Being a book blogger myself, when I was given a chance by Indiblogger.in to review the book The Mouse Charmer by Anuradha Goyal, it was an honor. Anuradha Goyal is herself a very famous book blogger and has reviewed more than 400 books. She is reading average one book every week despite of her busy schedule.
The first thing I loved most about the book is its title The Mouse Charmer. I have heard about Snake Charmers but Mouse Charmers is such a creative and out of box title given to digital entrepreneurs who are new breed of entrepreneur in emerging India powered by internet. Well, yes the book The Mouse Charmers is stories of those budding entrepreneurs who are leaving their marks on the world of internet and they are reaching people through click of mouse. I think thats why the name. These people have searched for gaps and has successfully turned those opportunities into a business idea and created a new market out of nowhere.
These days everyone are trying their hands in e-commerce to expand business and reach the customer who are beyond their geographical area. But not all are successful. Only the one who persistently kept on trying, actually manage to keep afloat. Anuradha Goyal has researched some 12 successful stories which include Flipkart, Caratlane, Zomato, ImagesBazaar, IndiBlogger, Make My Trip, Big Basket, Games2Win, Chai with Lakshmi, Shaadi.com, RangDe, CommonFloor. Some names you might familiar with others might be new.
The tale of the each company includes the idea behind the business, struggle, the innovations and technologies involved, their unique marketing strategy, and the several challenges and opportunities that came up during their remarkable journey. Everything was well jotted down to give an overall picture how things are working.
But of course, the author has shown just the rosy picture of these companies. Most of them are reporting red balance sheet every year and are raising funds from time to time to run the company. So running a digital enterprise is not a bed of roses. Like any other business it may take years to break even. So the book clearly lacks the in-depth analysis for which we all read such kind of books.
The Verdict:
It is very much a Rashmi Bansal type of book. If you like her book than The Mouse Charmer is of your type giving enough information about the companies and background to enhance your knowledge about these digital enterprises of how exactly they work. The book is very informative in this regard but deep analysis is lacking.
