Tag Archives: best business ideas

Business Ideas

Business Ideas For Budding Entrepreneurs In 2019

Posted on by

Business is something where always there is a risk factor attached to it every now and then. However, the probability of success always acts as a catalyst for any blooming entrepreneur to move ahead in the direction of their innovative idea, their dream that will ultimately define their destination of ultimate success. Sometimes, there are people who possess the zeal, keep the desire to do something different and also have enough funds but are actually confused about what to start as a startup.

Which business will give them their desirable profit? And due to this commotion, these entrepreneurs spend their time and money as well on doing useless things. However, once you get in touch with the team of Evolvers, I’m damn sure of this fact that you won’t even get a chance to waste your time on such things.

Apart from this, startup business ideas mean a lot when it is the one which is going to be your own business startup. Also, it determines the growth and sustainability of your business as you will be investing almost everything, like your time, energy and money too. This is such a generation, where people, where people are following their dreams and are choosing their passion. They are actually seeking for the happiness over making more money. Such budding entrepreneurs are always greedy for those innovative business ideas that can feed their hunger of passion.

I think this article from Evolvers is surely going to be your one of the most favorites as it wholeheartedly offers some impeccable business ideas that can help them by proving numerous options to choose from as one of their business ideas. So, here we go…

1. Social Media Management

Social Media Management

This is considered to be one of the most desirable as well as the best startup idea among others. This is all because, these days, social media is used by numerous organizations to get their deals done in an efficient way. Apart from this fact, social media is the most reliable platform for best startup business ideas. However, there are many cases where companies don’t have enough time to pay attention towards social media management and thus you can now add value to your small business by using social media as a tool for marketing of your business. With the help of social media, you can reach out to your targeted customers in even broader aspects. This is all due to the transition of people from electronic or print to the digital platform, which is social media where they can get every information of their choice. Social networking has become a trend in recent times and is revolutionizing the modes and methods of marketing.

2. Vacation Rental System

Vacation Rental System

In the current scenario, under the hospitality industry, there is one such business which is popularizing with every passing day and it is none other than ‘vacation rental system’. In case you are a resident of any particular tourist destination you can definitely manage rooms for the needy ones on a rental basis who don’t have their own. You can go for many options regarding platforms where you can advertise homes. For instance, you can choose various rental-listing platforms in order to promote more traffic as well as interests of people towards your homes. The better you promote, the better you will grow your business and keep it sustained. On an average, you can expect up to 20 to 40 percent of gross rental rate if you manage such properties an extraordinary way. Henceforth, it can prove out to be one of the best startup ideas for you in 2019.

3. Flipping Websites

Selling Of Websites

Flipping websites are one such business where you can earn endless cash in a short span of time. What all it deals with is just the purchase and sale of the websites on existing platforms. As business is an art, flipping websites completely deal with the research, but once you are done with it, this startup becomes an easy source of making money.

You can also go ahead for the auction of the domains or you can sell whole websites. However, the selling of websites offers more cash to the business starters. You can use various platforms to sell your websites, like, Freemarket.com or Flippa.com.

As it makes more money in a very short time, flipping websites prove out to be the best ever startups from the business point of view.

4. Gadgets Repairing

Gadgets Repairing

In the environment of the tech-savvy world, the use of gadgets has revolutionized at an unimaginable pace with the changing time.  And as these are technical devices, they may fail sometimes to perform your desired task due to any damage or technical issue. All such issues make people more panic and despair for their loss. And in such a situation they need a helping hand of a professional who can solve their problems related to technology.

This has given rise to a new business opportunity for budding entrepreneurs. They can kick-start their business of repairing gadgets as it possesses large scope in today’s market industry of India. If the using gadgets have become a necessity of the people, then there should be someone who can even solve all the issue related to that may encounter in those devices.

What you can do here is that you can place an order for its parts and instruction kits from various manufacturing companies in order to repair any kind of electronic device. And once, when you achieve the mastery in this field, you automatically achieve success and ensure the sustainability of your business.

5. Tourism Guidance

Tourism Guidance

Especially, India is world famous for its culture and heritage and so the monuments and the tourist spots are. In case you are residing at such a place which is a tourist destination and you too love to interact with different people all around every morning, then you can kick-start your business of tourism guidance. As people who are actually unaware of your place, you can let them know and impart the knowledge of any monument including its history till date.

It can prove out to be one of the biggest opportunities for your business if you have the best communication skills. Furthermore, you can advertise your services on various social media platforms and put a minimal commercial cost to your services. Apart from this, you can also go for the live Facebook presentation in order to allure people from all around the world to use your services. It helps in much more engagement of the people thus, makes your business succeed and remain sustained.

6. Online Educational Course

Online Education System

In the era of globalization, people are more drifted towards the knowledge and information and are much more inclined towards technology. These people are absolutely tech-savvy and can go to ultimate depths of research for their greed of knowledge.  And in case you are a good educationist of you keep a desire to impart information to everyone, whether it be school or college students or anyone else, you can start your business of online educational courses’ services. If your modes and methods are loved by your target audiences, then your startup of online educational course can reach up to unimaginable success and it will also remain sustained for a longer duration. What matters the most in this business startup is that you provide quality education which is completely relatable to the target.

7. Online Advertisement Management

Online Advertisement Management

Since the moment, the transition has taken its place from paperwork to online media, people are seeking online platform as more than actually what it is. In the case of advertisements too, it has shifted from the electronic media to the web where you can get a chance of promoting services of numerous clients.

In the case of pay-per-click advertising, Facebook, Google, and YouTube advertisement have become dominant faces. In case you achieve the mastery in this online advertisement management, then you can grow your business in no time and in a much effective manner. Once you get an exact idea of how to track your offers of conversion, then you will be able to determine the enhancement of your startup in leaps and bounds. Henceforth, you need to give enough time to learn in a much better way about the whole functioning of the advertisements on Facebook and Google.

