Book Reflection — The Economy Class Founder: a startup story written with Love, Heart & tons of Courage
TL/TR
I am not a book critic but like Manasij I am a tech entrepreneur. This is a reflection & not a review. I am not qualified to be a critic but can seldom reflect, it’s a unique quality we founders build with time. Someone smart said Entrepreneurship is like chewing glass, after a while you start to like the taste of your own blood. Well, I bet Manasij & many other founders from Zero->Exit will agree to this bitter-sweet dichotomy of building companies. It’s so much of a once-in-a-lifetime learning opportunity & at the same time excruciatingly painful. I hope this reflection will help others read this book & internalize some lessons in building a startup, working in a startup, working with a startup & investing in startups.
Amazon Link — https://www.amazon.in/Economy-Class-Founder-Manasij-Ganguli/dp/8195996973
A better review is here https://yourstory.com/ys-life/the-economy-class-founder-book-review-manasij-ganguli-threadsol
“The Old Man and the Sea” by Ernest Hemingway is one of the greatest literary feats of modern 21st-century literature. “The Old Man and the Sea” tells the story of an aging fisherman’s struggle to catch a giant marlin and his battle with the forces of nature. It explores themes of perseverance, struggle, and the human condition. Hemingway was a very contrarian writer, he once said “Prose is architecture, not interior decoration.”
His approach to writing was very much about creating a solid framework (the architecture) rather than focusing on embellishments (the interior decoration).
Storytelling is a vast and diverse art form that draws inspiration from a wide range of sources and experiences. Writers often create unique stories by combining different elements, characters, settings, and themes to craft their narratives.
Manasij Ganguli a serial entrepreneur does a Hemingway in his straight-from-the-heart book “The Economy Class Founder” wherein he narrates the story of Threasol's journey from its humble inceptions to its rollercoaster exit to Coats Digital. Being a technology product founder himself he in the truest of Hemingway style writes with a solid framework of characters & lays it out with honesty, humor & at times the truest dichotomies of life. He unlike many writers these days does not fall prey to embellishments (the interior decoration) but relies on true stories from the ground.
There’s humor in Wilson & Kundan hotel situation in Adis Ababa, triumph and coming of age in Anas sales prowess in Bangladesh, gratitude to Jaya’s consistent dedication to the cause, pain in tough decisions on the beach Mausmi & he takes, love for the 4 founders who stood against all odds & grit in Manasij on the 5 am email from Hotel Shamrock in Hong Kong. The book is an innocent & from the heart display of the emotions that these characters lived day in and day out while building Threadsol. It’s also a great relief from the self-propaganda of biographies we read where the characters as Manasij calls it porn stars behave in that mythical way beyond our reach.
Some key 7 takeaways from the book are —
1. Love of the Foundational founding team
The team of Mausmi, Bratish, Abhishek & Manasij clearly felt on many occasions were bonded by love. In love in its unique ways to fight, trust each other, makeup, bet your life & compromise when need be. Be it rallying & building the Intello3C prototype in 4 weeks no questions asked, and leaving Manasij to negotiate the exit deal independently. This talks so much about the relationship these founders built on trust & there’s no surprise that they have started again with ZapScale. I have never met Abhishek or Bratish but via this book can vouch for them being excellent Co-founders, they know like a “Nimit in Bhagwat Gita” that they have a role to play to the best of their abilities & leave the outcome to play out.
2. Dedication of the Threadsol young guns
Threadsol was lucky to have these young, passionate & ambitious young men & women from NIFT, etc who built the company at the ground. Anas, Saurabh, Jaya, Nikita, Kundan, Wilson, Silky, Rohit & many more worked as if they were building their own startups. The way Jaya did a “Martian” with the Spain affair was something out of a Guy Ritchie movie along with handing the Bangladesh market to Anas. It not only requires chutzpah but also complete dedication to the cause. This speaks very highly of the kind of culture Threadsol founders built. It’s a dream for every founder to have these employees -> evangelists' transformation happen at scale. Threadsol showed that it’s definitely possible.
