Do Epic Shit

In the runaway Indian bestseller **"Do Epic Shit,"** entrepreneur, angel investor, and creator **Ankur Warikoo** (former CEO of Nearbuy and Groupon India) compiles a brutally honest, quote-driven field manual designed to be opened to any page for an immediate perspective shift. Rather than preaching from a pedestal of flawless success, Warikoo anchors the book in his own very public stumbles—including dropping out of a Physics PhD program in the United States, struggling through financial debt in his twenties, and navigating the intense highs and lows of building venture-backed startups in India.

The book is organized into six thematic sections that mirror the biggest questions facing students, young professionals, and aspiring founders:

### 1. Success (and Failure) Warikoo challenges the traditional Indian middle-class obsession with "safe" linear trajectories and the terror of failure ("Log kya kahenge?"). He argues that regret is infinitely heavier than failure. Most people don't fail because they lack talent; they fail because they stop experimenting out of fear of looking foolish. When you stop treating failure as a permanent label on your worth and start treating it as data from an experiment, you unlock asymmetric upside: you only need to be right once for the world to call you an overnight success.

### 2. Habits Echoing behavioral science through an everyday Indian lens, Warikoo emphasizes that **motivation gets you started, but habits keep you going**. You do not rise to the level of your goals; you fall to the level of your daily routines. Whether it is waking up on time, creating content consistently for years before anyone notices, or tracking every rupee you spend, discipline is the ultimate form of self-love—trading what you want *right now* for what you want *most*.

### 3. Awareness Self-awareness is the superpower that prevents you from running a race you never wanted to win. Warikoo urges readers to audit the voices in their heads: how many of your career, marriage, and lifestyle goals are genuinely yours, and how many were quietly installed by parents, relatives, and Instagram peers? True peace comes from knowing your strengths, admitting your blind spots without defensiveness, and forgiving your younger self for not knowing what you know today.

### 4. Entrepreneurship Building a business is not about chasing flashy funding headlines or "founder" bios; it is about solving a real pain point so well that customers willingly pay for it. Warikoo contrasts leadership by authority with leadership by empathy—reminding founders and managers that your team doesn't work *for* you; you work to remove obstacles *for them*.

### 5. Money & 6. Relationships On money, Warikoo warns that buying things you don't need with money you don't have to impress people you don't even like is the fastest trap to lifelong servitude. Money is an amplifier of who you already are, and its highest dividend is buying back control over your time. On relationships, he reminds readers that love, friendship, and marriage require the same deliberate presence and communication we pour into our careers: listen to understand rather than to reply, and never let ego win at the cost of a relationship you value.