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Your best engineer asks for five minutes and closes the door. You already know what is coming.

Most founders spend years asking why people leave. This book asks a harder question: what is their leaving costing you? The answer took one IT services company from keeping 30 to 50% of its people to keeping around 95%.

Launches 14 November 2026. 41 days to go.

Cover of The Retention Code: A Founder's Guide to Building Teams That Stay, by Balavishnu Ranganathan

Hire 100 people this year. How many are still with you next year?

In IT services, losing 20 to 25% of your people every year is called normal. Every exit takes knowledge, client trust and momentum out of the door.

The difference was not bigger salaries, office perks or engagement surveys. It came from a handful of decisions most founders would call too risky. The book tells you what they were, what each one cost, and what it paid back.

A typical IT services company

20 to 25 of every 100 leave each year

75 to 80stay

Techno Tackle Software Solutions®

Around 5 of every 100 leave each year

95stay

What is attrition costing you right now?

Four numbers, thirty seconds. Most leaders have never put a figure on it. Nothing you enter here leaves your browser.

100
20%

Enter the full yearly amount, for example 800000 for ₹8 lakh.

Cost to replace one person

Start with half if you are unsure. Senior and specialist roles cost more to replace.

Your estimated yearly cost of attrition

₹80.0 lakh

About 20 people leave every year.

At 5% attrition, the same team would lose about 5 people, costing ₹20.0 lakh.

That is a difference of ₹60.0 lakh every year

See how one company got to 95%

This is an estimate, not an audit. It uses Gallup's published range, which puts the cost of replacing one employee at one-half to two times their annual salary. Read Gallup's research.

It started with a few uncomfortable questions

Each one exposed something that was quietly pushing good people out or holding the business back. Here are eight of them. The answers are in the book.

  1. What if the projects keeping you alive are the ones stopping you from growing?Chapter 1
  2. If your best employee left tomorrow, what would break?Chapter 2
  3. Every new employee arrives with three doubts they never say out loud. Do you know what they are?Chapter 3
  4. Why should people lie to get a day off?Chapter 4
  5. Why should ambition leave at 6 PM?Chapter 4
  6. Why should a bad market cost someone their job?Chapter 4
  7. If one of your top performers resigned tomorrow, would you know the real reason?Chapter 5
  8. You segment your customers. Why not your people?Chapter 8

Chapter 1 opens at 2:17 AM

Read the full introduction and the opening of Chapter 1 now, weeks before the book is out. Tell us where to send the launch news and the pages open straight away.

Read the first pages free

Chapter 1

Don't Deliver What Clients Want. Deliver What They Crave.

It was 2:17 AM. I was lying awake, staring at the ceiling, running the same numbers again and again. I had only half the salary amount ready. Twenty-two families depended on that money. Five days remained, and the math simply didn’t work.

The rest opens after you join the launch list

Inside the book

Eight chapters. The first five show what we got wrong and what we changed. The last three let other people judge whether it worked.

  1. Don't Deliver What Clients Want. Deliver What They Crave.

    The project that kept us alive, the incident that nearly broke us, and the audit that showed us the real picture.

  2. The Economics of Retention

    How continuity cut delivery costs on one project by 22%, and the costs of attrition that never appear on a P&L.

  3. The Culture of Retention

    The year one employee could have disrupted the entire company, and what we built so it could never happen again.

  4. The Seven Strategies That Built 95% Retention

    Seven decisions, the day each one started, and an honest account of what each one cost us.

  5. Managing for Retention: The Systems Behind Teams That Stay

    Why managing expectations is 90% of management, and what to do when things go south.

  6. The Code Was Never About Retention

    The full design behind everything in this book, assembled in one place for the first time.

  7. Voices That Matter (Unfiltered)

    Our team, our alumni and our clients, in their own words. Including the parts that are not flattering to us.

  8. Lessons from Visionary Founders and Leaders

    Fifteen leaders who never saw our framework. Their answers will surprise you, and some of them disagree with us.

Two self-assessments to find where you stand Three types of founders. Which one are you? One framework you can map your own company against

Don't take the author's word for it

One company is a sample of one. So the book hands the microphone to the people who would know if the story was not true.

7Team members who stayed
5Alumni who left
5Clients
15Founders and business leaders

Nobody was coached

The fifteen founders and leaders came from different industries, countries and company sizes. None of them were shown the framework before they spoke. They arrived at the same five levers anyway.

And they don't all agree

The arguments stayed in the book, because a framework that only survives agreement is not worth much.

  • Remote or office?
  • Bench or zero bench?
  • Does money lead or follow?
  • Does AI shrink retention or sharpen it?

Watch in 60 seconds

Short clips from The Retention Code Podcast. Hear some of these leaders in their own words before you read what they told us in the book.

Written for two readers

Your situation is different from ours. The question is the same: what would become possible if your best people stayed long enough for their knowledge, trust and experience to compound?

Founders of IT and services companies

You still do the hiring, the worrying and the client calls yourself. You will recognise your own story in these pages, and see where it can go next.

CXOs and delivery heads in larger organisations

You may not own the company, but you own a P&L, your clients and the people who serve them. Every resignation lands on your numbers first.

This is not a book about

HR policies, engagement surveys or perks. It is about the business decisions that make people want to stay.

Balavishnu Ranganathan

Balavishnu Ranganathan

Founder and CEO, Techno Tackle Software Solutions®

He did not set out to become an expert on retention. He set out to survive a delivery crisis, make payroll and keep clients from noticing how close the company came to falling apart. Eleven years later, the decisions that kept people from leaving turned out to be the ones that made the business worth running. This book is the first time he has written them down.

11years
1,000+projects
400+clients
Connect on LinkedIn

Questions readers ask

Short answers to what people ask us most. Something we have not covered? Write to us.

When does the book launch?

The Retention Code launches on 14 November 2026. Join the launch list and we will email you the links that day.

Which formats will be available?

Paperback and ebook. Purchase links for both will be on this page and in the launch email.

What do I get when I fill in the form?

You can read the full introduction and the opening of Chapter 1 straight away. After that, we email you on launch day. No spam, and you can unsubscribe any time.

Is this book only for IT companies?

The main story comes from an IT services company, but the fifteen leaders in Chapter 8 run very different businesses. If your company grows through people, the book applies to you.

Is this an HR book?

No. It is written for founders and business leaders. It treats retention as a business decision that shows up in your delivery, your clients and your profit, not as an HR program.

Is the book the same as the podcast?

No. The podcast has some of the founder conversations. The book brings all fifteen together with the full Techno Tackle story, and the voices of our team, alumni and clients.

Can I order copies for my leadership team?

Bulk orders will open after launch. Join the launch list and we will let you know when they do.

How is the cost calculator worked out?

It multiplies the number of people who leave each year by the cost of replacing one person. That replacement cost uses Gallup's published range of one-half to two times annual salary. It is a starting estimate, not an audit of your business.

Still have a question? Write to the author

For questions about the book, speaking or collaboration requests, or your thoughts on The Retention Code.

Read the first pages before launch day

Join the launch list and you can read the introduction and the opening of Chapter 1 straight away.

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