Challenges Faced by Fintech Startups in India

Posted on September 18, 2018March 6, 2019 by Evolvers

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 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Health Tech Startup Challenges in India 2019

Posted on August 29, 2018March 6, 2019 by Evolvers

One of the primary goals of the Government is Healthy India. A healthy citizen not only increases the productivity of the country but also helps reduce the load on the government sponsored health schemes. However, there is still a long way to go.

Sensing this opportunity many Health Tech startups entered the Health Care market with their unique offerings. It is true that most of the offline healthcare systems are not using digital technologies for patient care.

It is also true that correct use of tech can change not only patient experience but we can also move to a healthier India. But as major chunk of startups face many challenges, Health Care Tech startups are no exception.

Health Tech Startup Challenges

The goal of every health tech startup is to provide better and affordable healthcare to those who need it. According to the reports, majority of Indian healthcare tech startups are focused on preventive cure, convenient services & health management among many others. But there are certain health tech startup challenges that are stopping them from achieving their goals easily, namely

Slow Growth

For any startup, it is important to have patience and capability to tackle the ups and down. Slow growth is one of the major factors that healthcare system needs to understand.

An age-old system which works by giving the medical practitioners demi God status, would take time to change. There is a need to do a lot of hard work to keep oneself motivated and to grow.

There is this example of Practo, who received their first funding after three years, and about 7 years to reach today’s position.It is tech and we usually do not associate tech with such long gestation periods.

It clearly means one should have patience to stay on & believe in the idea fully well. Just like the environment, the competition too will never be easy, but the only thing which one needs to do is maintain a regular focus on value proposition for the user,and keep doing it regularly. Alas, only few of the startups are able to do this.

Complex Industry

The business does not give enough freedom to express the innovative thinking. General healthcare organizations are linked with the Government and the Government has some rules and regulations.

Most of the policies are unclear that create confusion in the workplace. A few specialists might think that it is risky to participate in the industry because of the similar reasons.

The bureaucracy moves slowly as many lives depend on even a small policy change. The sector is governed by stringent laws and it should be as it deals with the human life. The sector is infested with quacks and alternative unregistered treatments but lack of access to good yet affordable medical care means that there is enough local market for such people as well.

However, a health tech startup would need to follow all compliance’s from day 1 even though the cost of such compliance could be killing enough.

Doctors are tough

According to the study, it is calculated that the doctor-patient ratio in India is as bad as 1:1700, and in rural areas the ratio goes down to 1: 160,000. The number of doctors is inadequate in our country and hard to acquire.

Even they do not have time to look up to the digital technologies through which they can do better. Getting hold of the doctors today is very tough.

They are overburdened, treated with a lot of respect and this creates a huge entry barrier in making them adopt new technology that can change their and their patients’ lives in the long term.

Monetization

The development of the sector is moderate which makes it difficult to adapt. With few startups in this in healthcare space, there are not many plans of action to draw reference from. Thus the monetisation plan would be a trial.

Well being tech new businesses, regardless of whether as doctor-patient platforms, specialist, lab aggregates, have discovered it extremely difficult to earn back the original investment or even find an effective model.

As the industry manages the lives of the people, individuals – most take it for granted that it is the duty of the health care professionals, Government, and hospitals to treat them even if they are not able to recover their costs.

The social point related to the business is one of the significant root causes that it’s tough to monetize in education, healthcare, and in other sectors.

Lack of healthcare mentors in India

Right mentors, partners, and experts are essential for any startup because right mentors guides you regarding the plans of new businesses, positive and negative points of any startup, way of doing business, and how to use a strategy so that you can analyze each and everything very clearly.

Well-trained medical professionals are essential in healthcare organizations but are in limited supply given the vastness & sheer numbers of our country.

The number of investors and mentors is very less which is another challenge for health tech startup. As most of the startups fail in this sector, investors are naturally apprehensive about investing.

