So many of you ask me these questions that, at the risk of being repetitive, I shall answer once again. This time it’s Rakesh Kumar Pathak, 3rd year Mechanical student @ NIT Raipur wondering…

“Does one really need a MBA degree to become an entrepreneur?”

“Is there any advantage of the degree?”

Not at all, Rakesh! So many successful entrepreneurs do not have an MBA., or even a college degree. If you are confident and know what you want in life, you will achieve it anyhow. Yes, an MBA from a good school may help to open some doors but it is optional. By the way my next book (which will be out in October ) featueres a lot of such success stories. Watch out for it!

Many beautiful emails come in from readers. But this one stands out for its honesty, simplicity and ’stay hungry’ spirit…

Dear Ms. Rashmi Bansal / Mr. Vardan Kabra,

I asked the lady at the local library to tell me the place where the autobiographies of famous personalities were kept. I couldn’t decide which one to pick up, Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Dhirubhai Ambani, …. Then I came across this book “Stay Hungry Stay Foolish’- the title sounded so real and so close to my life.

I have always been hungry to achieve my ambitions and I have always been foolish. As foolish as kicking away a running business worth more than 6 crores and walking away, along with my wife, and with nothing in my pockets, to start afresh – on my own .

 I write to you today even though I have never been near a B-school leave aside IIM-A, but I am an entrepreneur. I started my life as a businessman grinding and polishing ophthalmic lenses, then manufacturing and selling chemicals, and then starting a school from a scratch to bring it up to ICSE level with over 750 children on its rolls, and 25000 sq ft covered area.

This I left because of the family disagreements and started afresh again at the age of 38 years, to begin a school in Dehradun, which is presently a pre-school franchise but soon I want to upgrade it up to grade 5 as an elementary and exhaustive preparatory school.

I felt that the stories in this book are so close to my life that as if I could really reach out and touch. Writing to you today is just trying to reach out.

Today again I am at the cross roads to take yet again some tough decisions that are going to effect my life and life of those that I love the most – my wife and my children. I don’t have any specific query but I just felt to write to you. If you find time, do drop me a line. Though even if you don’t- your book is already an inspiration for me.

 Best regards
 H

Your story is an inspiring too! Starting all over again is new hope, new dreams, new struggles. May the Force be with you!

dear Rashmi

I had the fortune to read Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish & like all of its countless readers, I too have succumbed to, surely the Foolishness to begin with, hopefully Hunger later on as well! In essence, I have given myself deadline of the all Fool’s month of April’09 to embark on something of that sort & away from the Corporate sanity which I find myself a part of currently.

As the author of the book, I am sure this kind of reader reaction is more gratifying than paeans in praise of its literary merits.

Thank you for writing the book.

Akshay Shandilya
MBA, entrepreneur-in-waiting

You bet Akshay! I have posted your email on this site to create a bit of additional pressure on you to keep that promise But seriously, making the leap is always difficult. When you are ready, you will somehow overcome the fear and just do it!

When a book reaches this landmark figure there is generally some hoo-ha. But seldom is the event as memorable and as meaningful to the author as it was for me. On Jan 3, 2009, Prof B H Jajoo, the dean of IIM Ahmedabad presented me a silver plaque to commemorate the achievement.

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What was even more touching was that the presentation took place in the same classroom where I occupied a seat during my first year on campus. Present were 50 of my classmates, all of whom had gathered at IIM Ahmedabad for a 15th year reunion of ‘the 93 batch.

I may not have got the hottest job from campus. Or earned the biggest bonus. But that day I felt like the rockstar of the class.

Also present was Prof Abhinandan Jain, the legendary marketing professor. Generations of IIMA students have quaked in their chappals, hoping not to be grilled on the day’s case. To be acknowledged by him felt like the ‘A’ I never got as his student.

I often asked myself during that miserable first year why I came to study at IIMA. Receiving the plaque that day I was finally able to ‘connect the dots’.

Many students wrote in saying they have an idea but this one has actually worked on his and created a prototype! It simply shows that you are never too young or ‘not qualified enough’ to exhibit a spirit of entrepreneurship.

Namaste,
My name is Naman Sanghvi, I was a student of Eklavya, Ahmedabad and am currently pursuing a Btech in Mechanical and Energy engineering at Vellore Institute of Technology. I am in my 2nd year right now.

First of all congratulations for the success of your book ‘Stay Hungry Stay Foolish’ and also thank you, it was really enlightening for a confused student like me. In fact since the past 2 years I had been working on an agricultural project, i was basically working on a modified version of drip irrigation to make it more affordable and applicable.

In fact on 3rd december I made a presentation at IIT Chennai to a jury which included Ms Laura Parkin- Director NEN. I was awarded 1st place at that competition. I have attached a photo of my work.

a href=”http://www.stayhungrybook.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/namanproject.jpg”>

In fact when i was at IIT i talked to a retired farmer who told me about real time problems that he had faced. Sfter talking to him I was convinced that all the work I had done was waste, that it had no future in a grossly corrupt country like India. I was convinced that nothing could be done, I had lost my faith in my project…..

And then I read about one Vijay Mahajan in your book, and i was fascinated. His story gave me hope, his story made me re-think… in fact back at my college i have now been granted half an acre land to test my irrigation system on a larger scale for some 3000 plants.

I do not know what the future is, what will happen next, but your book and the story of Vijay Mahajan gave me a renewed hope for which i cannot thank you enough.

