Of love, life and the internet

It’s been a while since I blogged - which is good news I guess, as my blogging activity level is inversely proportionate to the activity levels at Gaboli.

Looking back at the last 60 days there’ve been many experiments…

Rechargeitnow.com

Sitting in a campus in Jamshedpur away from the city, I suddenly needed to re-charge/ top-up the pre-pay balance on my phone. I was hesitant to do it on just any random site but I did use rechargeitnow.com and it worked very smooth. Got Rs. 444 on my airtel in 2-3 minutes..

Competition

My emarketing classes ended with a competition between two groups of about 20 people each. The basic brief was that each section had to create a website that was (a) free and (b) would support analytics. In 3 weeks time the groups had to maximise the number of unique visitors on their site.

With the usual ‘free’ tools at hand - word of mouth, email marketing, seo, social media… both teams had around 1400-1500 unique visitors by the end of the competition. As expected SEO had no effect in such a short timeframe. It was mainly email, social media and word of mouth which led to these visitors. This was expected for any ‘web startup’ with initial traffic from friends and family.

One new tool that I discovered through one team was an email address generating tool. You type in a keyword and the tool crawls the web to find email addresses linked to that topic. I don’t know how relevant or effective it was - but it explained how spamming was so easy these days.

More interesting to note was the dynamics amongst the groups. In the final semester, very few people were motivated to put in too much effort as most people were also looking for jobs. Team leaders had very little influence on the teams and communication often broke down. As with most projects in life, it’s more about the people involved than the task at hand.

This leads to the more complex issue - on the web, how do you jump to that next level and get into that ‘growth’ stage.  It’s also an interesting challenge which I’ve been discussiing with Anshul who’s been running youthkiawaaz.com. A journalist driven blogging site with well written content focused on youth in India.

Hiring Interns in a startup

We’re experimenting with interns this summer. Mostly, summer interns for marketing, delivery management etc. One fell sick with jaundice and the others are yet to join… many people advise that it’s probably not worth the effort. Keen to see what our experience will be by August.

Technology

Using a CMS plugin to solve IE6 compatability issues - bad decision. Browser compatability continues to torment most of the web development world. In a country like India, you can’t ignore IE6 and recently safari has started becoming significant enough to warrant attention. The other consistent complaint across all online marketing projects is the ever widening gap between ‘clicks’ and ‘visits’. Analytics reveal only 50% of the paid traffic from adwords and facebook actually turn into ‘visits’. The reasons provided for this are not really sufficient in my mind. They say visits are not recorded for people that have javascript disabled. If that were the case then on average most CMS features would not load for 50% of the people - and that’s not consistent with the recorded bounce rate.

Affiliate networks have long complained that India is not suited for the ‘click’ model anyway… One way around this is to get into a ‘cost per lead’ model - but then the quality of the leads become truly doubtful.
Sanitiser update: Godrej did a free sample sachet sample for Protekt - their hand sanitiser brand. Rs. 2 for the sachet. The radio is full of ads for this product as well. Although I still see the gap in the institutional market, very few companies, buildings have the dispensers so far but at the same time the swine-flu effect is dying.

Hello Readers,

At Gaboli, we’re conducting a survey for all MBA alumni in India. This is in association with the ex Dean of Alumni Affairs, Delhi University.

It’ll take 5-7 minutes and I’ll be happy to share the results with anyone interested. So if you completed a MBA from India Click Here. The deadline is Feb 14th!

WYSIWYG is one of my favourite acronyms. In the last few days, we’ve been consulting a private equity company on implementing a Wiki based knowledge platform. On the top of my google apps account, I see a google ad for a rich text editor/ WYSIWYG based platform.

Anyway, if we’ve spoken recently, you’ll agree my entrepreneur journey is constantly full of inspection, introspection, retrospection etc. One change I see is that it’s more important to be decisive on all matters in life and hence, judging where people (read customers, suppliers, partners) stand on the various spectrums in life is a big part of the game. When you’re in a company, you take a person for face value because he/she has a designation - like or not, your relationship is governed to an extent.

As an entrepreneur I’ve come to value genuiness at a whole new level. I’d rather have a potential customer bang the phone down rather than have us work out a consultative 40 page proposal, only to hand it off to their favourite vendor to copy. (Yes, you know who you are!)

So I wonder what kind of people are living life WYSIWYG? Any theories? (Leave a comment below). My theory is that there is something about corporate culture and management education that kills the WYSIWYGness in people. I don’t say that people don’t have moral values but the corporate mask is definitely weird.