Need to connect with technology

From last many years, we are using internet and now we cannot imagine our life without it. In recent times, Internet of things have been added so many opportunities to consumers and business.

IOT simply means making decisions on the basis of analytics which includes extracting data, processing data, and storing data. This helps in predicting the outcomes and also helps in taking the best preventive actions.

Healthcare sector is the fast adopting, as IOT helps boost productivity, reduce cost, and improve the quality. This is the way through which one can also boost patient engagement.

Just think of a BP/ECG monitor connected to a central system. Precious seconds can be saved that can save many lives.

Add to it advanced robotics, then you are talking about solutions at the supply end.

Health Tech startups are working on supply side, demand side and also on preventive care side. They need right mentoring, timely fund infusions & policy support to bring a visible change in the Health Care Industry.

We await the change with a lot of hope, are you the one bringing it?

Leadership Strategies for Women

Posted on August 6, 2018August 20, 2018 by Evolvers

India has not seen very many women entrepreneurs. Society is quick to judge a woman in a completely biased manner, not based on her working capacity but everything else related to her.

Have you been thinking to break away from the stigmas of the society for being a woman and start up your own business? Do you passionately think about creating some value to the society? Has it been your dream to make a sufficient amount of money for your needs and greeds without being dependent on anybody else financially?

But to do all this, do you feel like you need some immediate mentoring and also some expert pieces of advice from people who have been in your field of interest because you are not getting the self-confidence to start? Evolvers can help you solve all of these problems. It is not easy for a woman to be an entrepreneur, a leader or a successful business person without having that additional pressure to do well, come what may.

It is but natural to get balked down easily in a misogynist work environment. Unless, they could consult someone, ask the advice of an expert before taking every important, necessary step. Now you may be wondering how to get hold of these bunch of expert people. Evolvers is one such initiative which works by a seeker and giver concept. It brings together people who are looking for counsel and the counsellor on a digital platform so that ideas can be shared either openly or in private. The company has a healthy list of meritorious, professional specialists in almost all domains of the industry with many years of experience. These people address the needs, especially the long-standing ones, of the start-ups and connect them to the appropriate experts. Thus, mutual interest is promoted, and the issues are resolved in a more uncomplicated manner.

What exactly do EVOLVERS do?

The main idea of evolvers is to facilitate and provide interaction, which would be beneficial for start-ups, potential business partners like the investors, technological support and the experts. This facilitation is done by bringing them together on an embedded digital platform so that the necessary guidance and support can be provided. They ensure healthy communication between the parties and create an intermingling network between communities of similar aspects. What this does is that it leads to the sharing and exchange of ideas and knowledge.

Once you become a part of evolvers, they also take up the responsibility of promoting your business and making you more visible in a particular field. This can be done through many social media platforms. Last but not the least, Evolvers also provide a legitimate platform for you to share your resources with others and also gives you the option to procure resources from the correct people.

Why should you join Evolvers?

By now, the goal that Evolvers is trying to achieve must have become pretty clear. If you are unsure about how to go ahead with your ideas, follow the below given tips to overcome this obstacle.

Improved networking

Networking forms a significant part if you are trying to open or expand your venture. If you ask any successful entrepreneur or businessmen, they will tell you that the credit for wherever they have reached today goes to a lot of contacts and networking.Networking for business is essential. It might not be possible to do everything on your own, and you are going to need some help with problems that seem impossible to you but maybe an easy solution for someone who is in this trade for a long time. This also helps to forge a professional relationship and creates an environment for learning. Through Evolvers, if you are planning to open a new business, you can check out people who can provide you the services you need and also vice versa, you can look for clients for whom you can do the job. This makes networking the number one priority for Evolvers.

Finding the correct partner

Having a partner who has the same vision and passion as you with respect to your business can become a little tricky. It is important enough to make or break the initiative. Like-mindedness is very important, and this will lead you to be more focused on your job, and there will be an extra set of hands and brain to expand and spread your business. Partners do not necessarily mean only financial ones, other types of service providers like Advocates, and Technology Expert etc. are also equally important. Through Evolvers you can easily look for people and take your decision on whom to coordinate with.

