I had commented some time back about the clutter in job search sites , with little diffrenciation. Dialajob.in struck me as a fresh of breath air - dramatically different model of operation than other sites - you call in a number and provide your details and their database finds a job. Probably will find the going tough inititally as they will have larger costs on call center , as well as in gathering the user profile . But just for thinking out of the box and implementing a different online-offline model they get my vote of admiration.
(Will call 'em up morrow to see if I can get a better job , that doesnt leave me with plenty of time to laze around blogging :P )
Monday, July 21, 2008
Saturday, July 5, 2008
9. Lootstreet
Lootstreet.com is a platform to buy and sell things by bargaining. Started by two IIMA grads, this site has got fair amount of press off late. I tried it myself and I think Lootstreet is a nice idea but terrible execution.
First of the site design is pathetic. It is as if it's founders were in a great hurry to launch it without perfecting it. A site like this cannot/should not be launched in beta/alpha like stage. It either works or it doesn't.
For instance, I was not able to book after successful bargaining as at first on the payment page address bar was not editable! and amount to be charged was zero. After I complained, on an email ID which was hidden away in about us, they did reply in a day. Points to note are that though the phone no. is present on main page which I find weird as I don't like to call. It wastes time and is expensive for both the customer and seller. Their reply however was not useful. I was able to edit my address(which is a text box pathetically small) but money to be paid was still zero and paypal refused to accept payment.
Their are many elementary design mistakes on the site. Stupid technical lingo like "view log" to see what all has happened on your bet. Extremely stupid payment page. SMS gateway not working resulting in non-delivery of registration code. I can go on and on.
It pains me that an idea this good has been wasted like this. They should have spent a few weeks testing their site. People think if they make a bad implementation of a good idea it will still work. I don't think it works that way. Most of the time a good idea in a bad implementation dies very very fast.
First of the site design is pathetic. It is as if it's founders were in a great hurry to launch it without perfecting it. A site like this cannot/should not be launched in beta/alpha like stage. It either works or it doesn't.
For instance, I was not able to book after successful bargaining as at first on the payment page address bar was not editable! and amount to be charged was zero. After I complained, on an email ID which was hidden away in about us, they did reply in a day. Points to note are that though the phone no. is present on main page which I find weird as I don't like to call. It wastes time and is expensive for both the customer and seller. Their reply however was not useful. I was able to edit my address(which is a text box pathetically small) but money to be paid was still zero and paypal refused to accept payment.
Their are many elementary design mistakes on the site. Stupid technical lingo like "view log" to see what all has happened on your bet. Extremely stupid payment page. SMS gateway not working resulting in non-delivery of registration code. I can go on and on.
It pains me that an idea this good has been wasted like this. They should have spent a few weeks testing their site. People think if they make a bad implementation of a good idea it will still work. I don't think it works that way. Most of the time a good idea in a bad implementation dies very very fast.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
8. Carwale.com
Carwale helps you to do your research about cars before you actually make up your mind and step into a showroom. It is very comprehensive and accurate. I have used it quiet a lot in last few weeks. It is not only easy to use but also quiet addictive if you are interested in cars. Almost every car that is sold in India is on this site complete with all the versions of it. They have very detailed information (both technical and commercial). You can calculate actual on road price of the car in your city and EMI+downpayment instantaneously. In my view that is very very useful information for people thinking of buying cars. All the information at one place.
As it becomes more and more popular and visible to the car buying junta it would become a very good value for money for city distributors to place advertisements about deals running in their showroom. These distributors have a lot of money to spend on ads and I think this is an idea very well executed and would rule automobile information marketplace in years to come.
As it becomes more and more popular and visible to the car buying junta it would become a very good value for money for city distributors to place advertisements about deals running in their showroom. These distributors have a lot of money to spend on ads and I think this is an idea very well executed and would rule automobile information marketplace in years to come.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Wheres the Shine in HT Media ?
Yet another website by HTMedia- Shine.com
I personally think , HT's newpaper - Mint was an excellent concept. Amongst the other pink financial papers , the newspaper was indeed revolutionary - great design , great writing - a truly readable paper! Even livemint.com , the e-paper is excellent.
However , the rest of the forays , have only confused me on the HT strategy. Sometime back , they bought out Desimartini , to be in the social networking space. Now they're in the crowded online recruitment space ,jostling for room with naukri , monster , timesjobs , jobstreet ...