For furnishing your skills in this field, you can take classes or courses on the topics and discover the best modes and methods of reaching out to your targeted audiences at right time. Once you achieve your goal, there will be no delay and you can quickly bring about the saturation in the market industry of online advertisement industry. As a matter of fact, ad management on online platforms has proved itself to be the best startup business ideas.

8. Web Development And SEO

Web Development And SEO

The arrival of technologies has opened the doors to employment in a much wider sense. And seeking the current scenario, it can be clearly stated that in the near future of 2019, the web development and SEO services are going to take the internet by storm. The world of web development and SEO is often considered as a complicated part of the business and not only this; people also misunderstand this field and scare of it as there are many variables that are at stake. However, it is not surprising as it consists of more than 200 algorithmic classifications of factors and this makes them hesitated before entering in this industry and do it on their own.

However, once you reach the expertise in this field, you can make splendid money. Apart from this, you can also sell your services as an SEO or web developer or else, you can build your own websites along with appropriate links to have an immense amount of cash flow through online media. Henceforth, these are considered to be one of the topmost startup business ideas that can be a good source of income.

Now, these were some of the best ever selected business ideas for all the budding entrepreneurs. However, there is always a risk attached to every single business and it is none other than the risk of failure of business startups. Now, to avoid or minimize the chances of failure of a business, what can be done? Don’t panic, as there are a few rules and regulations that you will need to do that. In this article, the team of experts at Evolvers

has mentioned a few of the rules that can help them take them out of the vortex of all the chances of business failures.

So, here we go ahead with the rules of the business startup that you need to follow that can reduce your chances of failures.

1. Be Passionate

Be Passionate

In case, you are doing a particular business just to make money, then hang on and take a pause. Money can be a catalyzing factor of your business but it won’t get you to overcome the losses easily if you are unable to produce desirable results. For avoiding such a situation, you need to be passionate about your idea and a consistent worker towards your goal. As business requires a never-ending task for an entrepreneur, if you are not passionate about it, you won’t be able to make it what you want to. Apart from this, your business would probably sustain in the market industry. Make sure that you are enough to make others in your team passionate about your goal. So, ask yourself what will you be able to go along with your business even after 10 years and if yes, then you can surely go ahead over your ideas to achieve your success.

2. Take Things Simple

Take Things Simple

Always remember that bigger ideas are always raised and not born. It not about Brian Acton and Jan Koum who woke up one morning and planned to create WhatsApp and make it popularized in such a way that it is today.  Basically, every great business ideas are initiated with some simple idea that is further grown and expanded to horizons. You can begin your business with just solving one problem that relates to one product and then expand your feet toward one customer and then reach out to many customers.

3. One Revenue System

You just need to focus on start your business for a single revenue system. In case, if you are unable to identify one revenue system, that can support our business then, you’ll be in the loss in the nearby future. And adding more to it, it will prove out to be one of the bad business ideas.

4. Few Steps To Revenue

How many things are required before you start making money? Do an exercise in your mind and make it clear in your head of all the steps that are mandatory. You can also consider the number of stakeholders that might be involved in your business which is equally complex. You need not more than three steps for making money in a deal.

5. Know Your Customers

Generally, budding entrepreneurs make one of the huge mistakes that they fail to recognize their actual target customers. You need to be very careful regarding that. From the very beginning, you need to be very specific to your targeted customers who are desperately in need of your products and services. And for that, you should be clear from your mind that what you are actually. What your product contribution is and what are your plans to move ahead in your future, you have to make a complete calculation related to your business.

6. Analyze The Market

Analyze The Market

Understand the market where you want to enter along with your product. You need to keep a meaningful vision towards your goal. Apart from this, you need to analyze the future of your business in advance. This will help you maintain the sustainability of your product in the market for years. Get an expert consultancy to your plans from Evolvers as the team of experts will help you make it big even if your idea is small.

7. Sufficiently Large Market

Make sure that your business makes its big in a small market area. And once you make it big in it, you can go further ahead to address more than 10 million customers where your product will get a sufficiently large market. Henceforth, it is suggested to not to go in the graveyard at the very beginning of your business startup.

So, these were, some of the special tips provided by the team of Evolvers which are helpful enough for all the small and budding entrepreneurs who keep big dreams in their eyes and desire to make it even bigger in the market industry. However, in case you want to get further specialized information regarding your startup, then you can reach out to the team of Evolvers at anytime and anywhere.

challenges faced by fintech startups

Challenges Faced by Fintech Startups in India

Posted on by

Fintech is a well blend of Finance and Technology. All over the world, many fintech start-ups are evolving. It’s a big industry with a good scope of growth and profit, but it is tough to survive in this fast-growing sector. There are various challenges that a fintech industry faces and some of them are described below.

Challenges Faced by Fintech Startups in India

• Regularity bodies

Red-tapism and the immense number of laws slow down the market, but strict regulations are inevitable when it comes to a financial or technological company. A Fintech faces a lot of challenge in coping with all these regulations that it has to comply with.

Networking sites like Evolvers and Linkedin have a pool of subject matter experts, having strong knowledge backed with experience in several fields. As a new leadership, you can take their guidance and learn from their experiences to overcome roadblocks. You need not have to search for your solutions from various consultants.

• Cybersecurity

fintech start-ups

Fintech companies handle exceedingly sensitive information of the customers, and thus as the emerging leadership, you must be well prepared to fortify your organization against any challenge posed by the internet. The more the financial data of individuals and companies become available digitally, the higher is the risk of cyber security breaches.

• Accumulating capital

HEALTH TECH STARTUP

Fintech companies require huge capital, not only to pay off the salaries of the employees but also need funds for a secure infrastructure.

The first step of fund accumulation starts with a good sales pitch, and at times in spite of possessing excellent leadership skills, some falter here.