Be an advisor or find one

A lot is being written about needing help and advice while opening a new business. Well, who provides the help? It is you, yourself. Therefore, joining Evolvers doesn’t mean that you are only looking for solutions, you can be a solution giver yourself. It will act as a platform and make you visible to people looking for someone with similar requirements. Start-ups need a lot of mentoring and counsel, and you may be an expert in the field that they are trying to venture. Your valuable input will be of utmost importance and use. So, if you are interested in offering your specialized services, Evolvers is a way of putting yourself out.

Mentor somebody

Some people say that learning becomes more enhanced and productive when mentored in the right way. If you look at a lot of successful people around the world, the one thing they had in common was that they had a mentor who had their back and would show them the flaws and holes in the plan. Thus, mentoring becomes a very important job, and it is not easy as well. A mentor need not be qualified at a specified field, and they must be flexible enough to deal with new and unique challenges and be ready to ride the tide at both the good and bad times. If you feel you have the capability and qualification to be a good mentor and have the necessary leadership qualities, enlist yourself in Evolver now.

Spread knowledge

One of the best feelings in the world is when you impart your specializations and expertise to someone in need, and they stand to benefit from it, the financial aspect of it comes much later. To have a thorough understanding of your work environment, the social structure, how to handle people etc., you need to observe and keep learning continuously. Once you are in the company of people who have achieved a lot in their respective fields, their presence and aura will rub off on you and give you the much-needed confidence. It will also be a mean for you to share your thoughts and views about various matters.

Raise funds

One big headache about starting a new start-up or a business is the funding. You may be a little under capitalized or might be looking at investors to fund your business initially so that you can give them dividends later. How you present your ideas become very critical here. Evolvers helps you with pitching in your idea in the best possible manner so that it peaks the interest of multiple investors and will also accelerate the process. Similarly, if you are looking to invest in a business and be a part of its growth, Evolvers will give you a list of potential prospects, and you can look into it in details. Thus, Evolvers maintain that two-way parity here as well.

Screening your venture

When it is your idea or start-up, there is a lot of emotional baggage attached to it which sometimes may lead to overdoing. Efforts might not be going to the right places. The concept might not be very well-structured. This is where the idea of screening the venture comes in. It narrows down the ideas in such a way that most of the resources are directed towards something that requires the utmost expertise and financial backing. Moreover, investors will only show interests in ventures that have been screened by a reputable agency to avoid a lot of junk that may be present. Thus, screening is a way of better presentation as well. Any venture that is present in Evolvers is automatically screened by experts to make them more approachable.

Global approach

Though included as the last point here, the importance of global approach for business cannot be overlooked. The era that we live in, distance is just a number. The digitalized approach is one convenient method of communication. Evolvers launch your venture on a very global scale. Therefore, you may be sitting and working on your start-up in an office in Mumbai, but you can rely on expert opinion from qualified persons from the United States. The idea of financing also works on a similar ground. Investors from all over the world can look into your start-up ideas, and if they feel that it holds a lot of promise, they will show interests in sponsoring. As is the general trend, investments from western countries are more wide fold than in the East. Thus, it is very crucial from the business point of view as well and plays a significant part in the way your venture evolves.

Strategies women Entrepreneurs can adopt

Now that a medium of supporting your start-up has been established let’s talk about the social aspect of it. One problem that almost every woman faces in a workforce is the sense of prejudice and bias based on their gender. Women have to go that extra mile to assert their authority on their peers. Having a sound leadership quality is going to be useful here. In fact, there are a few strategies that women can adapt to be able to be more successful and not come up as being overly aggressive or pushy.

