BIO: Ashutosh Garg founded Guardian Pharmacy in India in 2003 and grew it to the second-largest pharmacy chain in India with over 200 stores. Now, he is a certified Business and Executive Coach and mentors several CEOs worldwide.
STORY: Ashutosh invested in three investments at the height of the Dotcom boom. He didn’t do any research before investing and was just carried away by the hype at the time. All three investments went bust in 18 months.
LEARNING: Don’t invest just because you have money. Reduce risks by understanding and learning from your mistakes.
“Don’t be impulsive and make investments simply because you have money available to invest.”
Ashutosh Garg
Guest profile
Ashutosh Garg founded Guardian Pharmacy in India in 2003 and grew it to the second-largest pharmacy chain in India with over 200 stores. Now, he is a certified Business and Executive Coach and mentors several CEOs around the world on business matters, governance, strategic planning, succession planning, personal accountability, people and culture issues. He has also written 8 highly acclaimed bestsellers.
Ashutosh in his new role as a storyteller hosts a very successful video and podcast titled “The Brand Called You”, bringing stories of successful entrepreneurs, professionals, and senior corporate leaders to thousands of listeners. He has interviewed over 1,000 people from around the World.
Worst investment ever
In 2000 when the Dotcom boom happened, Ashutosh was in senior management earning a pretty decent salary. It was also a time when get-rich-quick schemes were popular, and people were investing all over the world. Ashutosh would get messages from friends in Silicon Valley and New York about their investments, turning them into millionaires in just one month.
At this point, Ashutosh’s greed was running way ahead of his logic. He decided to put money into three different investments; a retail company in the US, a software company in India, and a portal being developed in another part of the world. One of the investments made it to the Forbes list of best investments ever. Ashutosh was feeling very good about the investments. Over about 18 months, all three investments went under.
Lessons learned
- Don’t be impulsive and make investments simply because you have money available to invest.
- Be a little more discerning about where you want to invest.
- Don’t trust anybody blindly, especially with your investments.
- When you invest, make sure you’re involved somehow in that investment. At least make sure that you get weekly, fortnightly, monthly reports to keep you abreast of what is going on in that investment.
- When you make a mistake, don’t beat yourself up so much. Mistakes are normal. Learn from those mistakes and carry on.
Andrew’s takeaways
- The best way to reduce risk is to understand and learn from your past mistakes.
- Common mistakes people make when investing:
- Failing to do their research
- Failing to assess and manage risk properly
- Being driven by emotion or flawed thinking
- Misplaced trust
- Failing to monitor their investment
- Investing in a startup company
Actionable advice
One, make sure you research your investment instrument. Two, talk to the startup founder and understand whether they have understood what the customer wants. Three, keep a close eye on the performance and funding of that organization.
No.1 goal for the next 12 months
Ashutosh’s goal for the next 12 months is to finish writing his new book Management Lessons from Hindu Scriptures and give it in for public publication.
Parting words
“Be careful of your investments.”
Ashutosh Garg
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