· Complex Industry

HEALTH TECH STARTUP

The complex working model of Fintech makes it a challenging task for them to maintain a healthy and smooth partnership with banks. Many fintech companies fear the loss of identity and autonomy amongst the vast landscape of large banking organizations.

On the other hand, banks find it risky to work with fintech innovators as they fear of losing reputation. These complex situations become the obstacles to the growth of fintech organizations.

· Lack of Consumer Trust

HEALTH TECH STARTUP

Providing financial services in the unbanked market is a challenge in itself due to the lack of trust of consumers, especially in India. People still relate these services with digital scams and are also not yet ready to accept the involvement of digital technology in financial services.

 • Finding clients is a tough challenge

HEALTH TECH STARTUP

A business cannot run without customers and clients. Getting a client requires the support of a good platform. However, professional networking sites with a global reach, can provide the new leadership with the much-deserved podium and help you to take your business to newer heights.

With the advent of technology, the challenges faced by fintech start-ups has increased, but if the same technology can be utilized properly, it is a true blessing for any leadership.

Technology can be used to reach out to more people, and we all know, networking has a vital role in every endeavour. Evolvers networking site can rescue you by providing this networking platform that you might lack and help you to reach beyond your known limits to accomplish targets that might otherwise seem impossible.

Booming Startups in Fintech Industry

Today, everywhere and in every field like health tech, Logitech, Edtech, Traveltech, Enterprise, and Fintech, people use latest technologies and work by implementing the technologies in their business to get the best results. In India, still, there is a need for more technological strategies in the banking sector. Over 19% of the population still remains unbanked.  Here Fintech startups come in.

Since 2015, the finance sector has undergone many changes like a change to move towards a cashless economy. The government is proactively using technologies to make India cashless – the launch of India stacking including UPI, digital wallets, e-KYC, Aadhaar, and BHIM are the Indian financial sector.

Demonetization is another factor that played an important role in the rise of the Fintech industry. According to the report of NASSCOM and KPMG, India has currently more than 500 startups in the Fintech industry, whose vision is to attain financial inclusion. In the ecosystem of startups, there are some wallets like FreeCharge, MobiKwik, and Paytym.

According to the co-founder and CEO of Microsoft-

“Digital technology provides a low-cost way for people in developing countries to send money to each other, buy and sell goods, borrow and save as long as the financial-regulation environment is supportive.” – Bill Gates, co-founder and former CEO of Microsoft.

So, digital technologies play an important role to change the traditional business model in the digital business model.

Startups are working in various sub-sectors of Fintech such as mobile POS (mobile-based point of sale), in loans and insurances, and alternative leading among others.

Increased access to the internet, have helped efficient and automated financial services solutions. Well, it seems that the Fintech industry is a fast-growing industry and there are so many leading startups that are working very well and provides many financial solutions to the industry. Let us look towards some really innovative ones.

Fintech Startups in India

Faircent

Startup Mentors

Faircent is a lending startup that connects lenders with borrowers. It is a P2P model which means person to person. The startup was launched in 2014 and offers a variety of advanced tools such as Auto Invest. This is a type of tool with a great feature that matches criteria of lender’s investment with the requirements of borrower’s and automatically sends proposals to the borrower based on the amount, risk profile, and loan tenure.

The initial aim of this startup is to help people avail easy and fast personal loans at an affordable cost. This is one of the top startups that was also selected for the first batch of NASSCOM and was also a part of the BizSpark program and Microsoft Accelerator Winter Cohort.

With the help of latest technologies this emerging player from Fintech industry is working on to reach the larger group of professionals in this sector and looking for the businesses so they can tie up and can borrow online.

Simpl

Startup Mentors

This is an online payment instrument and was launched in 2015. The customers can purchase and settle their payments online. This is one of the fastest data-driven platforms that help to reduce the payment flow, improves client’s product experience, and gives a payment model to the user’s that is faster and more convenient than cards and wallets.

With the help of this, the customer can choose to pay one bill instead of making the payments individually. There are many merchants that currently work with Simpl including Nykaa, DocsApp, FreshMenu, BookMyShow, Faasos, Licious, Drivezy, Dunzo and others.  The spending limit for customers is between $11.7 (INR 750) and $78 (INR 5,000). The startup also has a partnership with a number of NBFCs and banks to make a robust product portfolio.

Kissht

small business ideas

The startup was launched in 2015 and is a Mumbai-based startup that allows users to make purchases both offline and online. They provide instant credit and through this app users can buy items like jewelry, electronics, mobiles, laptops by opting EMIs even without a credit card.

This is the platform where you can see in-app merchants or choose whatever the customer wants to buy from the Kissht store. Users can also upload the documents and make the payment easily online. You can also see the limit of your credit and amount of upcoming EMIs. This is one of the top startups who also provide cash loans for construction of your loans, renovation of your homes, holidays, purchase of consumer durables, for traveling, short-term loan for equipment purchase and for other purposes.

The company has a fixed rate of interest on the monthly basis. Users can also pay their return amount in installments and can avail flexible return tenures of up to 60 months.

FTCash

Find Right Partner

The FTCash startup is founded in June 2015 and provides many excellent solutions for micro-merchants to accept the payments through many payment mediums like credit cards, debit cards, and mobile wallets.

In 2016, the FTCash startup was selected as one of the 12 finalists of IBM Smartcamp for Fintech Challenges and also was one of the six winners of iSPIRT-organised Great Tech Rocket ships Initiative 2016 (GTRS) and UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) India.

The startup also provides short-term loans to the merchants and empowers SME’s and Merchants by offering easy access to credit usually range from $1000 to $20,000, with interest rates somewhere between 18 and 30%.

