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    No Shortcuts Book Review: 5 Founder Lessons from HNIMR Pune

    How Team Founder's Footprints put No Shortcuts on trial at HNIMR Pune, and five lessons on persistence and sacrifice for young Indian founders.

    No Shortcuts Book Review: 5 Founder Lessons from HNIMR Pune

    On Thursday, 29 October 2026, I spent the day as chief guest and judge at "Ink and Insights", a book review competition at MKSSS's Smt. Hiraben Nanavati Institute of Management and Research for Women (HNIMR) in Karvenagar, Pune. The theme was "Entrepreneurship: From Vision to Venture: Learning Through Books". Twenty-one MBA teams, twenty-one business books, seven to eight minutes each, and then my questions.

    The very first team of the morning was Team Founder's Footprints, and they had picked No Shortcuts: Rare Insights from 15 Successful Start-up Founders by Nistha Tripathi (SAGE, 2018). It was the right book to open a day about entrepreneurship, because it answers the question every student quietly asks: is there a faster way?

    A courtroom on stage

    Team Founder's Footprints did not just summarise the book. They turned the stage into "the court of entrepreneurship". The accused was a person who wanted success without struggle, without learning and without facing challenges. One student even raised an objection with an idiom about why anyone should learn from their own mistakes. Then the book was presented as the evidence.

    The author spent about 18 months interviewing founders for this book, and the team picked five of the fifteen stories:

    They tied all five together with a lovely image: metamorphosis. Like a butterfly, every founder goes through stages. Idea, problem, struggle, adaptation, execution and then persistence. Their closing line stayed with me: ideas create possibilities, actions create businesses, and persistence creates goals.

    What I asked them, and why

    I started with persistence, because the team had built their story on it. I asked, "If you start a business tomorrow, how many years will you persist on the same idea?" One student answered without hesitation: "1000 days." I liked that. It is a real number, not a slogan.

    But then I added the uncomfortable part. Persistence never guarantees success. One day your runway ends, your money ends, and you have to be honest enough to declare that this idea has failed. So I asked them, at what moment would you declare it? The team answered with their own LikeALittle example: when you can no longer meet what customers need and you have no new ideas left to bring, that is the moment to stop. That was a mature answer from a first-year MBA team.

    Next I asked about sacrifice, because struggle always comes with it. "What are you ready to sacrifice for the first 1000 days?" I made everyone on the team answer. Sleep. Comfort zone. A predictable routine. Laziness, replaced by discipline. Binge-watching. Time spent scrolling the phone. Every answer was honest and personal, and the phone-scrolling answer got the biggest smile in the room.

    My last question was about the team itself. Every founder, every leader, faces a moment when a team member falls behind. So I asked the captain how she handled it. She told us about a lunch break about 20 days before the event: she had messaged everyone to stay back and practise first, a few members left without telling anyone, and five of them waited without lunch. She admitted she got angry, then apologised the next minute, and the team moved forward together. That small story is entrepreneurship in miniature.

    The one word the book is really about

    When I asked for the common thread across all the founders in one word, the team said "eagerness". A good answer. But I pointed them back to the cover. The author met and interviewed fifteen founders, and what she found was that there is no such thing as a shortcut. That is why the book is called No Shortcuts. The title is the lesson.

    We also talked briefly about which of their five businesses are still relevant today. Pulse was acquired, but news aggregation has since become crowded with free platforms. It was a good reminder that an exit or a headline is not the end of the story.

    Five lessons for Indian students and young founders

    1. Start with a problem you have personally felt

    Freshworks began with a damaged TV and a bad support experience. Your first business idea is probably sitting inside a complaint you made last month. Write those complaints down.

    2. Give your idea a number, not just a promise

    "1000 days" is a strong commitment because it can be measured. Decide in advance how long you will give an idea, how much money you can spend, and what signal will tell you to stop or change direction.

    3. Persistence is not the same as stubbornness

    Faasos changed its model. Ather changed its product. Persistence means staying committed to the customer and the problem, not to your first plan.

    4. Name your sacrifice before you start

    Every founder in this book gave something up. Knowing your sacrifice early, whether it is sleep, scrolling or a comfortable routine, makes it easier to keep going when the hard months come.

    5. Learn to lead a team before you lead a company

    The lunch-break story is the real training. A captain who can lose her temper, say sorry, and bring everyone back together is already practising the most important founder skill.

    A note to Team Founder's Footprints

    You put a lot of effort into your posters and your skit, and it showed. Opening a full day of presentations is not easy, and you set a high bar for everyone after you. Keep that courtroom energy, and keep asking yourselves the hard question: how long, and at what cost?

    If you run a college or company: I run book-review competitions, entrepreneurship sessions and leadership workshops for MBA students and working teams across India. If you would like a session like this for your students or your people, write to me here and we can plan it together.

    With thanks to HNIMR

    My thanks to Dr. Priyanka Singh, Director of HNIMR; Mrs. Manjushree K. Nawale, Librarian, and her library team, who organised Ink & Insights 2026; Mr. Vishwajeet Deshmukh, Placement Officer; Mr. Devadatta Sant; and Ms. Minal Kotwal, for hosting me so warmly and making the day run so smoothly. And to every student who stood on that stage with a book in hand: thank you for the courage and the creativity.

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    Avinash Chate

    India's Leading Corporate Trainer | TEDx Speaker | Author

    With 1000+ organizations trained including RBI, JSW Steels, and Ferrero, Avinash Chate delivers high-impact corporate training across India. Creator of the KITE Leadership Framework and bestselling author of "The Winning Edge."

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