Relocating the blog
March 31, 2009
As part of aggregation of my blogs on WordPress.com I have relocated the blog to http://palimadra.wordpress.com/
Platform for startups in India
March 24, 2008
Proto.in is a platform for startups in and around India where budding entrepreneurs can interact with techies, venture capitalist and other entrepreneurs. Proto.in’s mantra is “Create, Contribute, Collaborate”. Since the technology sector is a developing one and has not fully matured a common platform is needed and that void is being filled in by proto.in. The team at proto.in is a group of seasoned entrepreneurs and technology engineers who have worked in the valley at some point of time in their career.
Proto.in has launched another initiative called startuplunch at startuplunch.proto.in which is being projected as a meeting place for startups and their employees. On startuplunch.proto.in the following cross section of people can attend events:
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Programmers
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Marketers
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Visual Communication
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Animators
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Etc.
If you are a Startup, You must:
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Should atleast be a year old
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Should have atleast one paid employee in your payroll
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Should have a logo and website done which is complete with information on what you do.
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Provide reference and contact number for that employee on your payroll that the candidates can talk to.
Various job seekers and web development companies with new ideas would be participating in the event which amongst other things would have a lunch as well. It is hoped that during this interaction job seekers would find new employers and employers would find employees who are best suited for the job as working in a startup requires people who are driven towards the same goal and that is making the application or the service a success.
Startuplunch.proto.in has already done four events in Banglore, Pune, Chennai and Mumbai. More events would be held in the future so be on the lookout.
Get married through the Internet.
February 21, 2008
SimplyMarry.com matrimonial portal in India, promoted by 
The Times of India group which is one of the top media & entertainment conglomerate in the India. SimplyMarry.com has been developed as one-stop platform for prospective brides and grooms to meet and communicate with each other and build fulfilling relationships. While finding a partner for life is a serious business and the team at SimplyMarry.com ensures ensures that every profile put up at SimplyMarry.com is screened for irrelevant and/or appropriate content. Downloading of photos is not allowed as a security feature so that no one abuses the photos hosted there.Customer Service is available round the clock for the convenience of the users. Joining the website is free however, there are a plans with added features like duration, viewing details of users, etc for which one has to pay to get an access.
Recently SimplyMarry.com launched a viral campaign, “Fire n Ice”. The new campaign has been designed by Mudra and according to the company it portrays the fun and frolic, and encapsulates the highs and lows that all romantic relationships undergo. The new campaign is an animation having a boy and a girl as the main protagonists. The campaign is well designed.
The animation and the links on the campaign did work for the first day but thereafter alarmingly some the links and the animation does not work. This is not good for the website where users have to submit their personal information. For sure there would be some users who would come to the website to register but would be turning away after coming across this part of the website.
The campaign has a link on the home page. Once you click 
on the graphic you are taken to a full page version of the campaign which has a boy and a girl with links to “husband” and wife. When you click on the husband link it takes you to another page which has some funny quotes with images and the title of the page is “understanding your soon to be better half – This would not take time, after all he is man!”. Surprisingly the page does not show up at all in Internet Explorer 7 which is used by majority of the users. The page can be seen in Firefox though you have to wait for the page to show up. I have requested browser snapshots of the page from browsershots.org and would be updating this post with the results when I have them.
On the whole the SimplyMarry.com is a good website and has a income model. If the quality of the website and the service is maintained it will be a sure winner in the long run specially in India where most of the marriages take place thorough advertisements in newspapers and magazines. Since Internet’s reach is increasing in India and the fact that Internet is convenient as compared to other mediums the use of Internet for inviting marriage alliances is bound to grow in India.
Guts and Glory – The Shoe Laundry Story
February 8, 2008
I’m sure nearly everyone has heard about the The Shoe Laundry a unique business started by young entrepreneur by the name of Sandeep 
Gajakas. It is shockingly simple yet successful business which I’m sure is a result of thinking out of the box.
The Shoe Laundry is a service which collects the sport shoes of the customers which are repaired and washed and the new looking shoes are delivered to customer at his doorstep. The reason why The Shoe Laundry is popular is because it is one of those businesses that were started with very little investment (personal savings of the business owner). The Shoe Laundry did not have an office for the first few years. The reason is simple – they did not need one! An incident where Sandeep was challenged by his engineering classmate to clean the sports shoes after Sandeep had complained about the fact that dirty shoes or rich students was something which irritated him, ignited the idea though it was put into practice after working for a couple of years after his graduation.
The business was started from his bedroom and Sandeep himself did the deliveries, pickups and management of the 
business. So much so that the first advertisement campaign was executed by Sandeep himself with some help from his friends. One big advantage was setting up the business in Mumbai which is a metropolitan with lot of dust and grime. The expressions on his customers faces when he delivered the shoes after cleaning was something he enjoyed the most. The charges of Rs.120 ($3) was reasonable for most people.
Sandeep moved offices of My Shoe Laundry to his ancestral place which was a little far from the city. The Shoe Laundry’s customer base grew and soon Shoppers Mart (a retail clothing and shoe store in India) started using the services of The Shoe Laundry for after sales services for their customers and soon Sandeep saw that hospitals and star hotels lining up as The Shoe Laundry customers and also the showrooms of top sport shoe brands like Adidas, Reebok and Nike were using the services as well.
