Interview with CEO of Yaari

Prerna Gupta, founder and CEO of Yaari.com - a new social networking site that claims to be “created by Indian youth, for Indian youth”. Prerna was working in venture capital, when she had a vision of a social networking site that would change the face of Internet usage in India. So she decided to quit her job and go for it. And here she is today without a penny to spare but loving her new life as CEO of Yaari. Prerna graduated from Stanford University with a BA in economics and then worked restlessly in management consulting and venture capital until she finally discovered her true passion (bossing people around at Yaari). She also loves bananas, Cuban salsa dancing, yoga and other esoteric things. Prerna has talked to us about Yaari, its future and enterprenial scene in India.

Mallik: What made you become an enterpreneur ?
Prerna: I had an idea that I couldn’t stop thinking about, and I believed I would be able to successfully implement it. I like to work on things that I’ve created myself.

Mallik: Why you wanted to come up with social networking site specifically for India ?
Prerna:I saw more opportunity in India at the time, and I’ve always wanted to start a business in India.

Mallik: Is Yaari looking for any funding ?
Prerna:Not at the moment.

Mallik: What is your current user base and how is the growth rate ?
Prerna: That’s confidential info.

Mallik:What are your plans for Yaari in the future ?
Prerna:To become India’s largest social networking site.

Mallik:How do you plan to compete with newly upcoming companies like MIH (Cafe Ibibo) ?
Prerna:By offering a better product. I believe we have a better understanding of social networking than anyone else in India, and we will use that understanding to keep improving our product and stay ahead of the competition. Competitors may initially get more traffic because they’ll pour in loads of money into expensive marketing campaigns. but when their advertising budget runs dry, their traffic will die. In the mean time, we will succeed because we’re building a solid userbase, based on organic growth.

Mallik:Being an enterpreneur, do you think it’s difficult to set up a startup in India compared to Silicon Valley ? What is the reason?
Prerna:Yes, it is definitely more difficult to start an internet company in India, but that’s obvious. A lack of infrastructure is a huge issue, but it’s also a lack of a large network of entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and etc. These things are beginning to develop, like Alok Mittal’s venturewoods.org, but it is no where near the support network in the valley. However, this is not surprising. This is just the beginning for India. I think we should appreciate how much entrepreneurship is happening in India, despite the challenges. Also, the lowered costs of operation certainly make things easier.

Mallik:Why do you think India does not have any good brand name in Internet or Webspace ? Do you think Yaari will be the one to grab that brand name recognition ?
Prerna:Because Indian internet usage is still very low. As internet usage in India increases, we will certainly see solid internet brands develop. And yes, Yaari will definitely be one of them!

Mallik:What’s your advice for budding enterpreneurs ?
Prerna:Go for it!!! Don’t just sit around and day-dream, do it! Every minute of it is worthwhile.

Thanks Prerna, for the interview. Wishing you and Yaari all the best.

Read Original article at Tech Persona.

mGinger: Google CEO's Vision

Google CEO Eric Schmidt has talked about the free phone service for people who see targeted ads on their mobile phone. While Eric's dream was vision for future, where people will spend 8 to 10 hours on their mobile phones, for talking, texting and browsing. Meanwhile mGinger, an Indian startup has come up with similar concept in the current phone usage scenario. mGinger's concept is that you can earn money for reading the SMS ads on your mobile phone. This ads will be only on the products of your interest and you can specify the time you want to recieve the ads. Further you can refer your friends and you will get part of earning for the ads your friends read. While Google CEO's vision was to provide free phone service mGinger is straight away paying the money to its users.

Will mGinger business model be successful ? Lets wait and watch.
Other free SMS service with similar model are : 160by2, Way2SMS

SMS Advertising in India

India has 150 million mobile users, who as of now is less than 15% of the Indian population which shows that there is still a large scope for increase in mobile phone usage in India. In 2004 alone, Indian subscribers have sent 12.3 billion SMS which is projected to grow to 180 billion by 2010. Sending a text message is not free in India and it costs anywhere between 0.3 to 3 rupees. The booming SMS market has caught the eye of entrepreneurs in India who want to either provide text messaging free for users by getting paid through advertisers or even pay users for reading advertisements on their mobile phones through SMS.