Set a deadline

When a deadline needs to be set, you can refer to it as what you think should be an appropriate time by which the work should be done instead of simply telling them to do it. This will make your co-worker feel that you are expressing your opinion regarding the matter and value their opinions as well. If you are the CEO of a company, this will automatically make you a favorite.

Take it in your stride

While business ideas are being shared overconfidence can become repressive here. Don’t give the notion to your male partner, if any, that you are all authoritative and particular about your ideas being implemented. In fact, dumbing down the expression would help like saying like something that you were thinking loud or that just came to your head.

While sending emails

If you want to make some request using an email, fill it with a few emojis and exclamations. This will avoid looking like being too direct and will make you more approachable, which everyone will appreciate.

If you smell sexism

This is unfortunately very common in an office space, but the key is to avoid any unnecessary confrontation. The awkward laugh is your best weapon here, use it appropriately. Practice it, if needed, within the confines of your home to perfect it.

When something you already know is being repeated

Men like to explain everything. If it has already been said before, there is no point in telling him that. Instead, listen to him again. It gives them a sense of usefulness and gives you the time to think about something else.

When you notice a mistake

You don’t have to point it out blatantly. Subtly hinting at it while making sure that your point is also made is an art and needs mastering. If you make a mistake, apologize and make things better quickly.

If nothing of this works out after trying and testing, you can leave all of them behind and be a little more assertive to get your work done.

Being a woman, as it is, is not easy at all and the problems become more hyper-sized in a corporate environment. This should not in any way hinder with executing your plans and strategies and with the help of Evolvers, the work is going to be simpler.

EVOLVE WITH US !

JOIN US

ABOUT

About

Mission & Vision

Team

WHY JOIN US

Network With Entrepreneurs

Find The Right Partner

Find Or Be An Advisor

COMMUNITY

SPONSORS & PARTNERS

Sponsors & Partners

Videos

CONTACT

I-9, LGF, Lajpat Nagar -III,
New Delhi, Delhi 110024

info@evolvers.co.in

+91-11-49400901/02

+91 9811524204

How To Choose The Right Mentor In The Growth Path

Posted on July 20, 2018January 9, 2019 by Evolvers

Who is a mentor?

A mentor is like an experienced friend who will teach us and guide us along. A mentor will build the trust and will model the positive behaviors. The best mentor will understand that the role will be knowledgeable, effective, dependable and engaging.

Anyone can be a mentor but they have to be successful in whichever field and will have to use their strength to their advantage. So yes it is true that if you have the right mentor then your career will surely go up.

How would you meet the right mentor? The answer is, through Evolvers. Read out to know how you can choose the best mentor for yourself.

Gather up all that you need while choosing the right mentor in the growth path.

Write down the questions you need to ask:

Do I require help with my present part or with how to push forward to another part?
Do I require bolster from my guide for a specific test or for my whole vocation?
Improve abilities from my tutor or should my guide disclose to me what aptitudes I have to create?

The relationship of your mentor with you is also important.

What is your mentor’s way to deal with helping you?
What is the idea of your association with your mentor is it formal or casual?
Is your mentor helping you with nothing or would you say you will pay him/her?
How regularly might you want to communicate with your mentor?

Now you will have to find the mentor keeping all these questions in mind. You might have someone in mind, if not, and then this might help you.

Join Evolvers and you’ll quickly be acquainted with more individuals with differed encounters.
Contact senior administrators who have exceeded expectations at their employment.
Are there renowned industry pioneers who motivate you?

There is no point to lie on the lower side and not ask for any help from your mentor. There should be a need to build a strong relationship with your mentor and it is important that you and your mentor should share the same values and leadership style.

This is important because if you don’t match with your mentor quality-wise then you and your mentor will have conflicts. It takes time to build a relationship with your mentor, so it is advisable that one should not give up so easily.

Now that you have got a mentor, you should be clear about your expectations and the relationship you will have with them. Just like you give an interview, your initial interactions should be done in the same way.

