Big Billion Startup - The Untold Flipkart Story

There were very few business books in Indian context and much fewer on Indian businesses. This book, Big Billion Startup by Mihir Dalal is so fresh and a welcome one in that aspect. True to his title as investigative journalist, Mihir has gone deep into various aspects that played out in the Flipkart story, right from the genesis to the exit of Bansals. To a large extent this book resembles a thriller and the narrative is gripping. Mihir has done a great job in covering many of the important characters in the Flipkart journey – the Bansals, Lee Fixel of Tiger Global, Kalyan Krishnamoorthy and many others.After reading the book, I realised the flipkart story is almost the story of one Bansal, Sachin Bansal. Sachin’s dream to build the $ 100 billion startup, the war between him and Kalyan, his relationship with Tiger’s Lee at the start, then Softbank’s Son and finally Walmart’s Doug McMillon etc are something to remember for me. What Infosys did in the 1990s, Flipkart did it in its own way in since it started to its sell off. I believe, a lot of bad press has happened for Sachin in this book, and to some extent Kalyan is left unscathed. I see Sachin and Kalyan are poles apart but its hard to believe that the author was soft on Kalyan’s role and his behaviour.I especially like the last few chapters in the run-up to the Flipkart sale to Walmart. Only Sachin kind of personality can approach Jeff Bezos directly and ask him to buy Flipkart at the same time retaining Flipkart as an independent entity. He is definitely a great visionary!Thanks to Mihir for writing this book and for the amount of effort that went into researching to make it so detailed. A must-read for anyone building a startup and more so, if they are from India.

The Big Billion Startup is an in-depth account of how things panned out at Flipkart over the last decade. Extremely well-written and thoroughly researched, this book is a page-turner -- which is a rarity for many non-fiction books. I particularly loved the way it ends. The author has managed to capture the complexities of the different characters -- especially Sachin Bansal, who one feels sad for despite some of his mistakes. Overall, a crisply-written book which would appeal to not only the ones who are interested in business stories but for anyone who loves to read a good, well-written story.

The book is amazing in terms of the level of details it goes to, having seen, heard, read about some of the events as a e commerce/Flipkart employee in last 6 years, it's very interesting and revealing. However, found it to be bit harsh on the Bansal's and soft on the man in power now, Mr K. Parts where Mr K played a key role in many exits has been carefully kept away from. Overall, a good read specially for people related to the start up world of Bangalore.

Well, the irony of the book is that most people bought this book from Amazon instead of Flipkart.However, the book beautifully captures the journey of India's most famed start up. Very in depth coverage. It never felt like it is the first book of the author. It captures the high's and low of getting funding, the rapid growth and the reasons why flipkart is not the force it once was. 5 Stars.It's a smooth read, i think its very hard to keep this book down.

I must say that this book was underestimated by me while purchasing this. I have never read any such book before wrt detailing, agility, multiple perspectives and brutality. The writer deserves 9/10 and ton of thanks.I tried finding similar books to purchase after reading this; couldn't find. Helps a lot.