Now that I have published one book, I am keen to write more. I have been thinking of many themes for future books. Given my secret for writing books (think 100 blog posts of 500 words each), this blog is a very big influence on what I will eventually decide. Each book is a lot of work with the blog posts serving as a start.
- New Ideas in Marketing: This is the most obvious one and the one I am most excited about. B2C Marketing needs to be reinvented. I have written 50+ essays on this theme over the past three years. Many of the ideas are original and can be game changers for marketers. At the core of it lies fixing the folly of ignoring existing customers. Only by shifting focus from acquisition to retention, engagement, and growth can marketers lay the foundation for exponential forever profitable growth. But this needs an approach very different from today: Martech 2.0, Velvet Rope Marketing, Email 2.0, Loyalty 2.0, and more such ideas.
- Proficorns Playbook: This was a suggestion which came from multiple people who have read “Startup to Proficorn”. There are many proficorns in India and the world, with quite a few in the non-tech world. I could have conversations with some of these proficorn entrepreneurs, and then capture their best practices (along with what I have written) into a playbook of sorts for bootstrapping and scaling businesses.
- Proficorn to Profipoly: This would be a sequel of sorts to my journey in building enduring, great businesses. How does one take a business and create a “profits monopoly”? It would capture the recent past and next phase of Netcore’s growth. I still need to make this happen in Netcore, and then write about it. So, this is a book that may take some time.
- Life System: This would be a book on a personal system (based on this series) of good habits that each of us can create. As Naval Ravikant told Shane Parrish: “You absolutely need habits to function. You cannot solve every problem in life as if it is the first time it’s thrown at you.” These are learnings from a lifetime of experiments, received advice, and learnings – many with my own lived story. It is similar to how my Proficorn book came about; this time the focus would be on the individual’s personal life rather than the business.
- Nayi Disha for India: I keep thinking about the path India needs to take for freedom and prosperity. I worked a lot during my failed efforts in Free A Billion and Nayi Disha initiatives during 2015-18. At the core is a proposal called Dhan Vapasi, first proposed by Atanu Dey. Once again, there is a large body of work in my essays to build on. I haven’t been writing much on this in the recent past, but the ideas keep floating around in conversations with friends.
So, these are the five book ideas. Watch this space for more in the coming months. I am not the “one and done” types!
