Malliks: 2008 Recap [Business & Startups]

In continuation to earlier post, now we will give 2008 recap for Business & Technology sectors.
2008 has been worst year in financial terms with fall of big US investment firms like Bear Sterns, Lehman brothers and other. Later part of 2008 has seen large number of layoffs in US and hiring freeze in India. The worst business decisions for 2008 as per malliks are:

Worst Business Decisions for 2008:

• Satyam's proposal to buy Maytas
• Yahoo's decision not to get acquired by Microsoft

This has been relatively good year for startups. While slowdown helped startups to hire and retain talent, getting funding has been a problematic. Below are Malliks comments on performance of prominent Indian startups during 2008.

Startups in 2008:

• In.com : Best of 2008, This is Network 18 Venture, has grown a lot in terms of traffic in very short time. All the Network 18 web ventures are being consolidated under this domain name.
• Lifemojo: LifeMojo is a startup for nutritionists. Lifemojo found place here because of its innovative B2B business model which solves real problem of nutitionist and which also get Lifemojo a revenue oppurtunity. 2009 will be very important year for Lifemojo.
• Zoho : Zoho has added many products this year. CloudSQL is an innovative product from Zoho in 2008.
• DimDim : DimDim has been around for few years. DimDim got $6 million funding in 2008. DimDim has added many new features in 2008 and competing directly with webex. Recession may be good for dimdim as companies would be looking for cost cutting and dimdim is way to reduce communication costs.
• MobMe : 2008 has been good year for MobMe, MobMe has been in news for its partnership with Malayalam Daily, MobMe’s mobile crime and accident reporting platform
• Cashurdrive : This is an innovative startup for 2008. Cashurdrive is India's first On Wheel advertizing company. 2009 will be interesting year for this company, We would like to see how much will the advertizers be interested in this kind of marketing.
• Ibibo : Ibibo's marketing in 2008 impressed malliks. There is change in their marketing strategy from 2007 wherin they have launched interesting contests this year. But this is one space where competition is intense with entry of in.com. 2009 will see who will emerge as winner in this space.
• Asklaila : Asklaila is winner in local search space for 2008. Asklaila made a strategic local search partnership with MSN cities.
• Guruji : Guruji wants to be google of India. In 2008 guruji has launched music search and finance portal.
• Smsgupshup: This has grown as prominent player in SMS space. This is Webaroo's venture. Smsgupshup is often referred as India's twitter. Smsgupshup got $11million funding in 2008
• Chakpak : This is winner in movies space in 2008. Chakpak's orkut app is one of the popular orkut apps. Orkut app did help chakpak to become a popular player in this space. Chakpak recently got funding from Cannan Investors.

Most of these startup are still looking out for innovative ways for continous revenue stream apart from ad revenues. We hope to see some innovation in revenue models of some of these startups.

Malliks prediction for 2009 coming soon!!