Rashmi does seem to have a lot of admiration for him. I feel the reason for the inverted title is to show how these people who rose to success connected the dots in their lives which many times seemed upside down or confusing. Her style of writing the stories of each of the entrepreneurs is exactly identical to her first book. Few pages on what they did, how they did

and the difficulties they faced finally ending up with a small advice given by each of the entrepreneurs. Summary All the stories in this book are of course successful stories. But to call it successful, each story takes you through its own adventure that one can never expect. In the end, success tag is just a satisfactory reward. None of them are content enough with their success. As I can see, they are still on their way in their dream journey. Destination is still far and dreams are growing higher and higher. She has chosen stories from all the professions and across several states of India. You can see stories starting from Restaurant owners, story writers, and Movie makers and to the stories of even IT folks. And the classification that is being done is very neat and meaningful. The book has classified entrepreneurs in three categories:

Those who got the Jugaad right, Those with a lot of Junnon, and Those who had a strong message or Zubaan.

Jugaad - It showcases the people who have no formal training in business. They learnt by observation, experimentation and application of mind because ultimately, business is not rocket science. Entrepreneurs like Prem Ganapathy (Dosa Plaza) 10th pass, and was a dishwasher to make his ends meet but now a proud owner of 26 outlets across India; Kunwer Sachdev (Sukam Inverter) a statistics graduate who tried his hands as a cable operator and accidently stumbled upon the idea of inverter and never looked back; Ganesh Ram (Veta) who revolutionized the English speaking courses ; Sunita Ramnathkar (Fem Care Pharma) a humble housewife who experimented in kitchen with a blender ;N Mahadevan (Oriental Cuisines) on his journey from professor to building a food empire across countries ; Hanmant Gaikwad (Bharat Vikas Group) whose mother worked as a teacher and took up sewing jobs to make him engineer but he now owns a facilities management firm with Rashtrapati Bhavan as a proud client; Ranjiv Ramchandani (Tantra T Shirts) who studied microbiology, experimented with career by joining advertising and finally clicked by selling T

shirts at Kurla Station; Suresh Kamath (Laser Soft Infosystems) who believes in Love for people you work with, live with, for what you do, you say and has joined social responsibilities with sound business and Raghu Khanna (Cashurdrive) who clicked the idea of selling on cars, the locomotives as advertisement carriers. All the stories under Jugaad are inspiring. Also one more pattern that I have observed in these stories is that there is some spiritual inspiration for all these people which made them successful. Like in the above mentioned stories, there are many people who were inspired by Swami Vivekananda. Junoon The entrepreneurs, who dared to think ahead of their time, think different. Something which is different, ahead of its time. These ventures are about making that dream, a living reality. R Sriram (Crossword) Books so many that you name it and they have it; Saurabh Vyas & Gaurav Rathore (Political EDGE) Researching for politicians, they really need it! ; Satyajit Singh (Shakti Sudha Industries) commercializing makhana??; Sunil Bhu (Flanders Dairy) it really is a cheesy affair; Chetan Maini (Reva Electric Car Company) They are licensing their technology to GM; Mahima Mehra (Haathi Chaap) did anyone thought of making paper from Elephant or Camel Dung? ; Samar Gupta (Trikaya Agriculture) who can think to grow anything in India. Zubaan When creative people express themselves in different ways. When that talent is unique, the platform must be created. And in doing so, the artist too becomes an entrepreneur. All the four stories in this category are extremely good. Abhijit Bansod (Studio ABD) From designing Titan Raga to Studio ABD; Paresh Mokahi (Harishchandrachi Factory) the official 2009 Oscar entry; Krishna Reddy (Prince Dance Group) winner of Indias Got Talent; Kalyan Varma (Wildlife photographer) the idiot who left Yahoo and is content with the dream he lives. The book is divided in small chapters, each with the pic and a small introduction of the entrepreneur and then the success story written in a simple narrative, which is an interesting read. It is a good motivational tool for all those who are looking for something different, and are really not happy with what they are doing. But they are not sure, whether risk is worth taking or how to do

it. This book simply gives you 20 odd examples of people who did it. At the end of every story there is a small advice or a jist of experience learning by the entrepreneur. This might not just inspire many people; this will certainly bring more number of entrepreneurs into the big ocean of opportunities and possibilities! After reading the book if someone thinks to do something what they already did, and copy paste the effort, I dont know how successful he might be, but if he seeks an inspiration to work on his own dream, then this book definitely is a motivator and helps you to take the first step. Different Entrepreneurs share the small things that made all the difference, whether it was costing, marketing, value of visibility, dignity of labour or market need. You can name it vision, idea, logic or simply luck, but these people born between 1960 and 1984 did dare to do something different. Two of my greatest learning from the book is 1. It isnt necessary to do an MBA to become an entrepreneur because academic qualifications shouldnt decide a persons future and career. 2. The entrepreneurs today are in hurry to make as much money as possible as fast as they can. In any new project the first few years are really challenging and one should be ready for that. Many people would criticise Rashmi Bansal or the book because she has just interviewed some people and put the facts in both her books rather than add something new. But I would like to say that she has at least given us something inspirational to read other than the usual books on Ambanis, Tatas, Birlas and others. All in all, this book is highly recommended for anyone and everyone who wants to know how success can be achieved against all odds in this country.