It's very easy to criticise Snapdeal these days. All you need to do is Google “Snapdeal issues” or open the startup section of any newspaper to read what's wrong with the company.

But it's very hard to learn what not to do from these articles. For two reasons:

(a) They are largely common sense. Be frugal? Sure. When you opt for M&A, make sure to integrate properly. Geez, I'm sure the Snapdeal founders didn’t know that.

(b) They are utterly bereft of context. For what it's worth, Rohit and Kunal have built one of the largest new companies of the last decade. Funny that they suddenly lost common sense. And it's hard to conceive of the challenges and constraints a large company faces, if you've never helmed one.