Archive for 'startups' Category
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 »
SnapDeal – Largest deals website – Business Model & Strategy + Financials
Snapdeal.com is India’s largest deal website, which is riding high on the success of coupon-based business models of GroupOn in the US and Ju.taobao/Lashou in China. It already has a presence in more than 50 cities as against less than a likely 15 cities of
its closest competitor. It has also expanded into newer categories such as products and travel. Snapdeal’s ability to raise funds (more than US$50m) and expand aggressively made it a clear leader in the online deal space.
Despite the entry of global competitors such as GroupOn and well-funded start-ups like mydala, Snapdeal’s advantages of being a first mover and having a strong network are proving to be substantial. Compared to China’s more than 500 registered group buying sites, the top-10 account for ~70% of market. The leader Lashou has a ~15% market share. Snapdeal already has a firstmover advantage with about 70% marketshare.
Business Model & Strategy of SnapDeals:Group discount websites could benefit from network effects on the supplier side. The business model is based on sourcing deals from businesses (mostly SME) and sending the deals to registered users. The retailer would pay as and when a transaction is conducted, improving the accountability for the retailer’s advertising. A Win-Win for both Business and Consumers. SnapDeal helps in connecting Businesses With Consumers by pushing their Read the rest of this entry »
Why Facebook is Better than Google+ Today ?
A choice is always better than none. Facebook was the unstoppable Social hangout until Google unveiled Google+. Despite being in existence for 3 months, we still like Facebook as a better place to hang out with friends and family compared to Google+ which is designed more as a Killer for Twitter and Facebook for its Information hungry Search engine.
Here are some of the reasons why our friends have continued to use Facebook,
- Photo Tagging – Only Friends in the circle can be tagged while G+ lets tag anybody.
- Chatting + New Wall Updates – The Facebook Status Bar / Chat Bar on the Side is simply marvelous UI engineering to Read the rest of this entry »