Book review of irrationally passionate by Jason Kothari

BLURB:

While a college student at Wharton, Jason Kothari scraped together money from family and friends to save his childhood favourite comic book company, Valiant Entertainment, from bankruptcy and bring it back to life. A few years later, he transformed Valiant into the third-largest superhero entertainment company in the world after Marvel and DC Comics and sold it for $100 million. Jason then became a professional turnaround leader and went on to transform distressed Indian Internet icons Housing.com, FreeCharge and Snapdeal, helping save billions of dollars in value, and advise giants like technology investor Softbank and real estate developer Emaar, who have invested billions of dollars in India. Irrationally Passionate reveals the inside story of how a rebel, train-wreck kid transformed himself into a successful young entrepreneur and business leader who became one of the top ten paid executives in India while only in his 30s. From getting his first job as an assistant to Jackie Chan in Hong Kong, to learning strategy from champion Muay Thai fighters in Thailand, to tackling huge personal setbacks, to becoming a CEO in 60 seconds, among many other stories – Jason’s inspiring journey across countries, industries and companies has something for everyone, right from students to entrepreneurs to corporate CEOs to even parents of students and entrepreneurs. Irrationally Passionate is a highly personal, authentic, open and complete account of a young entrepreneur’s life. Brimming with practical advice and philosophical insights, it will force readers to reflect on how they perceive life, work, family and spirituality by giving them a fresh perspective.

BOOK REVIEW :

Becoming an entrepreneur is almost a dream of every young individual. Being nyour own boss is nsomething what we all wish for at one point of time in life. This particular book talks about Jason Kothari’s journey as an entrepreneur in his very own narration. Becoming an entrepreneur or owning a startup or bringing a company to success from its failure is not an easy task. It all doesn’t happen over a single night. What happens in his journey is what the book is about. Also being an entrepreneur is not just about starting a company, what follows behind is a great deal. You will have to know how to run it and bring in success in each step.

All the ambition, hardwork , motivation also needs to continue if we have the urge to sustain the maintenance of the company to make notable profits. The book gives you a great deal of knowledge about how to succeed and how to stay in the race to make your venture the number one.

A book of 200+ pages that tells you about his struggles and how he handled them to reap success. His entrepreneural skill began when he bargained the chess board at a roadside shop. What was priced at 500 by the shopkeeper was well bargained eby Jason for 30 rupees. What actually surprised me was he stood by it backed by his father. That showed good negotiation skills at a very young age. He took up favourite animation company Valiant by raising funds and saving it from fallback.
He mastered the art of bringing to success Businesses which were sinking. To name a few were Housing.com , Snapdeal and freecharge. It wasn’t an easy path, he had to make tough calls of laying off and raising money to make profit.

Writing style
The author makes the narration very simple and easy to comprvarious events were he turns companies successfull are nowhere given way to lengthy to drag. No complex narrations, so makes it easy for younger minds to grasp what the author has to say.

What I liked

Describing the events were mind-blowing especially the Agra chessboard from roadside vendor wherehis journey began deserves a special mention. Loved the narration that was different for the initial life of author and how it changed for later parts. The book cannot be classified under one genre owing to the book mentioning about both his professional and personal life. Few of the one liners were great and can be taken for not only people who wish to be entrepreneur but also for our normal lives.

”Captain a rowboat before a ship; a ship before a fleet.’

What could have been better

The author could have gone much more in detail.about the tactics or the formulas he used to bring up the companies. Young aspiring minds would need to know about those details to get a clearer vision.

BOOK DETAILS
File Size: 731 KB
ASIN: B08431V51G
Word Wise: Enabled
Print Length: 269 pages
Publisher: HarperBusiness (11 March 2020)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jason Kothari is a passionate entrepreneur and business turnaround leader. While still in college, he acquired the bankrupt US-based Valiant Entertainment and led its transformation as the CEO to the third-largest superhero entertainment company after Marvel and DC and a sale for $100 million, a record industry return. Subsequently, Jason was the CEO of Housing.com, where he led the transformation of the distressed company and a merger with News Corp’s PropTiger to create the $350 million industry leader. Following this, he was the Chief Strategy & Investment Officer of Snapdeal, where he played a lead role in transforming the distressed company from a monthly loss of over $20 million to a profit, the first for an Indian e-commerce company. Jason was also the CEO of FreeCharge, where he led the sale of the company to Axis Bank for $60 million. In addition, he has been a senior advisor to Softbank; Noon.com, a Middle Eastern e-commerce company that has raised $1 billion; and is a Board Director of Emaar India, which has over $2 billion in real estate assets. He is also an Executive Producer of Bloodshot (Sony Pictures) starring Vin Diesel. Jason holds a B.S. from The Wharton School and lives in Mumbai.