Buildit by Albinder Dhindsa: Everything You Need to Know About Blinkit's New Book
- 17 hours ago
- 12 min read
Albinder Singh Dhindsa chose to write a book—Buildit – Building Blinkit in an Evolving India—while other startup entrepreneurs were busy posting on LinkedIn about raising their next round of investment.
This is far from a silly vanity project that will likely end up collecting dust on someone's coffee table. It is a brutally frank retelling of how one of India's most successful quick commerce businesses was built, from the perspective of its founder.
The story is told by a man, still heavily involved in business, who describes not only what he has done over the years and continues to do today, but also what he will always do to build something significant for India.
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Table of Contents
Buildit is easy to read, engaging, and packed with information across its 240 pages. It is a great introduction to building a startup from scratch, as well as a great reference guide for experienced business owners. The book shows how Blinkit has grown by providing hands-on examples, and how grocery delivery developed into one of the largest quick commerce (i.e., fast delivery) companies in the country.
Blinkit has built a strong reputation for reliable, fast delivery and consistent service quality at a reasonable price point. They've always maintained the highest standards for quality and service, as evidenced by their long history of delivering high-quality products.
Blinkit is known for its unique and humorous approach to product launches. Dhindsa’s co-founder (and partner) Deepinder Goyal posted about the launch of the book on LinkedIn, stating: "A book about Blinkit NOW AVAILABLE ON Blinkit!" He stated, "Albinder Dhindsa's incredible capacity to write books at the same time as he's running a very successful company is impressive. Grofers (which became Blinkit) is one of the largest, fastest-growing instant delivery companies in India. This book describes the trials and tribulations of being an entrepreneur and establishing yourself as a brand in India's expanding digital retail market."
Limited signed copies will be sold directly by Blinkit with expected delivery within 10 minutes or less.
What is the History of Albinder Dhindsa?
Before examining the content of the book, it makes sense to first investigate the author's story. His story is somewhat atypical for a successful founder.
He is an IIT Delhi and Columbia Business School graduate. He co-founded Grofers (now Blinkit) back in 2013 and has built it into one of India's premier instant delivery service providers. Albinder has gained a reputation for his exceptional execution and persistence, helping grow the on-demand convenience segment in India. Additionally, he serves as CEO of Eternal and leads innovation in consumer technology.
Albinder was born into a Punjabi farming family, where he earned an engineering degree before pursuing a career in entrepreneurship. He is also committed to supporting the environment through teaching others about sustainable development and creating opportunities for others to have a positive economic impact. The founders of the ACAD Foundation – Albinder and Akriti – have made it their priority to help people and communities through their work with municipal governments across India on projects that focus on education, healthcare, and improving local infrastructure.
The basis for Buildit is heavily influenced by how the book has been created; the story will be told as a practical, grounded, and myth-free account of Grofers becoming the leading grocery solution company in India.
The Development from Grofers to Blinkit - Ten Years of Transformation
The tale of Blinkit serves as an illustration of the transition from an original name that included core propositions that were entirely different than what Blinkit stands for today, being Top-Of-Mind when it comes to Grocery Solutions within India after 10 years of development.
In the case of Grofers, it all began when Founders Dhindsa and Saurabh Kumar had an epiphany after finding a void in the traditional purchasing behaviour in India pertaining to Groceries. Thus, they set out to introduce an enhanced value proposition via their platform, Grofers.
Online groceries and food retail continue to see rapid growth; however, most purchases still happen in traditional retail venues.
Launched in 2013 by Dhindsa and Saurabh Kumar, Grofers started as a Business-to-Business (B2B) grocery company. Grofers also created an app where users in Gurugram would obtain items from local store owners either by picking them up or arranging delivery.
The founders changed their business model from B2C with an inventory to an inventory-based model between 2016 and 2020, which allowed them to open in over 20 new cities, and they encountered a lot of competition and struggled to become profitable. The founders had to endure something that no founder ever wants to go through; they suffered the nightmare of having their warehouse burn down, causing huge amounts of losses.
In the 200,000 square foot warehouse, Buildit lost 30 crores to the fire that was started by a faulty motor that exploded on a garbage truck that was parked outside of their warehouse. A spark from the exploding truck ignited cardboard boxes in the warehouse, and in turn, the fire spread through the entire warehouse, engulfing everything inside it. Thankfully, there were no casualties, but everything else was lost, including all of the equipment and inventory. There is something of value on every page of the Buildit site because they survived this fire, the pandemic and went through a total rebranding effort.
How Blinkit Became A Game Changer
The transformation of Grofers into Blinkit and its business model change to rapid commerce (10–15-minute delivery from a network of dark stores and other micro-fulfillment centers located throughout metropolitan cities) was a significant event that occurred at the end of 2021.