EarlySalary

Encourage Startups

This is a Pune-based startup and first mobile lending platform which is founded in 2015 by Ashish Goyal and AkshayMehrotra. It provides smart risk scoring system instant cash loans, and salary advances. The startup has their operations in various cities including Hyderabad, New Delhi, Jaipur, Pune, Chennai, Bengaluru, and Mumbai, among others. This is the startup that provides advance salary up to 50% of monthly salary to its users and 70% of the loans are given in 10 minutes. The startup has also made the partnership with SMEs and with other corporate for advance salary purposes.

The average size of the loan that the company provides is between $125-$1,500 (INR 8,000 to INR 1 Lakh) for a period of up to 30 days. The app has many subscribers for both Android and IOS mobile app platforms.

Today, with the help of experienced, professional team, and funding from investors like IDG Ventures India, IFMR Capital, the Fintech startup wants to expand the entire business and work across tier II and tier III cities in the country.

Rubique

Fintech Industry

Rubique is one of the leading Fintech startups that launched in 2014. The startup is an online marketplace for all type of financial products that offers loan products and end-to-end loan fulfillments to MSMEs and to individuals.

With the help of new online business marketing strategies and unique algorithm, this online platform facilitates up to 235+ products such as home loans, car loans, credit cards, business loans, loans against property, personal loans, healthcare loans, education loans, construction equipment financing, among others.

The startup is trying to fill the gap between lenders and borrowers with the help of various financing options and it has two verticals. First, the startup provides curated, well-aggregated, and digitized collection of products to the users. Second, the user can apply online after comparing and selecting the products.

The startup has also a credit score- Rubique’s Magic Store- that can be developed with the bank’s lending system.  This is the startup in Fintech industry who has clocked revenue of over $2.6 Mn (INR 17.5 Cr) in just three years.

MoneyTap

Best Sponsors

MoneyTap is a Bengaluru-based consumer lending startup and India’s first app-based credit line. It also provides flexible loans for personal use. By targeting the country’s fast-growing middle-income group, the team of MoneyTap solves the problems of insufficient consumer credit line and of the people who need money for rent, weddings, paying school fees, shopping, sending money to family and so on.

This is the only platform where users can borrow anywhere between $50-$7,500 (INR 3,000 to INR 5 Lakh) and offers the repayment time of two months up to three years.  The app has more than 300k registered users across 14 cities in India. Recently, the startup is working with seven NBFC/Banking partners including RBL Bank at different stages of integration.

MoneyTap app charged over a 1.5% interest rate. In recent times, the consumer has become more demanding with the demanding consumer internet companies. So, this is one of the booming Fintech startups.

Innoviti

Programmes

This startup is started by IIT Bombay alumnus Rajeev Aggarwal, as the manufacturers of wireless hardware systems manufacturers in 2002. The advanced solutions of this startup help businesses to reduce the cost of processing digital payments. It supplies hassle-free working strategies that help in the growth of other small businesses.

The payment platform of Innoviti includes Indigo, Walmart, Titan, Reliance, Reliance Retail, and several others.  Banks like ICICI, Axis, and HDFC also uses this platform to access customers for loan distribution.

The company’s aim is to focus on building and implementing new technologies that give reliability, speed, and flexibility.

So, these all are the booming startups of Fintech Industry and achieved their goal by a lot of hard work and dedication.

Now, in the next article, we will take a look at the booming startups of the Education industry.

Bharat Matrimony

BHARAT MATRIMONY MARKETING STRATEGY

Posted on by

Everybody wishes to know the journey of a successful startup. What opportunities it saw, what challenges it faced, what solutions it implemented, how the market reacted and how its journey is continuing. Bharat Matrimony is that kind of a startup. 

It is one of the first ones to ride on the internet boom; it has come through lots of ups & downs and still going strong. Let us be part of the journey.

Do you have any idea that how Bharat Matrimony managed to take its name in the Limca Book of world records for documenting the most number of marriages online? 

Well, we will explain the marketing strategy breakdown of how Bharat Matrimony became an IPO from an Idea.

Bharat Matrimony Marketing Strategy

 
The company’s development story is interesting, persuasive and a decent case of brand advancement that accomplished item/showcase fit on an amazing number of levels with a group of 4000 representatives, and a piece of the overall industry of 60%.

 With 3 million clients and 140 branches in India till date, they have figured out how to always re-examine the brand with mind-blowing premonition.

Let’s take a look at the facts; Bharat Matrimony is a Flagship brand with Matrimony.com as a Parent Company. Bharat Matrimony is an online matchmaking and marriage website which runs under Murugavel Janakiraman, CEO.

HOW IT ALL DID START?

business ideas

Murugavel Janakiraman or Muruga hails from a small town of Royapuram, Chennai, where he struggled from day to day life challenges which came in the way.

One of the challenges was to share 1 bathroom with 14 other people; he did not have electricity at home until the age of 23. His only dream was to get a degree and get a house with electricity and an attached bathroom so that his family wouldn’t have to share the common bathroom.

He got a degree in MCA in 1994 and took up a job in Polaris Chennai as a Tech Consultant. At his job, he had to travel to Singapore and the US for the projects where he unveiled the internet skills with big names like Yahoo, Sify and Rediff who were building their business around the internet and all the other aspects through online at that time.

During his stay in the US for two years, Muruga really missed home and his friends; he missed hanging out with them and also the binge-watching of Tamil movies.

He felt like he was losing the connection with the Tamilian Community and he wanted to connect with his roots really soon.

He started searching for a few websites which published content for Tamilians; content which was on politics, entertainment and movies, but he was not satisfied with the search as he was not getting any way for interactions.

He wanted to do something which no one was doing. There was no type of connectivity for a type of community which was living overseas and no one has thought about that.

A repeating design that was seen was that best business people likewise happen to be the initial ones in the space, otherwise known as first movers. It is all about the early bird catching the worm.

HOW DID THEY LAUNCH THE IDEA?