I created a profile on Shine today , but was struggling to find the wow factor in the website. Is this going to go the clickjobs or ndtvjobs way too ? And what exactly is HT Media headed for ? I guess any entrepreneur who wants to make a quick buck must concentrate on a popular space that HT Media isnt in already , create a half baked copy of an existing website. (tip for name - hindustanishaadi / hindustanimakaan anyone? you are requested to make a payment to the authors in case you flick the idea from here ;))
Comments anyone ?
I personally think , HT's newpaper - Mint was an excellent concept. Amongst the other pink financial papers , the newspaper was indeed revolutionary - great design , great writing - a truly readable paper! Even livemint.com , the e-paper is excellent.
However , the rest of the forays , have only confused me on the HT strategy. Sometime back , they bought out Desimartini , to be in the social networking space. Now they're in the crowded online recruitment space ,jostling for room with naukri , monster , timesjobs , jobstreet ...
I created a profile on Shine today , but was struggling to find the wow factor in the website. Is this going to go the clickjobs or ndtvjobs way too ? And what exactly is HT Media headed for ? I guess any entrepreneur who wants to make a quick buck must concentrate on a popular space that HT Media isnt in already , create a half baked copy of an existing website. (tip for name - hindustanishaadi / hindustanimakaan anyone? you are requested to make a payment to the authors in case you flick the idea from here ;))
Comments anyone ?
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
7. Vakow
Vakow is really cool. It started as a sms forwarding engine and is slowly transforming into a microblogging engine like Twitter.
There are a few things about Vakow that strike me as remarkable like the design, attention to detail, feature completeness (without being too bloated), witty system messages. Design of this site is pretty funky. There are some real gems in the design for instance the vertical tab on the left margin of the screen(in middle of the page) which says feedback. A very simple yet effective design.It shows they are serious about feedback and want to hear from their users. They use a normal 10 digit mobile number so smses to the system are cheap. With mobile penetration being so huge in India, I think there is a big market for microblogging.
However they could have done somethings better like recently launched a V2.0 of the site and added microblogging platform which in my view seems patch work and they should have a clean separation between SMS forwarding and blog stream. Marketing also needs some effort and a little more viral elements and ease of use would make it more popular. Things like not allowing forwarding of SMSes until it get 2 hands up is too restrictive and should be done away with. Similarly, option to allow users to register via mobile is a must have. They should also lookout for scaling issues as it has started to feel a little sluggish these days.
Anyhow, with around 500 posts a day the site is becoming popular by the day and soon should start making waves in Indian youth community.
There are a few things about Vakow that strike me as remarkable like the design, attention to detail, feature completeness (without being too bloated), witty system messages. Design of this site is pretty funky. There are some real gems in the design for instance the vertical tab on the left margin of the screen(in middle of the page) which says feedback. A very simple yet effective design.It shows they are serious about feedback and want to hear from their users. They use a normal 10 digit mobile number so smses to the system are cheap. With mobile penetration being so huge in India, I think there is a big market for microblogging.
However they could have done somethings better like recently launched a V2.0 of the site and added microblogging platform which in my view seems patch work and they should have a clean separation between SMS forwarding and blog stream. Marketing also needs some effort and a little more viral elements and ease of use would make it more popular. Things like not allowing forwarding of SMSes until it get 2 hands up is too restrictive and should be done away with. Similarly, option to allow users to register via mobile is a must have. They should also lookout for scaling issues as it has started to feel a little sluggish these days.
Anyhow, with around 500 posts a day the site is becoming popular by the day and soon should start making waves in Indian youth community.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
6. Slideshare
Slideshare is by far the most visible startup from India(actually funded by valley guys but dev team operates from Delhi). It is the youtube of slides. Lets you upload and share your slide very easily. About an year back they had this best presentation competition which got lot of attention. They have scaled the application quiet well which runs on Rails, Amazon EC2 and S3.
Slideshare has around 15-20 guys in their Delhi office. Their founders operate from Bay area and Delhi team is in the able hands of Amit Ranjan. There is almost zero competition in this space and they seem to be playing it quiet well. However there is no sign of Slideshare caring about business and profitability. They may be looking at a takeover from Google or others. Ads are one way to monetize it. Contextual ads inside PPTs is also not a bad idea. Corporate accounts for storing private PPTs on the net/lan for sharing can also be on cards. For now they seem to have deep pockets and looking to mature this platform with lots of APIs and users.
