Archive for 'startups' Category
Around 4% Indians Finding Life Partners Online
According to the 2011 census, nearly 50% of India’s population is in the less than 25 age bracket. With more and more Indians entering the Workforce and stepping into the professional world, a majority of this section is leaning towards online portals for prospective partners. We would like to compare the Top 3 Online Business together controlling more than 90% of the Matrimony market in India.
Shaadi.com (owned by People Interactive group) started off 15 years ago, Info Edge’s portal – Jeevansathi.com came into being eight years ago. Bharatmatrimony (market leader and flagship brand of Consim Info) has been in the market for over 10 years too.
While Jeevansathi has around 4.9mn profiles BharatMatrimony with its host of subsidiaries based on “Ethnicity / Caste” and Shaadi.Com have 20 Mn Profiles of prospective brides and Grooms. Considering Same person registering on Multiple sites, we can safely Read the rest of this entry »
Types of Daily Deal Group Buying Sites Offer + How they Make Money ?
Increasingly startup Investors are seeing the fad in Daily Deals / Group Buying / Group Deals [GD] Web Businesses. They generate revenue by selling Daily Deals for a variety of goods and services directly to consumers who access its Website. They send email a list of discounted offers for goods and services that are targeted by location and personal preferences. Consumers access deals directly through Websites and Mobile applications.
What are the Key Products and Services ?
Featured Daily Deals – A featured deal is distributed every day by email on behalf of local merchants to subscribers using the company’s proprietary technology to target consumers based on location and preference. In addition to local merchants, they may offer featured daily deals from 40 national merchants as well.
Nearby Deals – We’d characterize such “nearby” deals as the ones identified by GD Site that are close to a particular consumer’s preferences and/or location. We believe Groupon could evolve this product to make Daily Deals more Read the rest of this entry »
How InMobi is Competing Apple & Google on Mobile Advertising Turf ?
Late last month we reviewed the Business Model of a startup from India InMobi – competing with Global Technology Giants in the mobile Advertising Vertical. WE would like to peek into how the company is staying competitive to wade off competition from Google and Apple and continue to grow stronger in the space.
InMobi has seen a favorable environment between 2008 and now, the world has changed in terms of mobile internet. Devices have become cheap, internet speeds are increasing, costs are coming down, application ecosystem is growing at a rapid pace, and user patterns have changed.
Global Competitors in Mobile Ad Market – Google is the largest with adMob [Acquired Company]. InMobi is the second largest in the world. Then, there is no other global player worth speaking of and there are just few smaller regional players. Compare this to 800+ Web based Advertising Networks alone in the United States 
InMobi is not Read the rest of this entry »
LetsBuy on Competition + Pricing & Margins + Logistics for Future Growth
The Journey of LetsBuy began with “word of mouth” recommendations and search-engine-based advertisements. On the day they launched, they had about 10-15 orders worth Rs40,000.
How did they Ward off Competition ? Dilution of brand is a risk that many e-commerce websites face. Indiatimes, Ebay, etc., are marketplaces and feature a lot of ‘grey’ products. Good brands do not want to sell their products on such a platform. Secondly, none of the traditional distributors have the expertise to manage a nationwide e-commerce platform. Thus, when Letsbuy approached Samsung, they were interested.
Price Winning Strategy Since they are an online business, and overhead costs, such as store representatives and real estate costs, are not incurred. Further, they have negligible inventory and ordering is usually back-to-back. That helps Read the rest of this entry »
Interactive Avenues – Agency Based Advertising Solutions
Interactive Avenues is a full service Advertising agency and is among the largest with an employee base of 150 people. Primary Services offered are media planning and creative roles as an agency in traditional media. That is only a part of the services offered by Interactive Avenues. In addition to creative media planning and buying and campaign management of an agency involved with traditional media, they also provide SEO, search engine marketing (SEM), analytics, social monitoring, and social media marketing.
Advertising Market in India – 2011: The advertising market is worth US$5bn-6.5bn, out of which online advertising is only US$250m, i.e. it accounts for Read the rest of this entry »
SnapDeal is about Analytics + Marketing – How the Company is Different ?
Rohit Bansal and Kunal Bahl founded SnapDeal – India’s Largest Coupon Deals Marketing Company. Here directly from the founders on how they are different and leading this segment of the market.
What is keeping SnapDeal Alive and Kicking ?
Rohit is an analytics person and Kunal a marketing person. They realised that this business is not about discounts; it is not about e-commerce. It is about the confluence of marketing services with analytics. We have a world-class team that really understands the psyche of the merchants and consumers, hence delivering value to both.
USP of SnapDeal – Largest and probably the most optimised advertisers on Google in India. Their website gets about 1.5m visitors a day and is content rich. They capture various details of the user when he buys from us and over a period of time, our algorithm matches local merchant and product deals to his preferences.
Subscriber Base and Purchasing – 10 million subscribers right now and adding about 1.5m subscribers per month these days. So, by mid-2012, they will have more than 20 million subscribers. Usually, it takes 30-40 days to make the first transaction. Perhaps, customers want the first deal to be perfect. Then, the floodgates open. Read the rest of this entry »
InMobi – A Threat to Google in Mobile Advertising + Review
We have been hungry to write about a Hot Bleeding Edge technology Startup from India and it is InMobi – which runs the world’s second-largest mobile advertisement network after Google’s adMob. InMobi was among the earliest entrants in this segment and hence the company continues to benefit from the rapid growth of this US$3bn market [2011].
How is Mobile Advertising different from Advertising to Traditional PC / Laptop ?Unlike the cookies used to target advertisements for PC / Laptops, mobiles do not have any cookies. However, mobiles offer a much higher level of user information that enables better targeting of advertisements [Example - Location Based]. This has created entry barriers for many traditional ad networks.
Business Model:It has a platform used by mobile application developers and content publishers to display advertisements. The company operates on a revenue-sharing model where it retains up to 40% of the amount paid by the advertiser.
The app developers [Applications / Games etc] and content publishers embed InMobi’s code to channel relevant advertisements onto their mobile websites/apps. Read the rest of this entry »
Letsbuy – Online Retail Heaven for Electornics – Business Strategy + Review
Letsbuy.com is probably India’s leading online branded electronics superstore. Reliable branded products differentiate the website from other online electronics stores like naaptol.com. The company is positioning it to become an exclusive e-commerce partner to large electronics product firms such as Samsung.
Business Review – The founders of Letsbuy are gadget enthusiasts, who have made the website’s electronic product portfolio among the widest in its peer set. Letsbuy has routinely been the first to launch a new product in India (e.g. Acer Iconia A500 tab). In addition, unlike many other electronics web portals, Letsbuy carries only reliable/branded electronic products. This has emerged a key advantage in forging partnerships with leading brands. For instance, Samsung partners with Letsbuy to sell its mobile phones online.
Challenges – From a high return-rate of products on its “Cash on Delivery” (COD) service to logistical bottlenecks, Letsbuy has overcome many of the initial challenges. Now, the return-rate on its COD service is among the lowest in Read the rest of this entry »