Mouse Charmers

Anuradha Goyal

Description

The advent of Internet has been a significant gamechanger for our generation. Mouse Charmers are a new breed of entrepreneurs in emerging India powered by the Internet and the opportunities that it offers to create new markets and to cater to old markets in new ways. Some of them have already achieved success where they can be called iconic and inspiring while others have powerful ideas that put them on the same path. Anuradha Goyal tells the stories of digital entrepreneurs like Flipkart, Zomato, ImagesBazaar, IndiBlogger; how they started out, the innovations and technologies involved, their business models, and unique marketing strategies. Inspiring and useful, The Mouse Charmers is an essential guide for aspiring entrepreneurs.

Sujets

• Marketing et communication
• India

Informations

• Publié par: Random House Publishers India Pvt. Ltd.
• Date de parution: 24 avril 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9788184006162
• Langue: English

Extrait

Advance Praise
Are Indian companies and start-ups missing something important by ignoring local language viewers and users of digital content? Are women entrepreneurs too shy of boasting about their achievements? What kind of eco-system will make the life of start-ups in digital age smoother and more meaningful are some of the questions this books addresses, rather well. Those who wish to enter and shake up the inertia in digital markets may find this book useful. But those who wish to support them may find it even more useful.
Prof Anil K. Gupta Professor at IIM Ahmedabad and founder of Honey Bee Network
The Internet has transformed business and society. Today to very many of us, life without the web is unimaginable. In business a new breed of entrepreneurs have sprung up whose whole life is the web, creating new business models, reaching new markets and becoming the new normal. These stories are inspiring examples of such successes!
T.V. Mohandas Pai Chairman, Aarin Capital Partners
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 Author and public speaker
Anuradha Goyal s The Mouse Charmers is a fascinating account of India s trailblazing digital entrepreneurs, innovators who are taking technology and applying it to meet the unique needs of Indian customers across traditional sectors like jewellery, grocery, travel, matchmaking, real estate, eating out and books as well as new sectors such as online images, blogs, games, talk shows and peer to peer finance. Well researched and with deep insights into how these businesses work, The Mouse Charmers will inspire others to both study Indian entrepreneurs like Goyal has done or take up the challenge of entrepreneurship like those she writes about have done. Either way this is an important, timely and inspiring book that showcases the opportunities that India offers and the challenges that have to be overcome along the way.
Jaideep Prabhu Professor at Judge Business School, University of Cambridge and co-author of the bestselling Jugaad Innovation