A few of such services in India include mGinger, 160by2, way2sms etc. mGinger’s concept is that you can earn money for reading the SMS ads on your mobile phone. These ads will only be on the products of your interest and you can specify the time you want to receive the ads. Furthermore, you can refer your friends and you will get part of the earnings for the ads your friends read. 160by2 allows users to send SMS of 80 characters in length for free, while it appends a contextual ad (as it claims) for the rest of the 80 characters. 160by2 does its marketing campaign by saying that Hotmail made personal email free and 160by2 will be doing the same for SMS. Way2SMS provides an email kind of interface where you can group your contacts and send SMS to either group or individual. Way2SMS has the same model as 160by2 but it gives 92 characters for the users.

All of these services have brought free SMS service to the users, but is SMS advertising really going to take off ? SMS advertising has some advantages over traditional media like Internet and TV, SMS can be very targeted and there is a very high probability that the user will be reading it. Localization of ads is another advantage. Conveying the message in just 80 characters or even less may be the limitation. In countries like India where GPRS and Mobile Internet are not very prominent, it does not make much sense to send ads like “XTravel: New Way to Travel click http://xtravel.com for more details”, but instead, ads like “XTravel: New Way to Travel Call 09867000010 for more details” can add more value. Will a new advertising model called “Cost per Click” be coming our way ? Let’s wait and watch.

Original article posted by me here.

Startups in India

India has created billion-dollar software services companies like TCS, Infosys, Wipro, but what about the product-based companies? We hardly remember any successful product companies originating from India. Even small countries like Finland can come up with billion-dollar product companies such as Skype. Why is India lagging behind? Well, India is definitely not lacking in skilled people because it’s the same Indians who have created companies like Hotmail, Rightworks, Exodus, Junglee and many more that are now headquartered in Silicon Valley. In fact, many of the startups in Silicon Valley are founded by Indians. Here are some possible reasons why;

Low Risk:
Unlike services companies, where revenues are pretty quick, product companies will need lots of research and development before the product is ready. Often, this will take 2-3 years or more. Sometimes after the product launched, based on market feedback, you may have to make drastic changes before scheduling a relaunch. This will undoubtedly further delay the revenue generation. Furthermore, many of these companies are shut down after 2-3 years without earning any revenue. In services companies, the revenues are generated from day one. Low risk and fast revenue generation may be one reason for people to concentrate on services rather than products. It is outsourcing that is a killer for Indian products.

Lack of Local Success:
Indians have heard about the success stories in Google, YouTube, Skype and so on, but have never seen or experienced the success themselves locally. We have witnessed many successful product companies like Microsoft, Intuit, Siebel, Lotus, Oracle, Adobe and so on with innovative staff members. Employees of these companies have come up with many new startups later in their career, on their own. India doesn’t have many such companies or role-model enterpreneurs to look up to for inspiration.

Hiring the Team:
Hiring the talented people for a startup is a challenging task in India because of a couple of reasons. First of all, people prefer to work for well-known companies like Microsoft or Google over some unknown XYZ startup. Secondly, it’s very difficult for startups to provide compensation matching the big companies. Unlike in Silicon Valley, where people prefer stocks over base pay, Indians prefer a straight base pay. The reason for this is once again due to the fact that most Indians have never witnessed locally, a Skype or a YouTube happening, with employees becoming millionaires through stocks.

Hard to get Funding:
It is very hard for ideas from enterpreneurs to get funded in India. Private equity firms are reluctant to take the risk of investing in Indian startups in early stages. Some startups do get funded once they are ready with the full demo, unlike in the US where people get funded in the very early stages.

Things are beginning to change very slowly, as some Indian startups like mGinger, Guruji and others are creeping up. On top of that, many US-based startups are opening their development centers in India. We are certainly hoping that some of the next generation software products will be coming from India.

This article is originally posted by me on Tech Persona.