Book Review | No Money, No Problem

Frugality is a trait somewhat specific to most parts of the Eastern hemisphere. In India, some forms of frugality are termed jugaad, though in the strict sense jugaad would better apply to a Band-Aid solution to problems. Sometimes they work, but can never replace real innovation, neither in application, nor in spirit. Frugality isn’t another name for jugaad; it’s good money management.

Jaideep Prabhu, Priyank Narayan, and Mukesh Sud’s book Lean Spark (Frugal by Design, Global in Impact) is a case-study-based documentation on how frugal design has been adopted and adapted to by some entrepreneurs in India to create businesses with scalability that are, often, sustainable as well. Amid a world of venture capital-initiated spending madness, success through frugality has stood out and has been noticed.

The authors scouted for success stories that germinated through resource constraints, sometimes filling a gap that remained unnoticed or even creating an entirely new business opportunity. Isro has remained a shining Indian example of how far the mind can reach across rough roads, and when Quidich used drones for sports broadcasting, it was a path-breaker. The idea that came out of the many interviews and heart-warming stories was that “a resource constraint mindset sparks creativity”, hence, probably, the title of the book.

Free of jargon, this is an ideal book for men and women with ideas that have no place to go. There always is. Sometimes, the road leads to where you wanted to go in the first place, and sometimes it lands you in an opportunity that you never knew was an opportunity in the first place.

The mindset is everything, and perseverance. One entrepreneur sums it up nicely: “Is there a quicker, cheaper, faster way?” Mostly, there is. Necessity is the mother of all inventions, maybe, but scarcity and drive, together, yield better, longer-lasting results on the ground. They point out that most high-budget, VC-fed organisations in India are running at huge valuations and bigger losses, as the fund-masters parachute out just in time, with a bagful of profits.

The book is a lesson in finding the key tool that can help entrepreneurs map customer segments, the problems and the solutions, all packed up neatly in a tight budget. The fun fact is that there is no one-size-fits-all formula. The very constraints that these entrepreneurs rode over, offer fund management solutions and tech alternatives that big money would not have bothered to investigate.

The shortcomings of the book, if one might call them so, are first, mixing up a jugaad mindset and a thrift mindset. They’re vastly different. Secondly, this by no means undermines the usefulness of research and innovation, leading to inventions and ways forward that have the power to reshape humanity. That exists, too, just in another world.

To sum it up, the book is a motivational document. The authors just haven’t named it so.

LeanSpark

By Jaideep Prabhu, Priyank Narayan and Mukesh Sud

Penguin Business

pp. 264; Rs 499/-