A Humours account of an IT Startup : The Sales Room
Ok this post has nothing about travels except for the fantasy land escape it offers to you into the mind of 26-year-old Ramesh, a sales manager in a struggling IT project management company.
Now normally I would not worry about reading a book that is largely about the sexual fantasies of a 26-year-old single, ambitious, and confused guy who cannot decide whether to pursue his dream of a US MBA or to continue to work for the company that is still a start-up even after 10 years. But having my fair share of working for start-ups and actively reading through their proposals that I read ( most of which are very similar and want to make you richer than Bill Gates overnight, but talk nothing about product, market, strategy or consumer needs ), I decided to give it a read when the author T R Manu Ramesh contacted me. And I am glad that I did, not that it is a Pulitzer Prize winning material but it tells 
you candid inside story of many Indian IT start-ups where the aim is to sell it to the big VC fund by hook or crook. Nobody is worried about solving a problem, but how to make a fool out of the customer.
Oregon Software is one such company, where everybody is sticking around for that one day when somebody with deep pockets will buy them and they will all retire on some fancy beach town. But “Oregon, We have A Problem !- We are not able to sell” So primarily that is what ails Oregon Software Technologies, and author Manu Ramesh accounts for in this hilarious book The Sales Room.
So we get a firsthand account of what kind of strategies the company tries to adapt, re-adapt and keep on changing like seasons. The book unfolds more like a personal diary of Ramesh, who takes us through his aspirations, fears, but mostly through his wet dreams in the most graphic way you can imagine or would have read as a teenager. At times it is hilarious but at times it is very predictable as we have all done it (Males I mean) as part of growing up.
But you do get a lot of insight on how come some companies fail to grow up and are classical case studies on what not to do. Oregon is one such company which, even though a startup has all the maladies of a large bureaucratic organization. The company is on a drip, with Surya the angel investor sitting in USA calling the shots without every taking in cognizance the ground realities of India.
While I liked the out of the box narrative that reminds you of the crude college comedies of USA, it is the authors attempt to educate the reader (Americans I presume) in all aspects of Hindu mythology that breaks the narrative. But I suggest you do not skip pages, as it is here his creative brilliance and way of looking at our gods in a very objective (or derogatory take your pick depending on your belief system or sense of humor), shines.
Do give it a read if you want to relive the authors (or yours ) unapologetic fantasies, interspersed with some firsthand account of working of desi Startups, waiting for their Knight in shining armor to come and write the big fat cheque. You may not laugh all the way to bank, but you surely will laugh.
Name of Author: R T Manu Ramesh, connect with him on Facebook, Twitter
Publisher: Leadstart Publishing
Available at Amazon ( Paperback Rs 145, Kindle : 73 ) and Flipkart
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