The transindia.com was launched in 1997 by Muruga which is called Thamizhar Pakkam (translates to For the Tamil community), this was made with the intention to connect with the Tamil community. The platform had services and engaging channels which were content driven.

These included –

  • Tamil Matrimonial: Look for prospective brides or grooms
  • Make Friends: Connect with others Tamilians across the world
  • Tamil daily calendar: Calendar marked with auspicious dates
  • Reminder: Indian festival reminder
  • Travel: Book flight tickets through travel agencies
  • Religion and charities: Find religious and charitable groups in Tamil Nadu
  • Radio: List of radio stations that you could tune into and listen to your favorite songs

The engaging content was planned as following –

  • News and Magazines: Tamil political news
  • Movies and Cine Stars: Tamil Cine News, Photos & Interviews (Updated Weekly)
  • Literature and people: Famous people in the field of literature
  • Institutes: A database of educational institutions

SO HOW DID THEY GET THEIR FIRST CUSTOMERS?

small business ideas

In 1997, there was limited social media advertising and Muruga was on a tight financial budget. So, he used his creative instinct and he used the following methods to attract the audience to his business.

PAMPHLETS AND FLYERS

Stores in the US

Most of the Indians went to the local grocery stores in the neighborhood area. Muruga printed 500 pamphlets and distributed them among all the nearby Indian stores in the US.

Friends in Chennai

Back in Chennai, he asked a few of his close friends to distribute those pamphlets in the stores in nearby localities by taking out a print out.

Online marketing discussion forums

With no social channels in the targeted area, Muruga targeted discussion groups like Google and Yahoo. He joined their conversation and started mentioning transindia.com to them.

Promotions

When one created a new website it was difficult to promote back at that time. So, Muruga found some websites which were ready to promote him in return of a small favor for the employees.

Like if someone would create a profile on the website then they will get a 10% discount on the next travel tickets.

SEO

Likewise, with the approach of Google and Yahoo web search tools, Muruga began utilizing ideas of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). His essential spotlight was positioning on the principal page of Google, Yahoo, and other web search tools.

Thought to Demand Validation

With all the hard work Muruga did, the golden results followed:

  • Almost 3000 people created their Matrimonial profile
  • The audience made him a pioneer in the social network when 2000 people made a profile on “make friends” profile.
  • The Greeting Card service was also being used frequently.

Muruga saw that people were more inclined towards the matrimonial services and the other services are being used comparatively less.

He received an email from a user which stated that he found a Tamil bride through their website and this was a big achievement for him. This showed that people were more interest in the matrimony stuff.

Muruga launched Tamil Matrimony and Telegu Matrimony which later evolved to BharatMatrimony.

How did they develop their business?

The year of 2000 saw a wave of global panic and a global recession as the dot-com had gone down in the US as most of the companies which were receiving a capital investment from different joint ventures, were shutting down. Because of this, Muruga had to quit his job.

One step at a time

Initially, Muruga was investing $1000 but when he did not have a regular income from his job then he had to think of another way to invest in his website.

So, he had to create a new method where he could generate some revenue. He settled down on the paid version of the website with some terms and conditions. Of course, the paid version was also there.

The Free VersionThe Paid Version (Rs 200 or $4.5 annually approx)

Create a new profile

Add initial information

Talk to other people

All features of the free version

Profile Boosting

Uploading of multiple photos

Horoscope information

Users were allowed to place Newspaper Ads

What were the results?

The results were astonishingly good, Muruga figured out how to make back the initial investment with income got from paid clients.

During this time, Muruga did not want to stall and he wanted to make more money. More features were added on the website.

  • Free users were allowed to add images
  • They were allowed to bookmark their shortlisted profiles
  • They were able to save searches and scan photos

If you wanted to contact a certain profile then you will have to become a paid member.

New pricing scheme was also introduced

  • $15 for 3 months: Bride/Groom living outside India
  • $25 for 6 months: Bride/Groom living outside India
  • $15 for 6 months: Bride/Groom living in India

Online Marketing

During the economical dot-com bubble burst, Bharat Matrimony was standing firmly against the technological times and was progressing slowly and steadily, whereas other companies were closing down.

Remember the famous dialogue from Band Baaja Baarat, “recession ho ya inflation, shaadi to honi hi hai na aur log lakho kharchte rahenge.” So you can relate.

Only two companies stood against the dot-com bubble burst time; one was the education company and the other one was the Matrimony Company.

Partnership with the other companies

For Muruga, it was a golden opportunity as all the other technology companies were providing Matrimony as an additional division, were closing this part from their website to focus more on the core business.

So grabbing this opportunity, Muruga took advantage of the crisis and he reached out to the companies.

Muruga moved toward Rediff (A news data site) and indicated enthusiasm for getting to be one of their channel accomplices for the matrimonial services that were offered on Rediff. They paid Rediff Rs 1 lakh (~$2200) for this organization.

The results were bright as Rediff was making increased money as the workforce was less and BharatMatrimony was able to direct a tremendous amount of traffic on their website when all the Matrimony profiles were redirecting from Rediff to BharatMatrimony.

What was the next step?

Murugavel chose to approach organizations like Sify, MSN, and Emerson to set up comparable associations.

SEO

Numerous sites were associated

Muruga’s objective was focused on making a matrimonial space for various communities. Apart from the matrimonial site, he included areas with services like:

  • Real Estate (Buy and offer property on the web)
  • Astrology (Get week by week and month to month horoscopes)
  • New tabs consisting a broad gathering of South Indian music, books, and recipes.

But his main focus remained on the Matrimonial part.

He changed the overall look and view format of the site alongside the domain name and called it sysindia.com. He, at that point, ensured that audience would definitely explore the single destinations (telegumatrimony.com or tamilmatrimony.com) to the parent site (sysindia.com).

