The Freedom Manifesto - Book Review

Its been long time I wrote a review, even though I have completed few books in recent days. Recent busyness ate all my time, but this book pushed me to write the review as soon as I complete reading. Let us dive in

I have found Karan Bajaj to be a particularly intriguing and interesting founder. His distinctive background – yoga training, sabbaticals, wanderings, his writing, deep spirituality – all give him a unique perspective into the Indian consumer and market, seen in the WhiteHat Jr journey. In that light, I was curious to see what the book would be – and I was not disappointed.

The book is divided into two parts – the first consists of Karan’s seven rules of freedom, each dealt with in a chapter, which is rather catchily phrased. The 4% rule says you can calculate the target net worth for you to retire by dividing your projected annual expenses by 4%. The 1-1-1 routine says however busy you are, ensure you get 1 hour of meditation, 1 hour of exercise and 1 hour of reading / reflection. I won’t give away all the rules, but they are worth a read.

The first part also explores essential principles for the corporate and investment realms, including the 4 percent rule, Net Impact rule, Job quit number rule, Ownership comparison, Daily routine, Failing to learning ratio, and the 50/30/20 investing rule. These concepts are interwoven with insightful stories from the development of WhiteHat Jr. and the author’s personal journey.

The second part of the book, again divided into seven chapters, consists of a step by step, startup starter kit. Kit1 is arriving at an idea, Kit3 deals with the pitch deck, Kit6 deals with hitting product-market fit, and so on. I can see that it would be very useful for a first-time founder, or for someone who is considering starting up.

All in all, a useful read, and one that is easy to go through and absorb. Throughout the journey author has made effort to depict how a successful startup can be created from scratch. Basically the author has got a very good exit from his startup. But whether it is a successful or impactful startup, that could be part of another story, and BYJU’s would be in a best place to narrate that and probably how people have benefitted from using this medium.

Takeaways

Here are some key takeaways for me, from the book, though by no means exhaustive.

Choose growth over fear always.

The L-O-C-K framework for storytelling.

The ancient Vedantic learning framework for mastery over a subject.

Founder's growth = Company's growth; Founder's energy = Company's energy.

The 3x3x3 recruitment rule he recommends.

The metrics he tracked to validate PMF.

While primarily a valuable resource for understanding the challenges of scaling startups, it may not fully align with the expectations set by the title as a ‘manifesto.’ Hence, readers can quickly navigate through certain sections to grasp the essence of the book.

That is all. All first-time or aspiring founders would do well to check out the book. It is both a guide to Karan's philosophy of life, as well as a practical guide to starting how and when.

This book was gifted to me by my good Friend Tina Kumari Joint Director TNeGA. Thanks Tina for the gift and its a wonderful choice.