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    Womentrepreneurs Book Review: 5 Lessons for Young Women Founders from HNIMR

    Team O Womaniya turned Womentrepreneurs into a news show at HNIMR Pune. What the book teaches young women who want to start their own venture.

    Womentrepreneurs Book Review: 5 Lessons for Young Women Founders from HNIMR

    At "Ink and Insights", the book review competition I judged at MKSSS's Smt. Hiraben Nanavati Institute of Management and Research for Women (HNIMR), Karvenagar, Pune, on 29 October 2026, one team chose a book that sat very naturally in a women's management institute. Team O Womaniya presented Womentrepreneurs: Inspiring Stories of Success by Avinash Kirpal, published by SAGE in 2015. It is built on personal interviews with ten Indian women who started and grew their own ventures.

    The theme of the day was "Entrepreneurship: From Vision to Venture: Learning Through Books". This team turned their review into a news show, and the whole stage became a studio.

    A news channel called "Kal Tak"

    The first thing you noticed was the screen. Their slide read "Meet the Curators", designed like a television news broadcast, with a channel logo that said "कल तक News" (Kal Tak News) and a "LIVE" strip running along the bottom. The book reviewers were introduced like anchors and reporters on a news desk. It was a playful twist on a famous Hindi news channel name, and the hall enjoyed it.

    The team carried the idea further with a printed prop. One member held up a newspaper they had made themselves, titled "O Womania!", with a "Kal Tak" masthead, columns of text and a strip of photographs of women's faces. A book about real women's stories, reported as news. I liked that choice a lot, because these stories really are news. Most of us have never heard them.

    A small honest note: this part of the day was not recorded, so I am not going to reconstruct their lines or their answers from memory. What I can tell you is what the photographs show, what the book says, and what I believe its lessons are for a young woman thinking about her own venture.

    What the book is about

    Womentrepreneurs is a collection of ten stories, each based on a personal interview. The fields are wide: from HR consulting to organic farming, and one of the women runs an NGO for widowed women. Each story walks through how she started, what she struggled with, how the venture grew, and how she handled family life alongside it.

    Two things stand out in the book. First, many of these women did not start only for money. They started for creative expression and for their own growth, and the income followed. Second, when they talk about balancing work and family, most of them credit two things: a supportive partner, and their own assertiveness. Not luck. Not waiting for the perfect moment.

    If I had to sum up the book in one line, it would be this: she did not wait for permission. She started.

    On stage with Team O Womaniya

    As with every one of the 21 groups that day, after the presentation I went up and questioned the team, and I also shared what I had noticed. You can see it in the photos: the microphone moving between us, team members answering one by one while the others listened, papers and the newspaper still in hand. The whole team stood together for it, which I always appreciate. A business is a team sport, and so is a Q and A.

    Five lessons for young women who want to start something

    1. Your reason can be bigger than money

    Many women in this book started because they wanted to create something, or to grow as a person. That is a strong engine. A reason that is about meaning keeps you going in the months when the money is slow. Write down why you want to start, and keep that page somewhere you will see it.

    2. Start before you feel fully ready

    None of these stories begins with a perfect plan and full funding. They begin with a first step. For a student, that step could be ten customers for a home-made product, one paid workshop, or one client for a service you are already good at. Small and real beats big and imaginary.

    3. Build your support system on purpose

    The women in the book credit supportive partners and families. That support did not appear by accident. Talk to your family early about what you want to build, what time it will take, and what help you need. Bring them in as stakeholders, not as an audience you have to convince later.

    4. Be assertive about your time and your price

    Assertiveness is the other thing these founders point to. In business that shows up in simple ways: quoting a fair price without apologising, saying no to work that does not fit, and protecting the hours you have set aside for your venture. It is a skill, and it gets stronger with practice.

    5. Tell your story well

    Team O Womaniya showed this one on stage. They took ten quiet stories and packaged them as a news show, with a channel, a slide and a newspaper. Every founder needs this skill. Customers, investors and even your own family respond to a story told with confidence and a bit of creativity.

    Questions worth asking yourself after this book

    If you read Womentrepreneurs with your friends, try discussing these. Which of the ten women would you most like to meet, and why her? What common quality do you see across all of them? Which story challenged a belief you held before reading it? And if you wrote an eleventh chapter about a woman founder you know personally, perhaps your mother, an aunt, or a neighbour running a small business from home, what would her story teach?

    That last question matters. India is full of women running businesses that never get written about. Noticing them is the first step to learning from them.

    A note to Team O Womaniya

    Thank you for the news studio, the "Kal Tak" channel and the "O Womania!" newspaper. It was creative, it was well organised, and it fitted the book perfectly. Keep that instinct for storytelling. One day, I hope one of you is the founder whose story makes the front page.

    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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