As time passed by more profiles and successful matrimonial bonds were being made through the site. With most of the information was on his side and a solid gut egging him to go up against more he chose to grow.

He chose to enroll other space names like bengalimatrimony.com, punjabimatrimony.com, gujaratimatrimony.com despite the fact that there was no indication of these communities becoming on the web at the time as he felt if there was an interest for Tamil and Telugu matrimony then there would be a comparative interest for different communities crosswise over India.

His fantastic vision was to have these communities under one brand name. Matrimony.com: A stage for all Indians.

He failed to get ‘matrimony.com’ and ‘indiamatrimony.com’ as a domain name but he was not disappointed by that. He took the next available domain name which has become the most popular Matrimonial website; ‘bharatmatrimony.com’.

From an SEO point of view, it is invaluable to have one parent area – matrimony.com with committed pages for every community that comes under the parent site.

For e.g.: www.bharatmatrimony.com/tamilmatrimony gave greater expert to the site and furthermore demonstrated ideal in the internet searcher rankings.

To be continued….

The story of Muruga doesn’t end here; in fact, there is a big roller coaster ride here and there and a lot more to look forward. In the next part, we will read about why Happy Marriage was created.

The concept of speed dating and family meeting were also introduced but the main question was, whether the ideas were correctly implemented or not and also the retail outlets were launched.

There was an idea behind this initiative and there were many challenges which Muruga faced while creating Happy Marriage. After facing many challenges Muruga had results in his hands but how were the results? were they good or not so good, we will read this in the next part.

References taken from

https://www.bharatmatrimony.com/aboutus.php

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BharatMatrimony

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/entrepreneurship/i-am-married-to-and-through-bharat-matrimony-murugavel-janakiraman/articleshow/60525006.cms

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murugavel_Janakiraman

https://growthspartan.com/bharat-matrimony-marketing-breakdown/?utm_campaign=Submission&utm_medium=Community&utm_source=GrowthHackers.com

new business ideas

INSPIRING YOUNG ENTREPRENEURS WHO MADE IT BIG

Posted on by

We all know that India is a developing country and people are really working hard to change the status of developing country to “developed”. India has very bright minds which are either shining or are ready to shine. All they need is a platform to turn the switch ON of the bulb.

In India, you can find many SMEs and Startups which are either stuck somewhere or are huddled in a corner with no idea on how to move forward but the following young entrepreneurs have crossed all the hurdles and obstacles which have arrived gracefully in their way.

Let’s know how they are different from the rest.

FALGUNI NAYYAR (Nykaa.com)

 entrepreneurThe Ex Managing Director of Kotak Mahindra was into financial services for almost 25 years. After quitting her job, she took the entrepreneurial plunge and started a wellness and beauty company by the name of Nykaa.com. The IIM Ahmadabad graduate launched her website in 2012 and is constantly building up by addition of more on more luxury products.

Nykaa is all set to reach a turnover of Rs.250Cr. She has been a stockbroker & an investment banker. Understanding business plans & financial projections were things that came easily to her. She took part in a lot of IPOs as an Investment banker. Seeing value creation all around, it was but natural she yearned for starting something on her own. Nykaa did a lot of things differently in the e-commerce industry. It is among one of the few e-commerce companies which are inventory led. As a business head, she knew first things come first – a team was very important. As first employees, she had the COO, the CTO, & Chief Content Officer hired. She also understood that more than the discounts, the customer is looking for a full range of products. Also, everything sold on Nykaa is sourced directly from the brand.

Nykaa also launched their private label which now contributes to about 10% of the sales at Nykaa. Nykaa is very close to breakeven. They might come up with an IPO very soon that will provide exit as well as consolidation to investors who have invested close to Rs.180 Cr in the company, namely, TVS Capital, Harsh Mariwala, Max India, and Munjal Family Office. Nykaa is in talks to raise another round of Rs.75Cr at an expected valuation of Rs.3000 Cr.

We wish Falguni Nayyar all the best

ADITI GUPTA (Menstrupedia.com)

business ideas

Periods are still considered a taboo in most of the parts in India, generally the rural parts. The girls who are on their periods are not allowed to enter the kitchen, temple and are not even allowed to touch any family member. Aditi Gupta first got her periods when she was 12. She still remembers and still pities that 12-year-old self, who was treated by her mother as someone who has done something wrong, something impure. Though educated she grew up in a traditional home where talking about such things was a taboo and the entire discussion about menstruation was shielded from the male members. Even in school, she recalls, that the entire chapter on this basic biology of all women was skipped by the male teacher.

She kept on using cloth as buying a pad was too much for a dignified family. Finally, at the age of 15, she mustered the courage to go to the market & buy the pad herself. During her post-graduation, she met Tuhin who she later married. Tuhin had a boy sibling so he never knew about menstruation apart from what he studied in the school textbooks. However, seeing Aditi go through the cycle every month, he wanted to help her more by educating her more. He researched and told so many things about menstruation to Aditi that even she didn’t know.

This made Aditi realize that if an educated woman like herself wasn’t aware of something that affects her so routinely, there would be millions who would be facing even more difficulty. She took a yearlong project in menstrual awareness. This became the founding stone for menstrupedia.

Mentrupedia.com, the brainchild of Aditi Gupta brings awareness about menstruation in a very simple & easy way, so much so that they advise that even a 9-year-old girl can read their comics. The comic book shows that how the members can embrace the periods and they have a guide to hygiene and health of girls and how they can be active and normal during their periods.

The site has more than 1 lac visitors per month. The comic book has been such a hit that it has been shipped across to South Africa as well and it is planned to be launched in at least 8-10 Indian languages & 3 foreign languages.

Aditi is one crusader who has picked up a cause that affects 50% of the total population. We strongly recommend being a part of her awareness program & supporting the initiative.

