'Anyone Can Do It'

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Entertaining and Inspirational, May 30, 2006

This is two books blended into one [just like coffee] - one, the human story of building coffee republic, the soul searching of Sahar and Bobby after their father's death, the journey, the obstacles and goof-ups and all; the other, more like a business book, with 57 laws, advise and sample business plans etc. From the structure, it seemed that the authors wanted to make it the latter - a business advise book. I have, however, given a 5-star to the former, the human story.

Dont read it if you are just looking for how to start a business handbook. There are those free guides from Business Link which will do better. Not only that - once you read this book, you may start feeling that you got to be incredibly lucky and well-placed [read the comments about going without an income for two years in other reviews] to become an entrepreneur. That's not the morale of this story here, at all.

But if you are looking for a real story how people build a business, you will find it right here. All in the package - starting with the motivation [Father's death and introspection in this case], the idea [Not a new microchip, but something they noticed and enjoyed in US], the development [Sahar moving around with a camera in New York, the business plan, the failures] and the actual process of business [getting a site, a loan, suppliers, employees and customers, complete with goof-ups and strokes of luck].

The best bit of the book? You will have to wait till the end. No, I am not trying to give out the plot - but I am sure you will discover why this real, humane story of entrepreneurship deserved a 5-star.

[This is the review of 'Anyone Can Do It: How we built Coffee Republic' by Sahar and Bobby Hashemi that I posted on Amazon recently]

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