The name change from Grofers to Blinkit was not just a name change but was an entire transformation in how the company delivered products, its business model, and its logistics to deliver a product to meet consumers’ demands for instant gratification due to a dramatic increase in demand for products with very little wait time.
The new foundation upon which the dark store model is based is to have only small micro fulfillment centers located within a 2 km radius of highly populated areas, so there is a limited number of products (high-speed) in these fulfillment centers, allowing them to keep their supply chains tight enough that they deliver products within approximately 10 minutes.
Zomato acquired Blinkit in 2022 for a total consideration of $568 million in stock. At that time, Blinkit was competing against other players such as Zepto, Swiggy Instamart, and BigBasket, which had considerably higher logistic costs and a more complex business model than Blinkit.
Blinkit has been expanding geographically (now delivers in over 30 cities) as well as across product categories (now sells products other than grocery items) since it was acquired.
Every day, Blinkit delivers 3+ million orders across 200+ cities in India. Everyday items, iPhones, and ambulance services can all be delivered to you in under ten minutes.
How is Buildit Different from Other Indian Startup Books?
Many books are being published in India on founder memoirs, and these books are becoming increasingly available. Books such as Ronnie Screwvala's Dream With Your Eyes Open, Subhash Chandra's The Z Factor, Ashneer Grover's Doglapan, and Deepinder Goyal's Unseen were published recently.
What is it about Buildit that would make you want to take the time to read it next to those other books?
Buildit was written while the CEO remains actively engaged in the startup. Generally, business memoirs are created after the founder has achieved what they set out to do. Writing now, while continuing to serve as CEO of Eternal and remain involved with Blinkit, allows Dhindsa to produce a more energized and honest work compared to many polished retrospective accounts by other authors.
The operational detail in Buildit is much more significant than in many other founders' memoirs; it focuses equally on actual execution realities — supply chain constraints, rapid scaling decisions, filling infrastructure gaps, and transitioning to 10-minute delivery as a core business model. This book positions itself less as a polished memoir and more as a practical account of building, breaking, and rebuilding within the complexity of India’s consumer market.
It is not about glamorizing outcomes. Buildit is not about glamorizing success. It is about the struggles, setbacks, and tough choices entrepreneurs face, providing readers with a well-rounded view of entrepreneurship. In every chapter, you can find actionable takeaways for entrepreneurs and operators to use within their own businesses.
The book is specifically about India in a way that really matters. Most business books are written with a Western audience in mind, but this one offers a deep look into how startups operate in India, with its unique challenges and opportunities.
The infamous pigeon issues in warehouses, the garbage truck fire — these are not Western issues. They are uniquely and irreducibly Indian issues, and that is exactly what makes this book so valuable.
Key Takeaways from Buildit for Indian Founders
While detailed reviews are still emerging, the content and structure of Buildit already offer some guiding themes that will resonate within the Indian startup community.
1. Create Your Own Playbook
Due to the lack of a playbook, Albinder created his own on the go, using quick pivots, high-risk wagers, and new systems in the absence of existing ones.
The most significant takeaway for founders in India is that our markets are truly unique, and you cannot apply the same assumptions to India that are often made in Western startup literature. Dhindsa's journey clearly shows that the absence of a playbook is not a disadvantage; it is an empty sheet of paper.
2. Pivoting Is Strategic, Not a Failure
The change from Grofers to Blinkit is one of the most important pivots in the history of Indian startups. They did not simply add another feature to their product or change their offering. They rethought what they were selling, to whom, and how quickly they would be able to deliver it.
The shift from Grofers to Blinkit is an excellent example of a company changing in response to customer demand. At the core of any business is fulfilling customer demand, and Blinkit has been able to do this exceptionally fast.
For founders in India who feel trapped by their original idea, or by investors' expectations of their original ideas, this pivot can be very freeing.
3. Execution in India Is a Skill All Its Own
The book shows the realities of creating a business in India without pretense. It covers everything from extreme scaling to managing competition and constantly changing consumer behaviours, as well as risk management and establishing systems while growing your company.
What Blinkit has created is more than just a platform; it has become a logistics and operations machine functioning in the chaos of Indian urban infrastructure, with deteriorating streets, unpredictable power supply, and gig workers dealing with the uncertainty of their job situations.
4. Team and Culture Are the Real Infrastructure
The single most important factor determining whether a company succeeds or fails is its people. In Buildit, the author discusses the critical nature of hiring, culture, and staff management within a company.
Given the scale at which Blinkit functions — millions of orders processed daily, several hundred dark stores, and more than a few thousand delivery partners — it would be impossible for any one individual, including the founder, to oversee it all. Therefore, Blinkit as a business consists of systems, culture, and people. The fact that Dhindsa is open enough to discuss this subject in depth makes Buildit very valuable to those looking to grow beyond themselves.
