"It was a wonderful experience interacting with you and appreciate the way you have planned and executed the whole publication process within the agreed timelines.”
Subrat SaurabhAuthor of Kuch Woh Pal
You do not just need money to build a business.
You need a resilient mindset that refuses to give up, because the chaos and uncertainty of entrepreneurship are not negotiable. They are the ground you must learn to stand on if you want to build anything meaningful.
This book calls those tough moments 'evil' and invites you to live through them, not run from them. Struggle is not your enemy; it is the reason a few stand out. When you learn to see it early, accept it and build despite it, you grow into the kind of founder who becomes unstoppable.
Drawing from years of building, failing, restarting and scaling, Alkesh Agarwal shares real stories and clear frameworks to stay steady when everything around you is shaking. This book will not comfort you. It will prepare you.
If you are a founder or want to become one, this is your field guide to pressure. It will help you face hard facts, make clearer choices and keep moving when most people give up. It holds up a mirror to what is real and helps you grow through it.
Flip 'evil' and you get 'live.
Master the dark, and you will lead into the light.
From selling jeans in school to building India's largest cartridge-refilling network and shaping India's leading awards manufacturing business, Alkesh has grown by breaking, learning and rebuilding, again and again.
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Alkesh Agarwal
Alkesh Agarwal is a first-generation entrepreneur, investor, and advisor who has spent over twenty-five years building businesses from scratch. From selling jeans as a teenager to running national retail chains and one of India’s leading trophy manufacturing facilities, his journey is shaped by lived experience, tough decisions, and a deep instinct for solving real problems.
His entrepreneurial path began out of necessity, assembling computers in a 40 sq. ft. cabin before co-founding Re-feel, India’s largest printer cartridge refilling chain with 100 plus stores across the country. He later launched Clublaptop, a national multi-brand service network, and eventually built a large-scale awards and recognition products business from the ground up, despite having no prior manufacturing experience.
Alkesh is known for his clarity of thought and ability to simplify what feels overwhelming. Founders and leaders often turn to him during high-pressure moments because he blends sharp problem-solving with empathy, honesty, and real-world practicality. As an active angel investor and business advisor, he has guided numerous startups and mid-sized organisations through growth, stagnation, and reinvention.
His work has been featured on the cover of The Franchising World, profiled on CNBC’s Young Turks, and highlighted in Nifty Spirits by the Times of India Group.
Live Evil is his first book, a field guide of hard-won truths shaped by failures, pivots, rebuilding, and the unseen emotional weight behind entrepreneurship.