Published by Random House India in 2014
Copyright Anuradha Goyal 2014
Random House Publishers India Private Limited Windsor IT Park, 7th Floor, Tower-B A-1, Sector-125, Noida-201301, UP
Random House Group Limited 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road London SW1V 2SA United Kingdom
This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author s and publisher s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
EPUB ISBN 9788184006162
To my Dadi-Smt. Leelawati Agarwal, who passed on a bit of her curiosity to me
CONTENTS
Foreword
Introduction
P ART 1: C OMMERCE
E-commerce
Flipkart
MakeMyTrip
BigBasket
CaratLane
P ART 2: C ONTENT
Content
Zomato
Games2win
ImagesBazaar
Chai with Lakshmi
P ART 3: C ONNECTORS
Connectors
Shaadi
Rang De
CommonFloor
IndiBlogger
Ecosystem
Conclusion
Acknowledgements
A Note on the Author
FOREWORD
Entrepreneurship is increasingly emerging as an exciting new career choice for many young people across the globe. Inspirational names such as Bill Gates, Richard Branson, and Eric Schmidt have encouraged many young students to chase their dreams and start business ventures of their own-not only with the aim of commercial success, but for a unique and creatively fulfilling experience. In India, especially, entrepreneurship and the job creation it entails is the key to a prosperous future to ensure the right opportunities for our demographic dividend. The advent of Internet has escalated this to an entirely new level, with unforeseen opportunities in the digital space. With Web 2.0, the ever-increasing user base of the Internet has transformed traditional services like groceries and medicines through the click of a button.
Digital entrepreneurs are mushrooming at an astonishing speed in India. They are venturing into hitherto uncharted territory like jewellery and groceries-one a high-value product and the other highly perishable. These digital startups are permeating into every recess of the economy and are challenging the very idea of a physical store. Mentorship and financial support as well as the ecosystem in cities such as Bangalore are giving further fillip to this emerging wave.
In The Mouse Charmers , Anuradha profiles the stories of 12 such companies, categorized as: commerce, content entrepreneurs, and connectors. Each company is a pioneer in its field. The author studies the business model, innovation, differentiating factors, and the journey so far of these digital businesses. The companies range from MakeMyTrip , Zomato to BigBasket and Rang De . The book aims to showcase a spectrum of businesses across verticals and categories, and present insights into potential new opportunities.
As the Internet is still such a recent phenomenon, all the entrepreneurs profiled are first generation. The book is an excellent guide for aspiring entrepreneurs looking to start their very own digital company with extremely helpful suggestions and pointers. It discusses what has worked and not worked for these entrepreneurs and how they have managed to overcome challenges and seized opportunities that have come their way. The book also focusses on the burgeoning online business, and finding the key differentiator to set one s business apart from these multitude platforms.
I do wish that this book inspires many more young entrepreneurs to take the plunge into the world of digital startups. The rest as they say is a click of a button away!
Sam Pitroda Advisor to the Prime Minister of India on Public Information, Infrastructure, and Innovation; Chairman, National Innovation Council
INTRODUCTION
IN THE HISTORY OF mankind there have been few times when the ways of the world have transitioned in an irreversible way. Some of the earlier transitions happened when man discovered agriculture that led to permanent settlements, when wheel was discovered that enabled long journeys, when printing press was discovered and education and learning changed forever, and of course the industrial revolution that made mass production a norm and customization a luxury. In our generation, the advent of Internet has brought in a similar transition. It has irreversibly changed the way we do many things. My generation-born in 1970s and grown up in 1980s-never thought that that of our life would be very different from that of our parents. We started working sometime in 1990s, a lot of us in professions that did not exist while we were in school, and by the turn of the millennium, we were not only using cutting-edge technology products but also contributing to creating them for the rest of the world. What is more relevant is the quantum of change we saw from having countable number of phones in the neighbourhood to juggling multiple communication devices in our bags, from running to libraries in search of answers to carrying multiple library sources on our gadgets, and from having limited career options to celebrating entrepreneurship. As a nation, our image in the world changed from that of Snake Charmers to Mouse Charmers.
Mouse Charmers are a new breed of entrepreneurs in emerging India powered by Internet and the opportunities that it offers to create new markets and to cater to old markets in a new way. Some of them have already achieved success where they can be called iconic and inspiring while others have powerful ideas that put them on the same path. Looking at the spectrum of entrepreneurs I got to study and interact with during the writing of this book, it may not be wrong to say that these entrepreneurs are on their way to create a complete parallel economy, offering us solutions literally at our fingertips. Today, most of what we can go out and buy in the market is available online and can be brought from the comfort of our Internet-enabled devices-everyday groceries, jewellery, entertainment, alternate education, and various services that we consume. If there is anything that we cannot buy as yet, rest assured, someone out there is working on getting it on our online shopping kart. This book is my journey to explore how some of the pioneers in various categories and verticals of digital enterprises have created new markets and irreversibly changed the way we shop, connect, and create.
Personally, I have been an early adaptor of technology, but I still get jittery when I have to use my credit card on a website for the first time. I was sceptical of certain categories making it to the online medium but to my surprise, or should I say delight, they are not only being accepted by the users but also being explored to their fullest potential by innovative digital entrepreneurs. For example, I never thought people would buy garments or shoes online. They may browse to see what is available but they would want to try them on before making the purchase. After all a shoe must fit properly and a garment must accentuate your natural shape, both of which are not standard. However, fashion retailers came up with the try before you buy offer for their online buyers. Till few year back, gold was always bought from trusted family jewellers. But companies like Tanishq broke that notion and organized this highly fragmented market. After that, online retailers took it to the next level with money back guarantees and options to customize the selections. And, this may just be the beginning.
A RENAS OF M OUSE C HARMERS
Internet-based businesses have existed in the west for some time now. A lot of Indian