The Shoe Laundry soon faced competition from about 8-10 other competitors but could not sustain because of the tight margins and the fact that the service industry is all about satisfying the customer with quality while sticking to the timelines. The shoe cleaning process is a 10 step process. Started in 2004 today the business claims the turn over to be over 24 lakh rupees a year (about $65,000 US)!
The Shoe Laundry is a classic example of how a small business can be grown despite the competition if one is dedicated and true to his work. More examples like these will prove an inspiration for others (young and old) and I hope we see a lot of businesses like these in the future which provide goods and services based on the demand that is there in a particular geographical region.
If you know of any similar business please let me know and we would be privileged to feature the business on our blog.
Unique services in India – Redbus.in
February 7, 2008
There are some interesting services that have sprung up in 
India which might not be popular or there in other countries. RedBus is one of them. RedBus.in, is a Bangalore based startup founded by three software professionals from BITS Pilani, India who say that they did it because no one else in India had done it. Redbus.in provides online ticket booking for 3600+ routes long distance Buses across India. You can book your bus tickets online, over the phone and mobile or book a ticket at any one of the 30,000+ Redbus outlets across India. Home delivery is available in Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Pune, for a fee of Rs 20.
When booking online, you can pay using debit cards, credit cards, Internet enabled online bank accounts or cash on delivery. There is no extra charge for booking online therefore you do not pay extra for convenience as is the
case with booking railway tickets. What’s more tickets booked can be canceled online though the refund is in form of a coupon for the ticket amount which can be used to book another ticket through Redbus.in. You can also cash the coupon through the customer care centres only. It is mandatory to take a printout of the ticket or the email and produce it at the time of boarding.
It is great to see such services coming up in India which are unique to India. With penetration of the mobile market SMS (short messaging system) would be a good mode of communication to use for the service specially with the users of the service.
3 startups from India on the best mobile companies around the world!
February 5, 2008
MobileMonday which is an authority in mobile development has announced 25 companies that have demonstrated exceptionally innovative mobile technologies, products, services and concepts. The companies were chosen by 25 chapters of MobileMonday around the world. Three Indian Mobile startups have been included in the list and they are
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Mobisy – Mobisy has two products one is to offer web 2.0 services on mobile and also a Spam SMS manager for Symbian based phones. -
Mobile Worx – Mobile Worx has developed an ad delivering marketplace called Zestadz. The second product is called Meklix which is a social network platform. -
Ziva Software – Ziva’s products are called Manas and Peepal. Manas is a search application for mobiles and Peepal is a social network platform.
I hope one of the Indian startups makes it to the final three. Keep looking here and I will keep you posted.
Free mobile games download in India through Indiatimes
February 5, 2008
Times Internet Limited (Indiatimes.com) is going to launch advertisement supported mobile gaming portal in India. This venture would be in partnership with a US gaming portal 
called Hovr. In exchange of watching some advertisements the users will be able to download mobile games to their phone and play the games.
India is one the fastest growing market in terms of mobile users. India already has 235 million users and they are growing at the rate of 5 million subscribers per month.
Though it is being touted as “India’s first free mobile game portal” that is not true as a similar portal has already been launched by Anand Bazaar Patrika and Greystripe called myjoy4free.co.in.
Gamezone would be available through Indiatime’s WAP portal at wap.indiatimes.com only. Indiatimes will have to popularize the WAP portal as it is not common knowledge in India that Indiatimes.com has its own WAP portal. If Indiatimes is able to popularize the same then Gamezone will assist in creating some loyal users in India as India’s mobile content market is a price sensitive market.
The fact that one needs GPRS enabled on their phone to see the advertisements and download the games might be a hindrance in the growth of game zone. There are 93 games to offer which are divided into various categories. However, the download of the game was a little slow than other sites otherwise the advertisements were not that big a problem as I had thought they might be.
With time and more players in the mobile gaming market I’m sure the industry will grow in times to come and mature as it has done in other areas within the mobile market. Therefore these are exciting times to be in the mobile gaming industry in India.
For some early starters in the online space in India it is time to declare the results of their operations. They would make an interesting reading.
One of the first ones to declare the results is Web18 which is owned by Network18 group up which owns the following online services in India
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Josh 18: Touted to be the biggest Hindi website in the world.
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Buzz18: An Indian entertainment portal. It is target at the NRI audience in the world. -
Bookmyshow:This portal is now being
promoted extensively. Book my show is a comprehensive ticketing, information and analysis solutions provider. -
IndiWo: IndiWo.com as the name suggests is meant for the Indian woman everywhere in the world.
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Home Shop 18: HomeShop18 (HS18) is a new venture
and it is nationally televised home shopping service, selling credible brands through interactive electronic media, primarily through cable TV and Internet. -
Tech2: tech2.com,is a technology portal for India and has tech shows on CNBC-TV18 and CNN-IBN, and in the near future they plan to introduce events as well as a mobile platform.
