BYJU’s Miracle Journey By Abhish B. | Book Review

The perks of having “book reading” as a hobby includes getting exposure to some interesting segments of the world. Not only the fictional and virtual worlds are available to our disposal but it also lets us visit some interesting real life journeys as well. Yes, we are referring non-fictional works and more importantly biographical stuff.

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In the same segment, during our Kindle Unlimited trial period offer, we got a chance to read a short eBook in this genre. It is about one of the most successful Ed-Tech company emerged recently. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic time, it got much exposure.

We are talking about BYJU’s Miracle Journey: from 8 Students to $21 Billion (Indian Unicorns) by B. Ashish.

While we already know the basic information about “Byju’s” website, app and a little about its background. We thought it would be an interesting experience to witness this journey in more detail.

From our team, I got a chance to read this book and here are my personal and unbiased views for – Indian Unicorns Byju’s Miracle The Journey From 8 students to $21 Billion

Book Cover:

Let us take a look at the cover page of this book.

Being a gateway to the world explored within, the cover page plays a very important role in making the first impression of a book. And, we human beings are attracted to beauty by our nature, it more often than not, influences many purchase and/or reading decisions.

As expected Mr. Byju’s photograph occupies the cover page. And, it is obvious. The company itself is known as Byju’s; so the key person behind the concept, who played a vital role in converting his own dream to reality must be the face of the book as well. The smooth background makes it appealing.

A moderately good cover page for sure

The Book And What I Think Of It:

Usually we talk about a book in two distinguished segments, dedicated to the book story and our views for the same respectively.

As this book is short and its a biographical journey, we don’t want to reveal much of the story, as it would lead to many spoilers; we are merging both these segments in this review.

While Byju’s success is known to most of the readers, it doesn’t require much exploration, right? And, for those who are not familiar with the same, the tagline of the book Byju’s Miracle The Journey From 8 students to $21 Billion tells it all.

A small “tuition class” started with 8 students is currently valued in billions! Just imagine how many students’ life it must have touched! I personally has experienced communicating with many employees of “Byju’s”, and I found they are following a quality standard, during the communication, providing timely material and other stuff. Of course,the tutor/mentoer experience will be different for different people. And, rather than talking much about it, let us focus on the book content here.

If there is one reason you want to read the book for, then it must be – Key lessons from Byju’s Journey.

If you are an entrepreneur or a wannabe entrepreneur, this journey might be guiding and inspirational.

The book has some fantastic lines which are deeply meaningful. For example:

Some extreme desires drive every life on earth. When one recognizes that desire and dares to revolve around it, their lives become successful, more importantly, satisfied.

If you born to a well-to-do or a wealthy family and get a privilleged childhood, education and business setup, you are lucky. But, even if you didn’t get any of these, you can still make your path. Because, all the journeys are started by someone, sometime, from the scratch.

The same is true in this case also. There is a dedicated chapter focused on the Village Childhood and Lessons from Playground. And through it we come to know that, the founder – Byju comes from the humble background of a coastal village, Azhikode, Kannur in Kerala.

And the sport teaches a lot of life lessons, including but not limited to team-work, never say die-attitude, and more importantly dealing with failures. In author’s words:

Byju learned the fundamental life skills of playing in a team, being highly positive, having the killer instinct, and controlling aggression.

One of the most important dilemma, students and even more importantly, their parents facing these days, is the medium of education. Even the movies are made on that. Most of the parents feel that if they are unable to send their children to convent schools or can provide education in the vernacular school, the kid/kids will left behind in the rece of life.

Of course, it is not true. While studying in an international language has its own benefits, getting the primary education in the mother tongue has it own. And, it is not inferior by any means. Ultimately the skills matter. The language is just a medium to express, and it can be learnt at any stage in life.

The book points out that:

Being in a Malayalam medium school, his English wasn’t that good.
– – – – – – – – – –
everything around us could teach something consciously or unconsciously.

It is worth to note that Byju’s runs the entire business under the name of Think and Learn Pvt. Ltd.. The book also includes the segments talking about the seeds of this idea and its growth.

I like the way the author talks about the importance of inquisitive and curious mind.

You learn the best when you start asking questions, not to teachers, not to parents, but yourself.

When your business is small, you can manage it by yourself of a small core team. But, when you need/have to scale it, you need more resources. And for that you need money. Whatever model you choose to expand your business, after a certain point you need investors having faith in you and more importantly your work, and want to invest in your business (or shall we say start-up?). Of course, they are looking for the lucrative (or at least moderate) return of their investment!

Some notable fellows invested in this business include, Ranjan Pai, founder of Manipal Medical Institutes, and his partner in Aarin Capital TV Mohandas Pai, the former Infosys CFO, and others.

You also come to know about how the company reach the stage where they have decided to launch the mobile App (currently they have separate apps for parent-mentor communication etc.), and got an investment offer from Mark Zuckerberg!

The journey was not smooth of course, we come to know the hard-work of the team, four years of intensified development and numerous trail and errors – which was part of the journey.

The book also explores detailed list of Acquisitions and Integrations done by the company including – The WhiteHat Jr Saga.

This journey also have had controversies. The book also talks about that. And that gives the reader information about the acquisitions faced by the company and what it has to say about it.

The book has many quotable lines and stuff that remain with you. But, according to me, the most inspirational line is:

According to Byju, “if I can do it, so can you.”

So, the book has some literary gems, practical advices and inspirational stuff curated nicely. And, the quotes specified above must have given you a fair idea about what to expect from it.

Despite exploring the journey from the founder’s perspective, this book isn’t a marketing mouthpiece and that is one of the most important quality of the book. The book could have included some testimonials from the actual student/parents to make it even more informative.

Summary:

If you like reading short Ebooks exploring the inspirational entrepreneurial journeys, this book is a good choice. If you are not an – Amazon Kindle Unlimited Subscriber – you can wait for a promotional offer to get it at really attractive rates.

ThinkerViews Rating:

Around 7 stars out of 10.

Quick Purchase Links:

• Buy - BYJU's Miracle Journey: from 8 Students to $21 Billion by Abhish B. - Kindle EBook - Amazon IN
• Buy - BYJU's Miracle Journey: from 8 Students to $21 Billion by Abhish B. - Kindle EBook - Amazon US

Over To You:

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