Nearbuy Co-founder Unveils 3 books That Inspired him Books that changed Ankur Warikoo completely.
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Ankur Warikoo is the Co-founder CEO at Nearbuy (formerly Groupon India). He holds a Management degree from the Indian School of Business. He also holds a Master's degree in Physics from Michigan State University. Here he shares books that always inspired him.
Rework- by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson
This book changed me completely. It reflects the new age of work, especially for entrepreneurs, where past notions are challenged. My two best parts of the book are "Everything is Marketing" indicating that every single interaction with a customer is marketing, not something that is a department's KPI, and "ASAP is poison" – laying emphasis on the fact that false urgency almost always leads to wrong results.
Hard Thing About Hard Things - by Ben Horowitz
This is the naked truth about entrepreneurship. The book tells you that the world of entrepreneurship is not glamorous at all. It is really hard and unusual for someone to even choose the entrepreneurial path. But some people do and so did Ben Horowitz. He shares his story, and it is amazing how much I relate to it each time I read the book. Have read it seven times already and whenever I am struggling with a question, I refer to portions of it.
Zero to One - By Blake Masters & Peter Thiel
Peter Thiel is what I call a "theorizer." He has the ability to convert his experiences into theory and share it in a way that seems like a course. That's what Zero to One is all about. It is like a how-to-guide for start-ups, focusing on what is important by breaking several myths. I personally loved the "Building a Monopoly" section that suggests that going after a really big market isn't as valuable as building a monopoly in the market you are in.
This article first appeared in the Indian edition of Entrepreneur magazine (April 2016 Issue).