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Compare India: compareindia.com is a neat service which allows consumers to read reviews of goods and services they plan to buy. As on today there are 37 categories of products that are reviewed.
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Cricket Next: Launched by Walchand this website was
acquired by Network18 group. It offers volumes of information and opinion, not to speak of contests and loads of fun. -
Yatra: A cool name if you are Indian with a good recall value Yatra.com provides travel-related
information, pricing, availability and reservations for airlines, hotels, railway, buses and car rentals across 5000 large cities and small rural areas throughout India. Yatra’s multi-language customer service center. -
Jobstreet: Jobstreet.com is India’s premier e-
recruitment portals. Though it has top competition from Naukri.com and Monster India it has been able to grab people’s attention. -
Commodities control: commoditiescontrol.com is a website that has in depth information for businesses of a particular commodity in the Indian market. It has real time market information for its users who have to pay for the service. As of now it is reported that commodities control has a subscriber base of 30000 users.
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Power your trade: www.PowerYourTrade.com is a
financial advisory portal, delivering a comprehensive mix of expert advice, stock news and analysis to investors and traders. -
IBNlive: IBNLive.com is India’s leading and definitive
news portal that provides dynamic online content including streaming video feeds from CNN-IBN and IBN7, breaking news alerts, and video downloads on mobile phones for users on the go. -
Money Control: Moneycontrol.com is Asia’s largest and
the world’s second largest financial and business portal. Moneycontrol.com is a popular website in India and the strengthening stock market in India has helped Moneycontrol to grow exponentially. Moneycontrol with more than 150 million page views per month boasts five million users and one million registered users seeking information and guidance for all their financial needs and queries.
Web18 has reported a loss of Rs7.18 crores (718,000) loss in the third quarter ending December 2007 compared to a profit of Rs. 2.18 crores (218,000) last year for the same quarter. The losses are primarily because of the investments that the group has increased. To know the real health of the company one might look at the operating profit which has risen to Rs. 17.06 crores (1,700,000) an increase of 161%. Some of the highlights are
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Unique visitors to moneycontrol.com up by 30%.
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Time spent on the pages of moneycontol.com is up by 17%.
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ibnlive.com continues to be the No.1 news portal in India.
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Cricketnext.com’s live statistics usage up by 200%.
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Homeshop18.com portal ready for launch.
With these results of web18 one can see that the Internet portal’s will grow in years to come as the reach of the Internet in India increases.
from content sutra
Wake up call for Indian ITES/BPO industry?
January 31, 2008
Last 4-5 years have been good for India’s citizens economically. Most of the observers agree that the economic growth was fueled by ITES/BPO industry which took off in a major way and was the main contributor to the increase in inflow of foreign currency (nearly one third of the total inflow came from ITES/BPO sector). The ITES/BPO sector was supposed to do well in the coming years.
However, going by what is actually happening on the ground, it seems that the fast growth has slowed down in the ITES/BPO sector for the past 6-12 months though you might find that the people from the industry might not agree with that. It seems that they want to still believe that things are good. However, if you do look around you, if you live in India, you would surely know about more than one ITES/BPO business which has closed shop in the last 12 months. If the industry does not pull up its socks the ITES/BPO sector will be finished in the years to come.
Why is this happening? A few years back India was a leading country to outsource to for ITES/BPO services. So what has changed which forces outsourcing companies to think before choosing India as a supplier of these services? The reasons are many.
Cost Advantage diminishing
When business started outsourcing to India the cost advantage was 1:6. Over the years the wages have increased and the cost advantage has now shrunk to 1:3. With attrition rates being high and shortage of manpower the cost advantage would diminish further in the coming years and once the cost advantage is only 1:2 you would see lot of outsourcing being stopped. India’s education system has faltered and has not kept pace with the demand which has lead to the situation of higher salaries and the growth in other sectors has not helped.
Weakening US dollar
Most of the outsourcing was done by businesses of North America. With the weakening of the US dollar the profit of the companies has been hit because they are being paid less for the same work. The exchange rate of the dollar was as high as Rs.48.30 to a US $1 which has now come down to Rs.44.73 to a US$1 as in January 2007 which has eaten into the profits of the industry which has been facing increase in business expenditure.
Trained manpower for middle management
The biggest challenge as it has been, as in the other industries in India, to find middle management to run the operations smoothly. Usually employees who started out as rookies have been promoted over a period of time to be middle managers but they have been found wanting when it comes to actual management.
ITES/BPO as a career option not marketed effectively
Most of the employees who join the ITES/BPO industry consider this a chill job or something they do while they are studying or preparing themselves for a ‘career’. This has happened because initially the industry made a mistake to promote BPO/ITES environment as a ‘cool and happening industry’ to work in and the packages offered enhanced the glamour. The industry did realize the mistake but as they say the first impression is the last impression and the ITES/BPO industry could never shed that impression and now they are paying for it.
It is time for the ITES/BPO industry to wake up and get out of their ‘feel good’ slumber and ensure that they device ways to stay competitive in this industry vis-a-vis other countries otherwise the dream run would be over soon. I agree with the post on Venture Woods which rightly points out that it might be the end of the outsourcing era for India.