5. Resilience Is Not an Attitude; It Is a Practice
A fire destroys a warehouse. A pandemic occurs. The company is almost out of money.
A comprehensive overhaul of the model took place during each of these moments; each one could have ended Blinkit, but none did. The lesson to be learned is not merely "keep at it." Rather, there were specific lessons learned about what to do next and how to do it.
Dhindsa expects his book to convey some of the harsh realities behind building a company like Blinkit in India, and he hopes that a better understanding of the problems encountered will encourage many more people to take on the challenge of building in India.
This is the thesis of the book. It does not simply say it; it demonstrates that building a company like Blinkit was difficult, and that more people in India need to try building companies.
The Publishing World Has Reacted Very Positively to Buildit
The publishing world has reacted very positively.
Ananth Padmanabhan, CEO of HarperCollins India, commented: “Albinder took the road less travelled by building Blinkit and fundamentally changed how the consumer behaves in the space he disrupted. He pushed the limits of what was thought possible in this country.”
Any person who wants to understand how to start, create, and operate a business, especially in India, should read Buildit.
Poulomi Chatterjee, Executive Publisher at HarperCollins India, states: “[Buildit] is a story of courage, tenacity, and resilience. It contains many amazing stories of creativity and perseverance during adversity. Albinder provides us with incredible detail, honesty, and directness about what it was like to build Blinkit.”
Why This Book Matters Beyond Blinkit
The book is for everyone who has ever used Blinkit or is in, or starting, a quick-commerce business. This book describes the process of building companies in India and compares it to building companies in other parts of the world.
A founder in India faces issues that no MBA program has covered. These include vendor relationships based solely on personal trust, supply chain disruptions, customer behaviours that are often at odds with Western models, changing regulations while operations are in progress, and capital that comes with its own restrictions and delays.
In the book, Dhindsa shares both the highs and lows from his experience building Blinkit. It discusses pivots, operational decisions, and challenges with scaling the business, and illustrates the "start-up, build, break, and rebuild" cycle that Indian entrepreneurs go through when launching a retail concept in India. In this regard, "start-up, build, break, and rebuild" best describes what it is really like to be an entrepreneur in India. It is a complex, often chaotic process rather than a clean line or arc from idea to IPO, and it is full of uncertainty.
This element of authenticity makes Buildit a compelling read.
The Broader Trend: The Number of Indian Founders Writing Books Is Growing
Buildit is not a stand-alone book in this movement of Indian entrepreneurs documenting their stories. More Indian entrepreneurs are becoming aware of the need to share their experiences in an unfiltered, specific, and hard-won way. They are documenting their journeys not only for themselves, but also for other Indian entrepreneurs who will benefit from having a roadmap to follow.
Thousands of entrepreneurs start new businesses in India each year, often without understanding what will happen when they do. They have never experienced a warehouse fire, nor do they understand what it is like to pivot everything they are doing because of pressure from an investor.
A founder who does not understand the difference between a challenge that means "adjust" and one that means "halt" is at risk of failing.
There are many authors who have had similar experiences while building their businesses, and they are regularly asked by others in their networks to share their stories. Founders may find, as several authors already have, that writing about their experiences provides a strong foundation for leading and growing successful companies.
Albinder Dhindsa did not need to produce a book, but his experience running a fast-growing Indian company was so compelling that he felt others could benefit from that story. That instinct — shared by Dhindsa and other founders who have written their stories — is very much what we believe should motivate others to follow the same path and share their own experiences.
If you have developed an organization and have a compelling story, Rolling Authors can assist you in producing your book, whether you want to establish your credibility as a leader in your industry, build a lasting legacy, or simply create an interesting record of your experiences before those memories fade.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Should founders in sectors beyond quick commerce read Buildit?
Yes. The primary focus of Buildit: Building Blinkit in an Evolving India is the quick-commerce sector, but the main takeaways from this story will hold for virtually every startup — pivoting when the pressure is on, creating systems when everything is chaotic, and executing successfully in India. It is not so much about what type of business you are in, but about the practical realities of building a business in India.
2. Are there any differences between Buildit and other startup books written by Indian founders?
Most books by founders about startups are written after success, with the benefit of hindsight and the ability to polish past events. Buildit, on the other hand, is written in the middle of the journey. It is raw, and it captures what happened, including the failures, pivots, and uncertainty faced along the way. What is written in this book is about execution rather than simply laying out the story for inspirational purposes.
3. What is causing an increase in the number of Indian founders writing books?
A book does something that a pitch, a post, or an article cannot do: it preserves an individual's experiences in a form that provides structure and permanence. Founders who write books are not merely chronicling their stories, but also establishing authority in their area of expertise, creating greater opportunities, and achieving a level of legacy that extends beyond the company.
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