Sad state of Indian Classified sites

Indian classifieds have so much potential but alas, spammers are killing them, Quikr, unarguably the best classified site in India is full of spam even though they have really good monitoring system (probably too good as my genuine ads too keeps on getting deleted!)

I think its a good time for Quikr to get Only Paid, they will lose lot of search traffic but even making the ads Rs 1 will get rid of all the spam as people are running pyramid scheme on ad postings.

Recycle Ideas (which didn’t worked 5 or 10 years back)

so I was wondering what’s the appeal of Quora, a social Q/A site or StackOverflow, I am a member of both the sites and have contributed (contribution = asking couple of questions, that’s it!) to the sites. Both sites have raised lot of money and the most amazing and obvious thing about the sites is, the concept for both the sites are as old as Internet, so why these 2 worked and not the other thousands ?

The answer is simple, the market was ready for them now + they got momentum. If StackOverflow had started in 2001, it probably would had just become a geek hangout place with 10% of the activity which it has now. The only reason why Quora and Stackoverflow have got so much traction and coverage even with no uniqueness is because the market is ready now (or the VCs at least as money do wonders for such concepts, with VC money, you can still start ten cheezburger like network as the market will never get saturated)

so the point of the post is – Recycle Ideas, use Ideas which didn’t took off in 2000 or 2005 because the market may be ready now or you are in a better position to execute the old idea.

PS – BTW, Quora is co-founded by Adam D’Angelo, Facebook’s ex CTO, so raising money must be a cakewalk, which to me turns out to be the differentiator in such concepts.

Sachin Finally got what he Wanted and Deserved

I remember the late 90s when I had lot of passion for cricket, I remember the 2 innings he played in 1998 against Australia in Sharjah and all the innings when he used to be the single standing batsmen, well now that is not the case anymore but still one thing which was missing from the greatest ODI player in the history of the game was the illusive world cup, which he finally won it few hours back.

Watching Sachin play was an amazing part of childhood memories and today it gives me a very satisfying feeling that India won the cup for the little master. Thanks for Playing Cricket, Sachin.

IndiaTimes finally built a social networking (?) site but why ?

I just got a spam mail from some Nikhil Gupta who asked me to join iTimes, Indiatimes social network or something of that sort. The email had no option to unsubscribe and the registration link was just pointing to registration page of itimes which means these are mass spam mails with no tracking what so ever.

I can already see tons of fake profiles on the site and Indiatimes is also taking the usual tested failed method of leveraging on gossip, bolloywood, celeb pics and cricket. iTimes is probably late by 6 years and can’t even compete with orkut which itself is taking its last breaths in India, I am not sure what was the whole logic behind iTimes, Indiatimes probably wanted its own community and wanted to leverage on its existing sources but they are taking the wrong approach with very poor execution.

I really hope they can get rid of this cheap fake profiles, stop spamming, get rid of bolloywood, celebs and cricket and focus on real problems like say Exams, Ration Card etc otherwise the site is destined to fail

Type of Busness Ideas which will work on Indian web space

Normally I write in a flow and don’t reread the post so my apologies in advance if the post lacks continuity or has spelling mistakes.

In this post, I am going to write down what I feels, types of Ideas which are/will work in India. This is a casually written post with no research done and is based on my 7 years “hardcore” net knowledge

In India, we can categories successful web companies into 4 categories and I feels for next few years, all new successful ventures will come only in these 4 categories

1. Aggregators i.e. those sites who are aggregating information
2. Copy ideas from US web space (or from any other country)
3. Get offline to Online
4. Classified content like matrimony, jobs, buy/sale cars, houses etc
5. Solving some real problem (very painful to implement + not much money)

1. It is something which we are all seeing on Indian spaces, specially in travel industry. Aggregation works so well in India because Indian we space is still very immature and content is very fragmented, even the well organized site like nic.in seems to be very fragmented to me, lot of information but scattered, so if you can offer a service which aggregates useful data and information, the company can be huge success. Few ideas are, Government inquiries, PAN Card/passport/ration card, Exam results, Reviews etc

2. People are copying each other from the beginning of Internet, anything which works in USA normally gets copied to UK, Australia, India, South America and other european countries. A business model which is already tested in other country will always be successful in any other part of the world provided it is web based. Here is what I feels, Indians should look into other countries too to copy ideas, specially countries which have similar economy and people, for e.g. Brazil and China can be perfect countries from where Indian entrepreneurs can “take” ideas as the ideas from US normally gets copied very soon. I had explored China market in 2009-10 for brief period though couldn’t find much to implement in India, though I will highly advice people to look into China, Brazil, Korean, Russian and Mexican market for ideas.

3. Coupons, all kind of ticket booking, ecommerce and everything which is happening offline can be bring Online. I strongly feels, “anything which Internet has not touched will be eventually get touched by internet for good” (I read this on cdixon.org’s blog, please please read all his blog posts, its all gold!) so in India, find the pain points, things which people hate to do but are still compelled to do because of lack of online option and implement that.

Personally, I love these kind of ideas most as they are solving some pain which means you never have to spend much on marketing, Indians love to talk and will talk about your service if it is good. Paying online bills is a great idea which I wanted to do but this has alrady been done by ICICI in 2000 though done very poorly.

4. From 2000 onwards, all the classified sections were moved to the web, Matrimony, Vacancy/Jobs, Buy/sale cars/vehicles/houses etc. This was very natural thing and I feels now there is nothing much from classified which can be moved to web, may be very narrow niches like “services” and “Rent”, these are being done by sulekha but still there is a good scope for launching a vertical business, specially on Rent.