Good luck Slideshare!
Slideshare has around 15-20 guys in their Delhi office. Their founders operate from Bay area and Delhi team is in the able hands of Amit Ranjan. There is almost zero competition in this space and they seem to be playing it quiet well. However there is no sign of Slideshare caring about business and profitability. They may be looking at a takeover from Google or others. Ads are one way to monetize it. Contextual ads inside PPTs is also not a bad idea. Corporate accounts for storing private PPTs on the net/lan for sharing can also be on cards. For now they seem to have deep pockets and looking to mature this platform with lots of APIs and users.
Good luck Slideshare!
Saturday, June 7, 2008
5. Guruji
Guruji is Indian search engine. One year ago when I first about them I asked myself why would I use any other search engine than Google(or yahoo). But I was wrong. They are not competing with Google. They are more like Baidu(the Chinese search giant). Baidu is huge in China. It is much bigger than Google there. They just launched a music search engine like controversial Baidu music search and it rocks!
I use Guruji just for the music feature alone.
There is definitely a need for a search engine which gathers data that Google doesn't bother to pickup or removes them from it's search index. Music is just one of such things. Things like traffic data, court cases, movie schedules, historic weather data, realtime(or almost) stock market data, local search and plethora of such things could be better done by a local search engine. It is not as if Google cannot do all these things. In fact they do all these things in USA and elsewhere but an Indian search engine can combine local domain knowledge with local information and serve specific needs better. For instance they launched live cricket scores.
Last time I checked they were hiring good people and thats a good sign. Business model is non existent right now. In my view instead of just cloning Adsense in India a more targeted and direct business model would be much better and profitable.
Best of luck to Guruji.
I use Guruji just for the music feature alone.
There is definitely a need for a search engine which gathers data that Google doesn't bother to pickup or removes them from it's search index. Music is just one of such things. Things like traffic data, court cases, movie schedules, historic weather data, realtime(or almost) stock market data, local search and plethora of such things could be better done by a local search engine. It is not as if Google cannot do all these things. In fact they do all these things in USA and elsewhere but an Indian search engine can combine local domain knowledge with local information and serve specific needs better. For instance they launched live cricket scores.
Last time I checked they were hiring good people and thats a good sign. Business model is non existent right now. In my view instead of just cloning Adsense in India a more targeted and direct business model would be much better and profitable.
Best of luck to Guruji.
4. AskLaila
AskLaila is like Burrp a local search platform. They have movies, events, pubs, eating out places, shops, churches, schools, beauty parlours and what not! The more you research this site more you like it. Their "about us" shows they quiet experienced and fun. "Careers" sections shows they are very concerned about the data on their site and it shows. They have huge amount of data and are much more comprehensive than Burrp(who only aim for eating/drinking out places).
One thing that I noticed about AskLaila is that the community is not as strong as Burrp, at least in Mumbai. Their site design could have been MUCH better. Name AskLaila also sucks big time.
Comprehensive data, not so good presentation!
One thing that I noticed about AskLaila is that the community is not as strong as Burrp, at least in Mumbai. Their site design could have been MUCH better. Name AskLaila also sucks big time.
Comprehensive data, not so good presentation!
3. Burrp
Burrp is actually 2.5 years old and still is a startup(at least behaves like one)! Constant stream of innovation and eye candy design. I simply love this site. They have huge amount of info (at least about Mumbai) and a good community following. I have written and reviewed on this site a few times and it rocks! They have started shop in Pune, Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and Kolkatta.
A look at their careers section reveals php+java combo and they are looking for good people. They have recently launched Burrp.tv and it is quiet good. However I am still not very sure that people would flock there quiet a lot.
In all this seems like a good product from a good bunch of people. Although there is a still a big question mark over how they are going to make money out of it , there are quiet a few ways to do it and they will figure it out someday for sure.
p.s. I do not know anybody at Burrp. I just love their product :)
A look at their careers section reveals php+java combo and they are looking for good people. They have recently launched Burrp.tv and it is quiet good. However I am still not very sure that people would flock there quiet a lot.
