MUMBAI: Young Turks is not only one of the most popular shows but also has been one of the longest running shows on Indian business news channel CNBC-TV18. It is hosted by the channel’s managing editor Shereen Bhan who recently launched a book commemorating 13 years of the show by the same name- Young Turks: Inspiring Stories of Tech Entrepreneurs.

Talking about the long running stint of the show Bhan says, “For 13 years we have interviewed close to 2000 people who have displayed new ideas through their entrepreneurship, received legitimate funding from different sources and are showing positive signs of sizeable revenues.”

She informs that as she did not have a compelling story to tell, she decided to narrate the encouraging tales of 13 tech entrepreneurs like Red Bus’ Phanindra Sama and Charan Padmaraju and shopping portal Flipkart’s Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal among others. The book has been co-authored by Syna Dehnugara. “Through our long conversations we tried compiling up the stories on the entrepreneurs. We wanted to narrate their story from their eyes rather than just our opinions,” she adds.

Advertisement

Published by Random House, Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy launched the book in New Delhi. As to the book’s focus on just tech entrepreneurs, Bhan says, “We wanted the book to have a diverse range of stories but decided to focus on tech entrepreneurs as these companies have shown a certain amount of scale and feedback in terms of business growth and revenues. We also reached out to investors and industry experts to find out how well these companies were performing and then zeroed down on the final tally.”

Bhan’s compelling reasons for someone to pick the book are: “Firstly this is for those who are mostly interested in business.  Secondly there will be many people who want to start one on their own but would not have a clear sense of idea how to go about. This book showcases how first gen entrepreneurs who without a very large bank balance and in the absence of a business background started their companies. Thirdly, the book contains exciting stories of how the founders of these start ups were prisoners of circumstances but managed to outgrow themselves due to their optimism and the fact that they wanted to live their dream.”

According to her, reading books exposes an individual to opportunities and insights as it broadens one’s thinking horizon. She also feels that today it is far easier to publish a book and an exciting time for the industry as young students are reading books of diverse genres.

Advertisement

On her favourite books, she says, “I enjoy reading books by Rohinton Mistry. My personal favourite is his book A Fine Balance. I also enjoy reading autobiographies such as that of Vinod Mehta and Warren Buffet.”

The choice to put Bhan as the face of the book was that of the publishers who also provided the option of publishing the title as a series but for now decided to stick to just one edition of the 304 page book. The marketing for the book is being done by the publishers while the news presenter and her team are promoting it on the show and on social media.

The kindle edition of the book has been priced at Rs 380 on Amazon. On Flipkart, the hardcover edition is priced at Rs. 447 while the e-book is priced at Rs 380.

Advertisement