3. Embracing pain as a CEO & channelizing it to learning-decisioning
Manasij time & again embraced setbacks in this book. As he beautifully writes that the first guy who is attacking ends up taking the most shellings. I think he talks about himself as a CEO more than anything else, wherein the cliched lonely journey is not only lonely but replete with life-threatening moments. The email of the negative DD from the team, firing a trusted lifelong friend, and taking No from hundreds of VCs & customers looks heroic to read but is extremely difficult to process. The only way is to use a lot of humor, ounces of self-confidence & ability to show astute decision-making in adversity. There are many examples at display in the book which is a recommended read for CEOs in the making.
4. Courage in the middle of existential adversities
As FDR said “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.”
The way Manasij & Founders negotiate the exit valuation price with the Coats team, team go on the Tech DD call to nip questions in the bud, take the challenges of Zara & Li & Fung product use cases is absolutely riveting for all young entrepreneurs.
Courage, according to Aristotle, is the first virtue because it makes all the other virtues possible.
If that’s true, then courage is also the first virtue in the startup arena & in the book it's displayed by everyone in absolute abundance.
5. Celebrating wins & building relationships for the long term
There’s a unique theme of celebrations. Whether it’s Agra, Goa, Sri Lanka, Rock Concerts, or Table Tennis & many countries wherein Threadsol planted its flags of dominance. The team that celebrates together stays together which is amply at display. In one of the chapters, Manasij relates the ritual of the bonfire to the human spirit of camaraderie & shared visions. Probably the lessons of low attrition lie somewhere here which is something we all could learn in the world of silent resignations. Stories of beer, food, joint celebration, rock gigs, poetry sessions & bonfire celebrations remind you to reflect, rejoice & rejuvenate as working in a startup can be absolutely gruesome on most occasions.
6. Having evangelists on your way to the startup dark tunnel
One of the latent themes in the book is finding the right evangelists like CK, Karthik, Rajan, Yael, Ashish, NRM & many more. In the gloom & doom as a CEO you always play your hands from a position of weakness. Manasij amply demonstrates that category creation needs evangelists, the founders need to have the mettle to evangelize, clarity of narrative to dumb it down & tons of confidence to see it through. This was at its best display in the 15-member meeting with the Coats team wherein the oldies of the industry congregated to hear Mauasmi & Manasij at their best act.
Asking for help is never a sign of weakness. It's one of the bravest things you can do. And it can save your life.
7. Sheer passion to build — team, culture, customers & product
In spite of all the adversities the Threadsol team, founders & customers kept adding value & capturing value in the process. Never once in the wake of any duress the team & culture lost hope. They kept on shipping products, making customers delighted & writing stories on the historic walls of apparel tech. For once Churchill is wrong — history is at times definitely grounded in facts, it’s not the winners’ interpretation of that prevails it’s the creator’s true narrative that shines bright as the sun.
Ending Thoughts
I have known Manasij for a long time, more as a brother-in-arms in the war & peace of building companies. I am an outsider & not a part of his inner coterie as he mentioned his 15 close people at the end of the book.
But, sometimes as an outsider, you have a unique unbiased view of the journey & I have been absolutely privileged to see the story of Threadsol unfold.
As a 1st time entrepreneur myself I take his advice & opinion with utmost sincerity & mindfulness. He has been always kind enough to give me his time & I hope he continues to do that. But, with this book, I am sure many thousands of entrepreneurs who are building meaningful companies will be able to deep dive into some of the important brutal learnings of building companies that Manasij has honestly bared naked. That without any whatsoever pretense.
I salute Manasij Ganguli for bringing out this amazing book “The Economy Class Founder” & highly recommend giving it a spin. It’s like going into a time machine & reliving the journey of Threasol with the team.
He calls himself an “Economy Class founder”, which reminds me of a quote from the movie “Black Hawk Down” by the great artist Ridley Scott. Leading a team of soldiers to war & genocide ridden Somalia the optimist Sergeant Matt Eversmann played by the brilliant Josh Hartnett says -
Nobody asks to be a hero, it just sometimes turns out that way. Sergeant Matt Eversmann ( from the movie — Black Hawk Down)
Give this beautiful story a spin today
Amazon Link — https://www.amazon.in/Economy-Class-Founder-Manasij-Ganguli/dp/8195996973
