mukesh bansal founder of fashion platform myntra is the third most famous bansal of the indian startup ecosystem after flipkart duo sachin and binny none of them are related though they were at one point part of the same corporate family myntra was acquired by flipkart for 300 million in 2014brought up in haridwar uttarakhand mukesh bansal worked in multiple silicon valley startups before launching myntra in 2007 the iitkanpur alumnus now heads health platform curefit focusing on food fitness and mental health in the middle of building the new venture he has written his first book no limits the art and science of high performance which talks about the tools and habits one needs to be better at what they doin a chat with stoi he discussed the book his plans to build a profitable firm and how the narrative is changing in the startup industry where he predicts sustainable businesses will be celebrated more than how much money one has raised he also has advice for founders entering a year when investors are expected to be cautious while writing big chequesthere is a lot of focus on the need for coaching in your book who is your coachhonestly some of the ideas i have taken from other authors i see them as virtual coaches for example charles duhigg who wrote power of habit and smarter faster better so i read a lot of these and the ideas appealed to me another example is jim collins built to last good to great in real life subrata mitra a partner at accel who invested in myntra and curefit i have been working with him for a long time he gives you good feedback and does a good job of challenging and pointing out blind spots theres a difference when someone is teaching you they will break down the fundamentals they can observe and give you feedback all the top people have coaches but the average person does notany example of how these coaches including subrata have helped youmyntra was very successful in fashion but there was a period when we were trying to get into a lot more cate gories subrata told us what helped us being successful is being very focused on fashion instead of getting tempted to get into other categories we should concentrate on fashion he gave a different perspectiveis the temptation to expand into new areas due to stalling of growth in core businessits a combination of factors when you raise money you end up making many promises to investors sometimes it is a case of the grass being greener on the other side if i am doing inventory and you are doing marketplace model i may feel i can grow faster by doing marketplace smileshow have you applied these lessons at curefit there has been a temptation to explore new areasif your north star is clear it helps at curefit we are doing multiple categories but its a deliberate choice from day 1 we