The High Performance Entrepreneur: Subroto Bagchi; Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd.

Rs.395

The recent times have heralded the arrival of many young and budding entrepreneurs. Of all the

entrepreneurs, only a handful of them succeed while the others vanish without a trace. From the

Indian perspective, we observe that, there are a lot of companies which start, but very few which

achieve the scale. What differentiates those which succeed from the others? Entrepreneurship in

itself is an art that has to be mastered. A very small fraction of new entrepreneurs completely

understand the art of entrepreneurship and these are the ones who break through all obstacles in

their way and attain what they desire. Subroto Bagchi is one the very few who understood this

art. His learnings come from his own experiences in building MindTree from the scratch into a

very successful company of global repute. He utilizes his own experiences as an entrepreneur

who rose from the bottom in providing valuable guidance to the crop of new entrepreneurs. The

book aims to metamorphose entrepreneurs into high performance entrepreneurs who create

wealth, by showing them the opportunities and also warning them of the pitfalls right from the

idea stage to the IPO stage.

Subroto Bagchi catalogues the book into eighteen chapters. It is noteworthy that he does not

define the set of rules by which one can be a successful entrepreneur, rather he narrates his own

experiences and what he has learnt from them. This is the USP of the book and it connects

immediately with the reader.

The book aptly starts with the chapter ‘When do I know if I am ready’ which discusses on how

to recognize if you are ready to start a venture of your own. He describes his interactions with
people who are intent on starting a venture and through them. Personal sacrifices and the

willingness to postpone gratification are a must in such situations. Following this is the chapter

‘Profile of an entrepreneur’ in which he stresses that an entrepreneur must be a person who

loves to make money in addition to being self confident, disciplined and focused on long term

goals or vision. An entrepreneur must also have the ability to look beyond initial failures and not

get bogged down what he describes as ‘egolessness’.

The chapter ‘Sensing the right opportunity’ warns entrepreneurs to not start an organization

only on the basis of a good idea. The ability to scale and also the ability to extend the idea to

develop newer ones over a long term are important factors to be taken into consideration. In this

he states the example of Intel which saw the market of processors beyond the first computing

device. The examples of Café Coffee Day and Air Deccan are inspiring examples in this regard.

The next chapter ‘Choosing the team’ focuses on whom to associate yourself with while starting

a venture. Subroto Bagchi personally believes that no blood relatives are to be a part of the

company. Some important characteristics to look for in your team are integrity, the willingness to

postpone immediate gratification, a sense of humor and also the ability to complement each

other. The chapter ‘DNA, Mission, Vision and values’ talks of defining the essence of the

company, its short term and long term goals and a set of values or rules by which it always

abides by in reaching the goals. Following this he talks of how to differentiate yourself from

competition in the next chapter ‘How are you different’. Here he states the principle of the six

horses namely domain, tools, methodology, quality, innovation and branding which are key

elements in differentiating yourself from your competition.

The next chapter ‘Writing the Business plan’ advocates that the principles, mission, vision of

the enterprise be put on paper. This gives the investors, customers and also the employees a clear

picture on the fundamentals of the company. The business plan should be detailed and should not

be written in order to impress the venture capitalists but for oneself. The next on ‘Choosing the

right investor’ he touches upon the relationship to have with venture capitalists. He emphasizes

on the need to have a transparent relationship with trustworthy venture capitalists and not shady

ones. Following this the chapter on ‘Getting good people and retaining them’ suggests giving

employees their space in order for them to perform. Here he introduces the 95:95:95 principle

that advocates that 95 percent of the people must have access to 95 percent of the information at

95 percent of the time. Subroto Bagchi believes in following a strong process in order to succeed

and states that even Michelangelo considered to be the greatest artist who did not follow a

process needed a carefully designed process to expose his work to the world in the chapter

‘Building the process focused organization’. He focuses the importance of business dealing

with valuable customers in order to improve on the company’s profile and on the need to develop

good relationships with them in order to build partnerships with them or to obtain business from

their customers in the chapter ‘A company is known by the customers it keeps’.

In the chapter on ‘Managing your money’ Subroto states that the core of money management is

the need for transparency and maintenance of a record of all transactions. As a result the role of

CFO is the most critical as most of the start-ups fail because of mismanagement of money. He

uses the example of Google in the chapter on ‘Building a brand’. A brand is a communication

of inner worth over a period of time. Products change, people change, methods change, processes

change but the brand remains the same. Branding goes much beyond advertising. Subroto also

indicates the importance of a ‘Willingness to change’ in order for a company to evolve. He

compares a company to a river that gives no indication of what it will eventually look like and

just like a river changes its path, even an entrepreneur should be willing to change. For any

successful entrepreneur there is a need to ‘Manage Adversity’ where in the name says it all. The

chapter on ‘Reasons startups fails’ is a must read before any entrepreneur starts a venture in

which the pit falls are indicated.

Overall the book is a compelling read for any budding entrepreneur. Subroto uses simple

language and this coupled with a lucid style of writing makes the book an interesting read. But

what makes the book special is that the source of the ideas provided is through real life

experiences. The usage of Café Coffee Day, Air Deccan and Google as examples makes the

book easy to relate to. It is truly a treasure house of knowledge that is a must read for any person

aspiring to become not, just another entrepreneur but a high performing one.