In fact I thought of getting in touch with him, talk to him about the rural sector, take advice from him. I realised that if someone could help me and guide me it was him. I tried contacting him at the email-address that is there in the book but somehow there is some sort of delivery error. Can you please help?

I am happy to report I was able to connect Naman with Vijay Mahajan. They will be meeting/ discussing how to refine Naman’s idea in the near future<

A very beautiful and profound observation from a reader of SHSF

Hi Rashmi,

I have read your book “Stay Hungry Stay Foolish” as well as article “The next ‘hot’ career.”  I really appreciate your writing.

I can’t agree more to the fact that you should do what you love to do and you would be the best but isn’t it the most difficult thing to find.  A job that you love and at the same time it also reaps rewards. Simply loving to do something might not be the trick for success.

Success if explained in Mathematical terms is time into effort. People want to reduce time but that also would require proportional increase in effort which is generally not possible if you don’t love what you do.

Now, the circle completes itself and makes you wonder whether the effort should be put in finding the work that you love and later in converting the love into something tangible. This has left me in a transient state from a while…

Deepan S Kapadia

My response: My answer to your dilemma is yes it IS worthwhile to find the work you love. When you nurture that work with passion and thirst for knowledge & growth, that work will reap material rewards. It may take time – 5 years is lucky and 10 years is commonplace. That has been the experience of the entrepreneurs I interviewed and that is also my experience in the field of writing. So find what you love and hang in there!

Hello Rashmi

First of all I want to congratulate you for your very insightful book Stay Hungry Stay Foolish. Thank you for sharing such  fabulous stories about IIM-alumni.

Coincidentally we (me and my friend ,we both are students) are also running a club with the same name Stay Hungry Stay Foolish in our college. We have taken this name from the speech of Steve Jobs delivered in  Stanford University USA. We would be highly honoured if you can enlighten us with your knowledge and experiences in the form of guest lecture.

I am looking forward for your reply.

Rohit Khandelwal
Initiator:
Stay Hungry Stay Foolish Club
ICFAI BUSINESS SCHOOL – NOIDA
A-94/9 Sector 58 Noida[U.P.]

Well, it seems great minds think alike But seriously, glad to hear of such a club and although I can’t accept every invite I get these days (as I am busy working on my next book!) I can’t say ‘no’ to an invite from the Stay Hungry Stay Foolish club. We will have that lecture one of these days!

Dear Rashmi,

I came across the above book while I was searching for another book at Landmark, Chennai city Centre Chennai. Your book was neatly arranged in clusters at the end of racks. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book.You can go thru my review at Mouthshut.com.

I would like to point out a technical error, as I am also from the pharma industry  with 3 decades experience. In page 183 in the last para , 3rd line you are explaining the difference between antibiotics & antibacterials.  It should be as under:

“Antibiotics are substances produced by one set of micro organisms,leading to the death or destruction of another set of pathogenic (disease causing) bacteria. They can be Bactericidal (kill) or bacteriostatic (limit multiplication) & narrow spectrum/broad spectrum”

“Antibacterials on the other hand or chemically synthesized compounds & may be either bactericidal or  bacteriostatic”

Whether antibiotic or antibacterial,both destroy up to some extent the useful intestinal flora, that protects us from gastro intestinal infections like diarrhea/ dysentery.

Cephalosporins are preferred for their strong bactericidal activity and wide spectrum of action. Higher the generation the better, 4th generation is best for complicated hospital infection.

Hope I have been able to clarify on some of the minor errors in the book.

Regards,

R. Chandrashekhar

Thank you Mr Chandrashekhar. It is wonderful to have such involved readers who take the trouble to write in and share their knowledge. I shall try and revise the information in a future edition.

Hi there,
I read your book and I was very pleased to see the efforts the Indian guys have made. I believe that the collection of 25 different stories are there just to prove that there’s nothing like a defined path for success. You have to do the right things at the right time and off course always stay hungry and foolish.

That was really an amazing book and I don’t really support the views some people hold that it was not descriptive enough or hurriedly written. I thought of it as an initiation which is just meant to prove that the recipe is not written and can’t be, the book just added to my inspiration that one should not live in a way which one later regrets. And I believe entrepreneurship is gonna be the ext big thing in India given the fact that China is growing old.

Congrats on the huge success of your book

When I finished the book there’s the list of emails and I tried contacting Sanjeev and Deep for an idea on a web site startup but no reply came even after waiting for a long time. I’d like to know if you could help me pass my idea to them or tell me a better way on how a person with an idea can get a platform knowing that he’s still in college but willing to work on stuff he can really devote time on.

Keep up the good work,

Rohan Anand
1st year
Integ. Mtech – Mathematics and Computing
Dept. Of Mathematics
IIT Delhi

My response: It is gratifying to hear back from the core target audience – young people still in college. Because the basic idea of the book was to inspire them towards the path pf entrepreneurship.

The entrepreneurs featured in the book do take time out to reply to those writing in but sometimes it’s just a busy time and it does not happen. But persistence usually pays. And secondly, having a mentor is a good thing but not necessary. As a student of IIT you have a great deal of resources on campus (peers, profs, E-cell, incubation). All you need to put is your time and effort.

Ultimately it’s about doing something, not THINKING of doing something. You will find a way if you want it badly enough! All the best

As of Nov 19 2008, Stay Hungry Stay Foolish has sold 41,000 copies…
In the 3 months since its launch!!!!