#BookReview #DontStartUp #KarthikKumar #Evam I picked up Karthik Kumar’s ‘Don’t startup’ after seeing several promos on Linkedin. I wasn’t really interested in being an entrepreneur. I’m not good with numbers at all, so I figured there was no need for me to read this book. My TBR is long enough as it is. But one day, I saw his Instagram post, which advertised his book with his autograph. I still am not sure what made me reach out to him to get the coupon code for the book. It arrived soon enough and I delved into it.
A little backgrounder: I had a colleague in Aptech who was involved with Evam( way back when I worked with the company).I also met a couple of guys on a trek to Munnar who were involved with Evam. I have watched ‘The odd couple’ by Evam since I like plays. I have some old classmates( who I’m not in touch with) from my school who are friends with Karthik. I interned in RK Swamy with Suchitra Ramadurai( who I’m not in touch with) way before she became Mirchi Suchi or his wife. I’ve seen his stand-up comedy performance on Amazon Prime. And I have lived in Chennai for most of my life. So every Chennaiite knows who Karthik Kumar and Evam unless they are living under a rock. And although I almost qualify as a person living under a rock( the hermit that I am), over the last few years, I knew about Karthik Kumar and Evam.
Now to the book: I loved his definition of business vs. busy-ness. I loved the idea of ‘Takeouts’ at the end of every chapter. I especially liked the ‘Takeouts’ in the human resources chapter. I found them "oh-so-true", and I could totally relate to it. I liked the couple of exercises he outlined. And the fact that the book is peppered with insights. I loved the words ‘Enough’ is a middle-class malady. And what he said about Research: “Research is that thing you do when no one knows what you are doing but only you know why. Research is a startup going undercover to solve its own mysteries.
I loved the chapter on ‘Conscience.’ The line “And whenever we rationalize something as normal, we tend to normalize it as rational’. Page 85 had some interesting simple experiments.
He mentions in one section of the book, “Vulnerability makes you defensive while invincibility makes you drop your defences.” I’m not sure what exactly he meant and in what context, but I have found that vulnerability works very well for me in my life. I practice it in my personal life.
If there's one thing I have to call out, it is the incorrect usage of words in certain places. On page 151, the word "lesser" is incorrectly used. The sentence reads "All this will make your authority much lesser." That made me cringe since the incorrect use of lesser is a pet peeve of mine. There are a couple of other places where I found errors, but I don't want to dwell on it.
Back to what I liked: "The arts is more sensorial, fun, random and thrives on imagination and even unpredictability. " Except for the disagreement of the verb with the subject in the sentence, I loved the line.
Page 157, which was on bosses was probably the chapter I could most relate to. He says "Bad bosses are responsible for every magnificent opportunity and job to suddenly seem bleak and hopeless and worth giving up. Bad bosses are mood spoilers and make you believe that you are not worth much, which, in turn, reflects on your daily life and then things all spiral downwards from there. Gosh! I want to take a printout of this page and send it to several of my former bosses. They know who they are!
I loved the bit about the inner entrepreneur. It really resonated with me. I'd like to congratulate Karthik Kumar and Evam for their marvellous journey, which led to this book!'
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