SWATI BHARGAVA (cashkaro.com)

 small business ideasAnother investment banker, this time from Ambala, worked with Goldman Sachs for about 3 years after having studied in London School of Economics. The cupid had already struck. Swati married Rohan, her batch-mate from LSE in 2009. Both together started PouringPound in 2011. The great success that the cash back industry was having in many countries led Rohan and Swati to start up PouringPound. In the UK, the affiliate marketing segment that time was 3-4% of the whole e-commerce market.

Very soon in 2013, she, along with her husband & business partner, Rohan, launched the site cashkaro.com. They are working with over 500-600 brands that include Amazon, Snapdeal, Jabong etc. What sets cashkaro.com apart is that unlike other coupon sites, they have Price Comparison, Product Search & cashback in addition to regular coupons & offers.

With the Indian e-commerce industry slated to grow at more than $100bn in the next decade, the stage looks set for the players who already have the experience & maturity in this nascent industry. Of course, disrupters would be there but the existing companies are also changing the rules of the game with each passing day.

Walmart Flipkart Deal

Walmart Flipkart Deal | THE GOOD, THE BAD, & THE UGLY

Posted on by

The Good

Walmart Flipkart Deal

Walmart Flipkart Deal

Going once, going twice, going thrice, SOLD! It is official. Wal-Mart will be acquiring a controlling stake of 77% in FLIPKART for a whopping $16 billion. That values FLIPKART at roughly $21 billion. This is the world’ largest e-commerce deal till date. Off late, poor exits & poor returns have marred the India startup story. This deal is being touted as coming of age for the Indian e-commerce.

The crorepati employees

Walmart Flipkart Deal

Besides one billionaire co-founder who walks away with about a billion dollar, several multi-millionaires would be born out of this deal. Over 100 Flipkart employees might become dollar millionaire after this deal.

The Wal-Mart deal has helped worker investment opportunity designs (ESOPs) of Flipkart to an aggregate of $2 billion or Rs 13,455 crores. This is, in any case, not the first run through Flipkart’s workers are profiting because of the liquidity of investment opportunities.

If we look at esops of all the employees then they are worth over Rs.5000 cr. This is not the first time that the Flipkart’s employees have benefitted by liquefying the stocks. Back in December, Flipkart bought back equity from its employees and had spent a total of $100 million.

This is also termed as the largest buyback of ESOPs by any private company in the country. An approximate of 3000 employees of different brands which are owned by Flipkart have benefitted from the offer.

The Indian ecommerce market

Walmart Flipkart Deal

FLIPKART claims to have sold $7.5 bn worth of Gross Merchandise Value annually. This is over 54mn customers, & 261mn products. That’s roughly 2.2 crore products handled monthly.

As per the Investors presentation shared by Walmart for the deal, they are estimating the retail ecommerce industry to grow by 36%, 4 times vis-à-vis Indian retail industry by 2023.

This will mean that the retail e-commerce will have a share of >6% in the Indian retail market. Indian retail market is expected to be $200 billion market by the year 2026. These are some huge numbers.

What it means for startups

 

Walmart Flipkart Deal

Flipkart’s founders, Sachin&Binny Bansal have already invested in startups. Electric-scooter maker Ather, artificial intelligence-driven health tech firm Sigtuple and biotech startup Pandorum are such examples.

The best part is that these ventures are unrelated to the venture they made money in. 80% of the ecommerce market is controlled by Amazon & Walmart-Flipkart combined. If someone to say he is launching ecommerce startup, people would laugh at him.

The message is clear – funds have started to flow in startups that are not cab-aggregation, fashion & hospitality. This deal will help Sachin, Binny& hundreds of ESOP holders who will have lots of money at their disposal to invest boldly into business ideas.

We can see super specialization building up. Education & Healthcare would also gain.

Already 200 startups are founded by former Flipkart employees. Over 50 ventures are backed by people who have been associated with Flipkart. This number is going to shoot up big time.

What are the investors doing

investors

Several funds including Sequoia, Accel Partners, Matrix Partners, Nexus Venture, Inventus Capital, &Saama Capital have raised fresh money to back Indian startups.

More than a dozen new India based & focused VCs have setup shop in the past 2 years including Stellaris, IAN fund etc. They had interest in India. Now with this kind of an exit, they would be thinking that they have come here in good time.

The Bad

The ex-employees

About 300 former employees of Flipkart, who held fully vested ESOPs, received an email recently that really shook their core.

The rumours were many, but the email with the subject line: “Liquidity opportunity of vested stock options for ex Flipkart employees” told them this was for real.

The email stated that only 30 percent of their stock options would vest with the company’s 77 percent stake sale to Walmart. There was no reference to the fate of the remaining 70 percent ESOPs.

So would it mean, the remaining 70% were to be liquidated at the time of, say an IPO? This would find hardly any takers. Of course this is unfair to ex-employees.

According to sources, current employees of Flipkart will be able to vest up to 50 percent of their stock options now, 25 percent next year, and the remainder the year after. But the ex-employees have not been treated with the same fur glove.

The stock options are an acknowledgement of exemplary work done & value brought in by the employees. Even if the employees move on, the vested stock options are for them to make use of.

When Flipkart completed a buyback last October, ex-employees could liquidate only 10 percent of their holdings; current employees could liquidate up to 25 percent. The net worth of the shares of ex-employees is currently estimated at $300 million, that is nearly a third of the total ESOPs.

The sale of Flipkart, in the world’s biggest e-commerce acquisition, is a reason to celebrate, a reason to be optimistic about the future of Indian startups. But did the management take a long-term view? Did someone standup for the rights of the ex-employees who contributed to the company?

Is the new management ready to live the culture they will propagate? Current and potential employees will closely observe Walmart’s approach to ESOPs.