They should be able to give you enough time and sufficient contribution and should expect the same from you. The mentor should know about the strengths and weaknesses of yours. Remember that you should not hold anything back as this relationship will make your career.

The mentor you chose would be the best and will guide you well but there might be a chance that you might need more than one mentor. All you have to do is try.

BHARAT MATRIMONY MARKETING STRATEGY (part 3)

Posted on July 12, 2018January 9, 2019 by Evolvers

In the previous blog, we discussed the SEO point of view which Muruga followed to rank his website. How Muruga took the ascended content marketing and why was the need to create the HappyMarriage.com. While creating HappyMarriage.com, Muruga faced some challenges and the thought behind the strategy was important too. Muruga executed the plan based on the communications, referrals and that was how the outcome was shown. They created offline marketing channels in which the hosted events like Mega Swayamvaram, speed dating, special meetings, retailing and finally the results were shown.

MULTI-BRAND STRATEGY – DIVERSE MARKETPLACES

Muruga saw the accompanying focal points of utilizing a multi-mark procedure –

It was anything but difficult to duplicate these commercial centers utilizing the same back-end innovation
Scalability wasn’t an issue
Also, marital clients aren’t deep rooted clients. The lifetime estimation of a client is typically 3 a year. They just remained on the stage until they got hitched. Once the pursuit is finished, there is no purpose behind them to return to the site. This made it basic to differentiate.

Keeping the structure of innovation set up, Muruga took an official choice and chose to dispatch the accompanying commercial centers successively from 2006 to 2008 i.e. 8 benefits in a traverse of two years. The enhancement helped pick up the piece of the overall industry and these stages were beginning to see development –

com: The No.1 Property Portal.
com: Help individuals with individual, property and vehicle credits.
com: The Online Automobile Supermarket.
Mobile 5050: Latest news on telephones, contraptions
com: The Online Classifieds.
Clickjobs: An occupations entrance
Indiapages: The Online Yellow Pages
BharatBloodBank – a non-benefit, non-business interface

The focus shifted completely towards the matrimony space in 2008. This was the time when the credit crisis led to a global recession. The entities like Bharatbloodbank.com, clickjobs.com, indiapages.com, indiaautomobile.com, indiaproperty.com and loanwala.com were shut down due to the recession.

Distinctive pricing strategies – Geographies and Net Worth

It was in 2001 when Muruga offered the paid version along with the free version of the BharatMatrimony to keep the revenue alive; this was done after the dot-com crash.

Rs 200 per year, was the cost of the paid version and when Muruga felt that this has picked up so he decided to scale the revised version that took the geographies and the net worth of the users into account.

BharatMatrimony was gratifying to the Indian audience, globally with different spending powers. This was considered the best move by Muruga as distinctive pricing based on geographies is not that common when it gets down to a subscription business.

This type of strategy is used by some companies today also. For example, Byju’s is a learning app and it charges differently on the basis of class. Also, for the age group of 18+, the charges would be different which will depend upon the courses. They provide a trial or free sample initially but to get access to the full course, the student has to purchase the course.

Experimenting

Generally what happens is that people are afraid to experiment, especially when they are starting new, but Muruga had some different stuff in mind. The only reason which made BharatMatrimony standing solidly for almost 20 years was the experimental ability like launching new products, hosting events, and launching new properties.

Muruga focused on matrimony on the basis of audience preferences but the initial idea was launched with 15 regional domains under BharatMatrimony.
Not just matrimony but he also launched properties which were not related to matrimony services like com, Indiaautomobile.com etc.
The main focus was Matrimony and this was the reason that it was launched over more than 300 websites which were related to matrimony and the niche categories and also which organized different event either they were 100 meets in 30 days or huge offline events.

It’s not easy to start a new business and run it in a simple way. Muruga solidified his feet with the changes he made on a regular basis. While some of the features fell flat on the face but some won and Muruga learned something from each of them.

