Book Review: The Mouse Charmers by Anuradha Goyal

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The day I came across The Mouse Charmers book on the Internet, immediately an urge of reading it arose in me. The thing about the book which attracted me almost suddenly was that it was based on some top Start-ups and digital pioneers of India who made it big here. The book focused on their stories and how they started out, technologies involved and their marketing strategies. In an instant I decided that this will be my next book. To my surprise I received an email from IndiBlogger team on the same day about the review copy of 'The Mouse Charmers' by Anuradha Goyal, without thinking, I accepted the offer and after a few days the book came my door.

This post is a quick review and my experience with the book, 'The Mouse Charmers' by Anuradha Goyal. The book contains lot of inspiring stories of some top start-ups which turned into big pioneers and then important part of our lives. I'm talking about digital companies like Flipkart, MakeMyTrip, Shaadi.com, Zomato.com etc. Never goes a shopping-day when I don't visit Flipkart. I literally plan all my trips using the internet and MakeMyTrip is one of my most favorite travel sites, I use Zomato.com for checking out all the reviews of hotels, restaurants and clubs etc. The Mouse Charmers told the story of such digital companies and how they entered the business. Let's get straight to the business, I see no point wasting our time. 

What 'The Mouse Charmers' Speak About?

In this book, the author Anuradha Goyal addresses the entrepreneurs of emerging India as the 'Mouse Charmers' and how they achieved success. The book lists stories of digital pioneers like Flipkart, Zomato, MakeMyTrip, ImagesBazaar, IndiBlogger, BigBasket, CaratLane, Games2Win, Shaadi.com, Rang De, Chai with Lakshmi, CommonFloor etc. dividing the book into three categories containing Ecommerce sites, Content based sites and Connector sites. 

The book also talks about the Ecosystem, Logistics etc. In short it familiarizes you with the story of the company, well not the complete story, more of a brief synopsis about their story and other information. The information listed in the book will tell everything about the company but I can say that after reading this book, you'll get a lot of inspiration and you'll start doing the work in a different way.

Importance of Digital Companies in India

India is growing day-by-day, I remember the day when I attended Google's & GBG GDayX 2014 conference in Mumbai, on this day I met more than half a dozen entrepreneurs & start-up owners and some big names like Sunil Rao (Country-Head of Startup Ecosystem, Google India) - That day during presentations, I saw a statistics graph which showed the increase in smartphone users and people shopping online in India. I was surprised to see the increase, it was touching sky. That day I realized the Importance of digital companies and their scope. According to predictions, in coming years, a big part of India's population will shop online, this means that a lot of people will rely on these companies. We can see the bright future ahead of them.

What I liked about 'The Mouse Charmers'

I won't stretch this section much, the thing which I liked about the book is the story part. Most of the companies listed in the book are the sites which I visit regularly. I really loved reading about them, now I feel that I'm much more connected & inspired to these sites. I also loved the systematic way Anuradha used to frame this book. The Mouse Charmers is written in a very beautiful and engaging way, I never found it boring, instead I the writing style made the whole book much more interesting than I ever thought. I also found the Cover Art interesting, I don't know about others but for me, book covers play an important role. I get attracted to books with interesting & catchy cover arts, and The Mouse Charmers does a good job at it (Thumbs up to Saurav Das, the cover designer)

I also liked the tabled stats section coming after each company story. The table featured important data like Company name, website, start year, founders, headquarters, offices, no. of employees, cities present in, no. of registered users, views per month etc. This section provides useful insights about the company.

What I didn't like

Well it's really hard to point out 'What I didn't like' since I haven't found anything yet. I got great insight and stories of some of my favorite websites on the internet. But if still you want to hear the cons, then I would say the price. Though I got it for free, but still I think it is a bit over-priced at Rs.299, the book surely provides great information but many people who occasionally read will think to skip it because of the price. Fortunately this book is available for as less as Rs.199 on Amazon (Buy Now)

'Nobody knows what the world of business will look like in 20 years time. But the digital entrepreneurs of today are the ones who will create it.' - Paul Sloane 

Conclusion

Since the book was sent by IndiBlogger team, I was asked to lay my views about the book in a Review post and since this is a technology blog, I think this book review will be beneficial for my readers, as they'll get to know about some of the big digital pioneers of India in a brief way possible. This is a single book which lists stories of multiple digital companies, which means you don't have to waste time reading about them individually, one book and you're sorted. I would definitely recommend this book to my readers and people who are interested in Ecommerce & Start-ups. This book packs pure inspiration and concludes that if you work hard and put all the dedication into it, you can reach the sky. Thumbs up to Anuradha Goyal, this book really is a gem.

Buy 'The Mouse Charmers' from Amazon