5. I love businesses which come in this category, the problem is, there are not too many, due to over complexity and low returns. I wanted (and still do) to solve the problem of waste in India, we all know this is Local municipality’s responsibility but they are too numb towards this, the problem is, I realized that this is a very big thing and I don’t have the resources and will/”balls” to do it. There is not much money in it either so just like every Indian, I too want to see the change but don’t want to do it myself *sigh*. Some great ideas can be giving small loans, education, hospitals, vaccination, houses etc

There is NO silver Bullet for anything

the more I think about it, the stronger my conviction gets that there is NO silver bullet for anything, it is just a marketing word, a gimmick used by few people to sold their service, products and books. There are of course ways to do things smartly and effectively but then smartness and effectiveness need not to be packaged in the name of silver bullet.

Is it too late for working in Coupons/Deals market ?

Couple of friends are working on an idea about Coupons/Deals, the idea is not unique as it has already been implemented by a big site of India but friends are excited about it (and we all know it happens with the best of us)

I don’t understand coupon/deals market that well specially the internals of it like how big the market is and how fast it is growing and how many companies can be profitable but I always felt that the market was crowded back in 2010 and with various mergers, the market has matured up which means there is not much scope for new startups, specially those who are reinventing the wheel.

What they can do is, give a spin to existing ideas and try to make their own niche which is too narrow for big players to enter but big enough for them to grow, though still, I do see lot of problems with this Coupons/Deals business model, the first thing being, it is very easy to replicate so there is no entry barrier, secondly with search engines like bing also showing the deals, it can easily crush small players, specially if you have no exclusivity. Big sites like groupon will of course don’t have to worry even if search engines like Bing start showing coupons in their results as they can get exclusivity from the companies to not put their deals in Bing or can have some kind of tie up with bing as they are big enough to have profit sharing.

I feels its too late for deals/coupon like sites as starting them now is like starting a twitter like site in 2009, but then you never know!

Quality of service going down for Airtel

I am an airtel user for over 3+ years now and always had great service from them, being the largest network in India, they are everywhere and it is easy to make 3 payments (1 mobile + 2 broadband) to same mobile operator. But for the last 6 months, I am seeing serious network congestion problem with ekikrat, call dropping or redirection and now, poor GPRS/EDGE speeds is a real turnoff as no point in having a high end mobile with all features if your mobile network can not deliver minimum required internet speed.

I am exploring 3G options now and may move to vodafone or tata docomo

Remember the old Javed Akhtar Ad of Rotomac Pen ?

I was searching for the full text and finally found it, one of the most deep and meaningful ad ever penned down

Zidagi Hai To Khwab Hain,
Khwab Hai To Manzilain Hain,

Manzilain Hai To Faasle Hain,
Faasle Hai To Raaste Hain,
Raaste Hai To Mushkilain Hain,
Mushkilain Hain To Hausla Hain,

Hausla Hai To Vishwas Hai,

Kyonki Fighter Hamesha Jeet-ta Hai.

Never Give Up

Found it from Internet, these 8 points summarize everything about what makes people successful.

1. Take 100% Responsibility for Your Life – In a society where people blame everything from their parents to the government for failure, those who don’t buy into this mentality or succumb to the “victim” thinking succeed. To blame something or somebody outside yourself is saying they have control of your life and not you. Someone else’s opinion of you doesn’t have to become your reality.

2. Live Your Life On Purpose – What separates motivational thinkers from the unsuccessful is that they believe they’re doing what they were put her to do. The difference between this and just living, is that the latter is just getting through the week with the least problems. But when you live your life on purpose, your main concern is doing the job right. For the entrepreneur this means finding a cause you believe in and building your business around it.

3. Be Willing to Pay the Price – Be willing to pay the price for your dreams. Wanting a big house, a luxury car, and a million dollars in the bank is all very nice, and everyone wants these things – but are you willing to pay the price to get them? This is one of the major differences between the successful and unsuccessful.

4. Stay Focused – Every day we’re bombarded with hundreds of tasks, phone calls, messages, and everyone competing for our time. Focusing requires giving up something in the present because you are investing your time in something that will pay off big-time down the road. Jack Canfield and Mark Hanson were turned by 30 publishers when they submitted the first “Chicken Soup for the Soul” book. Instead of giving up, they stayed focused on their goal and did four or five interviews per day for radio, TV, and newspapers, for five days a week for a whole year. Eventually, a small publisher decided to take a chance, and of course now it’s a best-seller that spawned an entire series that have sold more than 10 million copies.

5. Become An Expert in Your Field One striking factor all successful people have in common is how seriously they take their profession. They strive to be the best at what they do, and do almost anything to improve. If someone followed you around all day with a video camera at your business, would it be a tape you’d be proud of or embarrassed about? Make the decision today to work at being the best in your field. How? By finding out what the “best” in your field are doing, and do what they do.

6. Write Out a Plan for Achieving Your Goals – Write out an action plan/map for how you’re going to achieve your goals. Trying to reach your goals without a plan is like trying to drive from Los Angeles to Chicago without a map. A goal that isn’t written down is merely a wish or fantasy.

7. Never Give Up – Never, never, never give up. When you’re fully committed to achieving your goal, giving up is not an option. You must be willing do whatever it takes to make it happen. The power of perseverance is an awesome force. As someone once said, “inch by inch it’s a cinch”. Think of the lowly inchworm – if it pondered the length of the trip from start to finish before it started, it probably would never move. To a worm’s point-of-view, the garden path must look like a trip to Mars. Never give up! Keep on going like the Eveready battery bunny, and pretty soon you’re there.

8. Don’t Delay – Nobody knows how much time they have left to accomplish their dreams, and we must remember that we don’t have forever. The clock is ticking, and sooner or later your number comes up and you’re gone. Successful achievers know this too, but they don’t view it as a “negative”. Achievers use it to “spur them on”. They go after what they want as energetically and as passionately as possible, for as long as they have.