In all this seems like a good product from a good bunch of people. Although there is a still a big question mark over how they are going to make money out of it , there are quiet a few ways to do it and they will figure it out someday for sure.
p.s. I do not know anybody at Burrp. I just love their product :)
2. Bigflix.com
Bigflix.com is a movie rental startup funded by Reliance ADAG.
First of all I am really excited about the movie rental business coming to India. There are quiet a few players now in this market like Seventymm etc. But lets admit it if reliance enters this game it would change forever. We all have seen what they did to Indian mobile market. I am sure they can do the same here.
Netflix in US has been a pretty interesting company doing movie rentals. They have innovated quiet a lot. Their recommendation system suggests you movies according to your movie taste(which is build over time as you start using their service) and they are serious about making it work. They had this competition to improve their movie recommendation algorithm by a notch and the prize was $1 million. Their business model is completely online and they are heavily dependent on US postal service for CD/DVD deliveries.
In India you definitely cannot use postal service! However reliance has good reach with their huge telecom network and I think they are using this to deliver movies. This service right now is available in Ahmedabad, bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai, Chandigarh, Hyderabad, Indore, Pune and Kolkatta. Their movie collection is decent with around 3000 movies and tv shows.
They should however try to make their collection as fat as possible. With Adlabs making good movies I think they can also be pretty ineteresting. Although, looking at their careers page the netflix amount of innovation seems unlikely. They should also revamp their site design.
First of all I am really excited about the movie rental business coming to India. There are quiet a few players now in this market like Seventymm etc. But lets admit it if reliance enters this game it would change forever. We all have seen what they did to Indian mobile market. I am sure they can do the same here.
Netflix in US has been a pretty interesting company doing movie rentals. They have innovated quiet a lot. Their recommendation system suggests you movies according to your movie taste(which is build over time as you start using their service) and they are serious about making it work. They had this competition to improve their movie recommendation algorithm by a notch and the prize was $1 million. Their business model is completely online and they are heavily dependent on US postal service for CD/DVD deliveries.
In India you definitely cannot use postal service! However reliance has good reach with their huge telecom network and I think they are using this to deliver movies. This service right now is available in Ahmedabad, bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai, Chandigarh, Hyderabad, Indore, Pune and Kolkatta. Their movie collection is decent with around 3000 movies and tv shows.
They should however try to make their collection as fat as possible. With Adlabs making good movies I think they can also be pretty ineteresting. Although, looking at their careers page the netflix amount of innovation seems unlikely. They should also revamp their site design.
1. Pothi.com
Pothi.com is a start up in the area of self-publishing. As they say, self publishing in India has never been easy. One has to go through a lot to publish a book here. These guys aim to make it easier to publish books using online and social tools. They make it very easy for you to estimate the cost of printing a book very easily.
You can also sell your books on Pothi.com and decide your margin on the sale. Pothi takes around Rs. 30 per sale. Pretty decent.
However there are some areas of concern. They burden the writer with not only content but format, design et al. I think they should provide some services like logo design, format, font etc from their end. Also the site design sucks. May be these guys are not that good at design or something.
You can also sell your books on Pothi.com and decide your margin on the sale. Pothi takes around Rs. 30 per sale. Pretty decent.
However there are some areas of concern. They burden the writer with not only content but format, design et al. I think they should provide some services like logo design, format, font etc from their end. Also the site design sucks. May be these guys are not that good at design or something.
Startup
This blog is an attempt to identify, track and observe startups in India and elsewhere. There are so many startups around and many are doing quiet well.
So what is a startup?
Wikipedia says
A startup company or start-up is a company with a limited operating history. These companies, generally newly created, are in a phase of development and research for markets. They have an uncertain future, and may result in a spectacular success, or failure. The term became popular internationally during the dot-com bubble when a great number of dot-com companies were founded. A high tech startup company is a startup company specialized in the high tech industry.
Good enough! From now on I will stick to this definition while deciding whether a company can be deemed a startup or not.
So what is a startup?
Wikipedia says
A startup company or start-up is a company with a limited operating history. These companies, generally newly created, are in a phase of development and research for markets. They have an uncertain future, and may result in a spectacular success, or failure. The term became popular internationally during the dot-com bubble when a great number of dot-com companies were founded. A high tech startup company is a startup company specialized in the high tech industry.
Good enough! From now on I will stick to this definition while deciding whether a company can be deemed a startup or not.
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