Imagine yourself in a set up where you are the head of a major project and at the same time have to negotiate with vendors for everything. A place which is chaotic but exciting, where you are the boss as well as the assistant. This is how TV 18 was when it was started by Raghav Bahl, with only Rs. 50,000 in his pocket and dreams worth billions. An extremely intuitive and ambitious entrepreneur with huge appetite for risks, he gave birth to TV18 and transitioned it to Network18. This was possible because of the collective effort of Raghav's team and the culture of sharing and communicating ideas with each other and accidental recruitments backed by Raghav's openness to creativity. One hears many stories of entrepreneurs and how they built their empires and all of them are indeed very interesting! The book, Network18, by Indira Kannan, is another one of these but what makes it stand out is the fact that this was one of the earliest start-ups, which grew to be a media empire, created iconic brands and then lost it all due to wrong decisions and debts.

Raghav's burning passion, keen business sense and remarkable boldness is evident in examples quoted in this book. His childhood is quite interesting and exploratory. He lost a leg at a very young age and started walking with a stick (and an artificial leg), traveling to different places across the country. As Network18 grew, they started the country's first business TV channel with CNBC and later on went on to have associations with various large players like CNN. His wife Ritu and sister Vandana have made important contributions and so have several reporters and journalists, like Shereen Bhan, Menaka Doshi, Senthil Chengalvarayan, amongst others.

Kannan has shared a lot of interesting anecdotes which keep you glued to the book. She was on board for most of the Network18 journey and is able to tell us the story without hiding any facts or being too critical. There are interesting stories of what goes on behind all the shows, the hosts and the guests, especially a notorious one, which landed the team of "The Nikki Show" to jail for demeaning Mahatma Gandhi.

Eventually the fall of Network18 was due to huge debts and Bahl takes full responsibility for this. In an interview, he states, "We were in a classical debt trap. Our market cap had come down to Rs 400 crore; our debt was Rs. 2,000 crore plus. So, a debt to market cap ratio of 5. We would not have survived."

There are lots of lessons to be learned from this book including important messages for CEOs and people who want to start their own business and it also offers great insight in the world of TV programming and media business.

To read the complete issue click here.

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