‘Persistent’ + ‘perfect’ = profitable

As 2024 draws to a close, with the number of newly minted unicorns (startups valued at $1 billion or above) in the year at only four till now, here's a book on unicorns.

- NIVEDITA MOOKERJI

Well, if unicorns are getting rare, profitable unicorns are even more so. The term refers to profitable unicorns—almost an oxymoron.

In the world of startups, that mostly pride themselves for fund-raising from marquee global investors at dizzying valuations irrespective of their own bottom line, profitability is almost a bad word. Startups, unicorns included, have been about adventure (misadventure too), independence (at least from the outside), pitches (that may or may not make the cut with investors) and rounds of fund-raising in dollars. The Earnicorns by Dhruv Nath takes the reader through all these steps and more to narrate the journey of four companies—Naukri.com, Zerodha, Dream11 and Zoho.

Weaving the stories together is their ability to make profit in a universe that has for years believed in a business model of piling up losses and extravagant spending. Through interactions with the protagonists, including the founders of these companies, Mr Nath, a professor, an angel investor and a mentor, has tried to bust the myth that profit and entrepreneurship contradict each other.