Groww boss read 30 books in 2019, 'Trillion Dollar Coach' taught him a valuable work lesson

The favourite genres of Groww Co-founder and CEO, Lalit Keshre are psychology, history, and fiction.

Some of his recent reads are 'A gentleman in Moscow', 'Why brands grow', 'Why we sleep', and 'Shoe Dog'.

He told ET Panache, "I particularly enjoy the works of Taleb, Michael Lewis, Harari, and Walter Isaacson. In my experience with reading, I feel some books are worth reading multiple times, while others are just worth a blog post or a tweet. When it comes to movies, I enjoy all genres and often draw parallels between making movies and building products. A long term aspiration of mine is to try my hand at making movies myself."


Not just books, articles inspire the Groww boss too, who now wants to explore Croatia, thanks to something he read.

"I came across it as a feature story in a travel magazine and was fascinated, it has been at the back of my mind since," he explains.

From a learning perspective, the first book that comes to the Groww CEO's mind is 'Trillion Dollar Coach'.

"The most basic learning was that all of us need a coach and also all of us play the role of a coach in one or the other way. Another important learning was that it is all about people - if I want my company to grow, I just need to make sure everyone is effective and they learn and grow. Instead of being preachy, the book explains through real experiences," he said.

Another wonderful book that Keshre loved reading was 'Shoe Dog' by Phil Knight. He explains why, "It is really inspiring how he built such an iconic brand from scratch. And how they were always hungry for growth in spite of various ups and downs. Another important lesson was that it is a marathon run to build something as iconic as Nike - one of the role models for us. It is important to be passionate about something you are building."

Keshre finished reading around 30 books last year but the only one that he read a second time was 'Skin in the Game' by Nasim Taleb.

A lot of reading for the online investment platform boss is about learning to build a brand. Another book he likes is 'Insanely Simple' by Ken Segall that talks about the organisation principles at Apple. One thing Keshre remember from the book was how conventional processes are not good enough to build iconic brands like Apple.

"Two other books, that I loved on brands are 'Why Brands Grow' and '22 Immutable Laws of branding'. The first one talks about a lot of mistakes that marketers make, and how a lot of established wisdom is just plain wrong. While in '22 Immutable Laws', the biggest learning was how narrowing your focus strengthens your brand," he shared.

Although Keshre does not read fiction much, he says, he was lucky to get his hands on 'A Gentleman in Moscow' by Amor Towles. "What a beautiful read it was - not just the story, but even the writing style of the author. The story is about Count Alexander, an aristocratic gentleman, who is imprisoned and placed under house arrest inside the Metropol. The wit and sophistication of the Count is just mind-blowing and here is just one of them I highlighted on my Kindle - "Fate would not have the reputation it has if it simply did what it seemed it would do" he said.