HIGHLY DATA DRIVEN

It was only the data that helped Muruga to make right decisions during the time of the expansion of the site. For the Day 1, the information was collected but the company was not able to draw any insights. Then in 2006, Muruga decided to process the information and use it accordingly. He made a data collection team which would ensure that the data was collected and it was being used efficiently and it was searched relevant. The analytical tools were set up and data scientists were hired, these would make sure that the reports were made on regular basis.

ACTUAL PRODUCT UPDATES

New communities – BharatMatrimony expansion was assumed on the basis that the matrimony requirement for the different communities will be same as that of the Tamil and Telegu communities as the common part is the language part of all the communities. On this basis, Muruga created the matrimonial services to Kannada, Gujrati, Kerala, Hindi, Sindhi, Marathi, and Bengali. Later, he expanded it to the communities like Parsi, Marwadi, Assamese, Marathi, Oriya and local languages of India. If we look at the success stories, we can clearly see that the idea worked.

New devices – Initially, BharatMatrimony was available on the desktop only; later Muruga saw that the people living in the remote areas were not having a way to access the site as they did not have any desktop. But they did have a phone and this is why Muruga created a mobile-friendly version of the site for those people so that they would get alerts on their phone as well.

This is to be noted that it is important to keep an eye on the demographics of your target audience, the limit of the device usage, and the online payments habits determine which platform a business should go for to ease up the navigation and the use of online user interface.

Always look for the soft qualitative data i.e. reviews, customer feedback, conversation over the calls, and their expressive views about their product. Look for the hard quantitative data too i.e. the number of customers, ratings, time spent on the site, mostly the things which are measured as a quantity. It is important to look at these types of data to make better decisions.

Keen eye on the optimization process

The optimization was done after the processes and tools were placed well in the company, well mainly around the product and marketing related development. The question raised was that how we can get more customers by spending less on keeping the existed ones. The traffic was calculated based on the ads, channels, keywords, creativity, and how that translated into revenue. The whole array of communications from the principal touch point to a held client was nearly inspected in all cases. Properties and campaigns that weren’t contributing as much were discarded and the concentration was moved to ones that were flourishing. There was a need to enhance which prompted the company’s size being definitely decreased, making it a great deal more slender and focused.

FROM THE FOUNDER

Freedom to ideas

Ideas are a way to innovation and openness. We came across so many ideas from the customer representatives and the tech teams that led to the creation of new products for the BharatMatrimony. If someone came up with an interesting idea then we gave the liberty to them to design the strategy and to build up the team to execute the plan.

Work towards progress

At BharatMatrimony, we follow a genuinely vigorous deft process. The daily meetings were held for 15 minutes where we would discuss about the things that were done yesterday and if there were any encumbrances then those were considered and the things that were to happen on the next day was planned according to that. Key metrics were mostly the part of these discussions.

Motivating people

Our employees are with BharatMatrimony for more than 10 years and our first three employees are still with us. We boost the morale of our employees and motivate them by keeping them enclosed with the company’s growth and the direction in which the company was heading.

Understanding the value system

The value of the company and a marriage go hand in hand with an organization and this makes our mission bigger than all of us. We inculcate these values from the beginning among the people of BharatMatrimony.

In 2017 BharatMatrimony decided to go public and the IPO was launched in September 2017 and was oversubscribed 4.41 times. The company raised Rs 500 crore through the issue that contained new issue of up to Rs 130 crore and an offer available to be purchased of up to 37.67 lakh value shares.

We have seen that how Muruga stood tall above despite all odds, he took chances and risks, some of them played well but some of them backfired, but he never gave up. Still, this question arises that why most of the startups fail and do not recover from their failures? Is it because of the lack of disruption or the inability to access the product or they are not able to fit into the competitive market. This time they would switch the idea while seeing that the previous one will not be working anymore now.

If we take the above points into consideration, then Evolvers show the entrepreneurs the right direction. Be it a mentor or an investor, Evolvers will facilitate all your business needs and all of this you will get on the Evolvers Platform.