Book Review: The Biography of a Failed Venture By Prashant Desai
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers India
Price: Rs 399
The human society judges a person from their successes. But a study of history and reading between the lines without bias, will showcase what we ignore constantly. We ignore studying “failure” as a topic. It scares us to think of “failure”. We shy away from it. With so much societal pressure to be successful in everything we do, it’s bound to be a negative energy. The attitude towards failure by people around us makes one avoid any prospects of failure. Consequently, we get conditioned to avoid talking about failure.
“Failure is not an option” : We have heard this statement many times around us, from leaders of various teams or projects or organisations . What’s supposed to be a war-cry actually brings to fore, far onerous bias towards the concept of “failure”.
No wonder that failure seems like a disease or deficiency. The very concept seems to bring us shame and embarrassment. For these very reasons, failures bring us emotional pain.
Failure, Candour, Rarity
This book is fascinating as it takes head-on this very concept of “failure” and dissects what happened in the author’s life and business venture. The book is easy to read with its simple language. The book is a “in your face” account of why the sports brand “D:FY” that the author founded and failed. The book also has learnings in how entrepreneurs can avoid these pitfalls to steer their business ventures to probable success.
Such candour is rare and rarer is a senior leader who is still in profession braving to write about his ‘failure’ experiences. One has seen and read many “I did so” /& “I told so” post-retirement which spoke of incidental not-successes; never about failures openly. This is a refreshing rarity.
The book
In April 2017, Prashant Desai founded a venture to build the first truly Indian sports brand - D:FY. Rajiv Mehta, who started Puma India and led it for seven years, joined him as a partner. They opened seventeen stores in seven cities, riding on great aspirations and confidence. The business lost Rs 30 crore in thirty months; virtually wiping out all that Prashant had earned in his 3-decade career.
The venture failed, not because Prashant did not possess the necessary focus, execution capabilities or entrepreneurial courage; in author’s words, it failed because the number of things he did wrong exceeded the number of things he did right.
It would have taken hard introspection, and ‘harsher on self’ critique on author’s part to have put this book together. The world would have been there to celebrate in the ‘ups’. Kudos to his family for their wholehearted support to him during the ‘downs’ & ‘stressful times’. After all, in a crisis, the loved ones pay a heavy price and carry the burden silently. Hat-tip to Prashant & his family !
Who should read
This book is for everyone - be it entrepreneur, or a budding one. Be it employee across hierarchies. More importantly for those who wonder what makes resilient people. This book has that ingredient, if you read it carefully !
A Must Read book !
The author is Corporate Advisor & Independent markets commentator
Twitter : @ssmumbai