ESOPs have real value; they have created real dollar-millionaires. In India however, startup ESOPs often don’t turn out to be the reward they are made out to be? Is this the wake-up call for Indian employees to better read the fine print &realise that ESOPs are high risk? The startups still need takent. Right? How then – is a point to ponder.

Make in India Drive

Walmart Flipkart Deal

What this deal has done is clearly dented the make in India drive. Ideally, local market opportunities should have been lapped up by domestic startups. But with the Indian government moving this slow always, foreign companies will now dominate.

This is excerpt by VivekWadhwa, a distinguished fellow at Harvard Law School’s Labor and Worklife Program. He further adds that the Walmart deal will intensify competition.

The elephants will battle each and this will, in the short term, benefit Indian consumers. However, Indian startups will be trampled in the melee.

Reading between the lines

The US market gave a thumbs down to this deal wherein Walmart shares lost $10 billion market cap in a single day after this announcement was made.

In the investors presentation too, Walmart had indicated an EPS loss of $0.60 but seems that the market estimated it even higher.

Walmart has paid a very hefty premium for gaining what – a 1% stake in the Indian retail market. Many stakeholders seemed confused.

Other Stakeholders

Walmart Flipkart Deal

The way SoftBank has entered India with its $10bn war chest, the smaller investors have already started to worry about their investments. Any backing by SoftBank clearly makes a player a behemoth & ring fences the sector in his favour.

SoftBank hasn’t decided on its 22.6% stake in Flipkart, in very major part, also driven by the fact that the short term capital gains tax would be too huge as they just had picked up the stake.

The sellers are not happy. Walmart is known for taking control of the entire supply chain end to end, and then push the costs down by squeezing out the margins.

The sellers clearly feel cheated as they were never taken into confidence for the deal and they believe that their concerns have not been addressed with this deal.

In an interesting development, eBay, a US ecommerce biggie has announced its plans to re-enter India.

The Ugly

Dominating Entrepreneurship

Walmart Flipkart Deal

Some experts say that this deal will mark a move by foreign companies to dominate entrepreneurship & innovation here.

It is quite possible that entrepreneurs may struggle to break into sectors ring-fenced by behemoths. Like we mentioned above that people would laugh on someone trying to enter ecommerce or I would say, even cab aggregation services. Just too much of foreign money ring fencing the sectors.

Timely bailout?

In 2007, Subhiksha Retail was on sale. Reliance group made an offer to them which they did not accept. Reliance never made a counter offer and we all know what happened to Subhiksha.

The way things were going, it was a lucky exit for the investors. In about 2-3 years, Amazon would have totally dominated the space. The competition pressure is written all over Flipkart. Flipkart has lost about 50% of the total $6 billion plus raised since inception till now.

Some critics also believe that Walmart could have spent $4bn in 3-4 years to come next to Amazon in India instead of spending $16bn on the deal. So are we saying that even after all this noise, the enterprise never added value. It would have died a natural death had it not been bailed out?

The largest Foreign Direct Investment?

Walmart Flipkart Deal

It is being touted as India’s largest FDI or Foreign Direct Investment. The claim has many holes to it. First, the investment is not into India. The asset being sold is a Singapore company & not an Indian company (we will read more about it later).

Second, the cash is not coming to the company but going to the shareholders so it is not direct. It is like, as RaghavBahl, puts it – a secondary market transaction. It is not an investment into the country as no new asset is being created but the existing shareholders are being replaced.

And last but not the least, lion’s share of this amount will not be coming to India. Estimated $13-14 billion will flow out to countries like US, China, South Africa, Japan. India, at best could get only about $2 billion.

The policy conundrum – the workaround& the web of lies!

When Flipkart was launched and they ended up getting their first million in funding, there was only a small regulatory hurdle. Indian laws didn’t allow FDI in online retail. Thus was born a workaround, W S Retail. An offline book seller, commerce without the ‘e’. While Flipkart was labelled a technology platform.

As the investors started queuing up, there were more ‘workarounds’ needed. In 2011, it was thought that it would be best to dump the Indianness and thus was born Flipkart Pvt Ltd in Singapore.

Just think of it – here was this budding asset building up on potential of India’s ecommerce industry but Indian capital could no longer be a part of this story. Remember how we mentioned the big funds ring fence not only the sectors, but the companies as well.

Any Indian resident putting money in Singapore holding company would be penalized by Indian laws here. Ridiculous, but this was happening.

Over the yearsFlipkart came up with 8 entities – 3 in Singapore, 5 in India. All in a pretty complex structure for managing various aspects of business. As ED sniffed something on it, in 2012 half of WS Retail was owned by couple of ex-employees.

The Bansals and their relatives resigned from the board. Technically, the entire setup was still selling 75% offline through WS retail. Can you believe it? The bureaucrats did.

The fight spilled over to the court. It was clear the FDI rules were being circumvented and the traditional trade associations sued the Govt over it. The Court ordered investigation into several e-commerce companies – Flipkart was the main target.

As usually happens, everybody got a clean chit; but the government came up with another workaround called an ‘online marketplace’, which continues to operate even today.

Do you realise that Flipkart and Amazon cannot sell anything directly to you. Do you believe that Amazon and Flipkart are banned from keeping any inventory. Yes, it is true!

Does India really want entrepreneurs?

Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Ma, Jeff Bezos – entrepreneurs from US & China. All have close to half a trillion worth of market cap. The Indian boys got mired in bureaucracy and sold every bit of equity they had. They managed to raise $6bn but ultimately sold off their dream for $21 bn, roughly about 3.5 times of what they raised.

TRAGEDY. Though we may clap for this $21bn, we should never forget it is just a drop in the big ocean of world capital. While the world’s big poster boys are running free to chase their dreams of trillion dollar valuations, see how cheap we, as a country, have sold nearly 40% of our online retail industry. All this while killing aspirations of brightest entrepreneurs.

I just hope that some policy maker sees the disappointment in the whole euphoria and does something about it.