- I’m reminded of post MBA interviews when the prescribed body language and tone was ‘I’m amazingly qualified for this job but hey I don’t really need it.’
- Ever asked a MBA alumni on tips for interview and heard them say “Just be yourself”?
- Companies are now faced with this dilemma too. Brands spend billions on their propaganda (read positioning) but lo and behold the wonders of the web. The party’s almost over. Catch Inc’s story on you’ve been yelped! With Yelp, customer feedback is immediate and all pervasive. To paraphrase ex Forrestor Analyst, Jeremiah.. You can’t hide behind the pro-corporate hyperbole for long. Information asymmetry is on it’s way out…. Open yourself to living life - WYSIWYG.

Sabsebolo.com

Discovery of the week. Actually, it’s Feb 2, 2010. I can afford to say, discovery of the decade!

Scenario - it was 20 minutes to a client call. Client wanted it 3 way.. and once again I was shuddering at the thought of paying Rs. 450 to airtel for a conference bridge for 30 mins. So our good friend DB suggested sabsebolo. Signed up in seconds. Immediately you get your permanent telephone bridge, access code and local access numbers for all major metros.

The line was clear. No issues in joining the bridge. You get to hear a message from the sponsor for 5 seconds before the call starts. For this service, I would be willing to hear 5 sponsor messages! I still get nightmares about sales conference calls over the expensive doorsabha conference bridges. Web 2.0 and just works technology.. gotta love it.

Did I forget to mention - it’s free!

Shabaash Sabeer .. this one is seriously hot .. may you make 400 more!

Teaching

It happened sooner in life than I expected. I’ve started teaching. It’s only once a week but nonetheless - it’s probably 10 years earlier than I thought.

The course is on e-marketing and its in the final semester for MBA students. Two sections of 50 students each. Each lecture is about 2 hours long. There’s the prescribed course material which couldn’t possibly be more ‘offline’. So I generally add in snippets of gyaan from real life experience. New experience for me and here are some of the highlights:

- After the first day, wife’s first question “Was one section better than the other?”. I look at her in disbelief “How did you know?”.. Gets back into her Mac with a knowing nod “Always is.. Al-ways is the case”

- Delhi to Gurgaon drive takes half the time at 8:10 in the morning on a Saturday
- Indian students can spend 3-4 hours on the internet every day, but barely a few seconds outside email and orkut
- The next biggest thing on the net is job sites.
- Back benchers seem to make the most interesting contributions to discussions
- Students rattle off definitions of jargon alarmingly well. As soon as I ask for an example.. they’re stumped.

Oh well. I’ve started Bill Gates’ recommended book for teachers Work Hard, Be Nice. Wisely said, the problems of the education sector is rarely about the students and mostly about the capability of the teachers.

Courtesy Aditya ‘Dean’ Dikshit and Rajat Maaker, I’ve found the inspiration to overcome inertia and come back to my blog. Rajat says I need to write down my predictions so that one day I can say ‘I told you so’. But the tipping factor on this lazy, second saturday of the month, afternoon was the movie ‘The Crupier’. It’s about a writer who gets a job with a casino - takes part in a robbery scheme but still manages to place his bets well enough to pull it off.

So here’s my piece today on taking bets in life or more specifically - in business.

Latest Opportunity Obsession:
To make a short story long, during our visit to the US in September, I noticed the prevelance of hand sanitiser gel dispensers in almost every public facility - airports, hotels, public bathrooms, lounges, corporte offices etc. etc. Not to forget, the small travel size bottles in almost every lady’s purse. Then you think about the convenience factor and that once someone starts using it, it’s hard to stop. Think about the scare factor - Mothers concerned for their kids. Lifebuoy soap sales are up 30-40% since they linked their advertisements to prevention of H1N1. Swines…

Now in India, within the last 45 days I’ve seen 3 new big brands entering in the space and the radio in Pune and Bangalore (at least) are constantly playing ads. However, the market is huge and still in the nascent to growth stage. Plenty of bucks to be made. Hotels, Offices, Schools, Restaurants are still open fields. Heck - Let me go ahead and make my audacious bets.

- I predict the market will grow significantly for the next 5-7 years.
- The urban institutional sales will peak in about 18-24 months.
- Once that has happened, some ‘chik shampoo’ dude will come along and introduce sachet size packets for sanitiser gel and sell them for Rs. 1 (or thereabout) to consumers. Middle Class Mother’s will start putting a packet in lunch boxes for the kids. The rich kid’s schools will have dispensers anyway
- A new player will emerge through a quick gain in market share. This player will either be bought out or will diversify heavily within its first 3 years.
- In 2015, free packets will be distributed to the poor (ok ok…too much)

Quoting the line from Rocket Singh - ‘Risk to spiderman bhi leta hai… main to sirf salesman hoon.’ Ok - that didn’t really make sense (…In the movie or in real life)

My other prediction is the boom for Single Malt Whiskey in India: No Brainer!

To conclude the post, my biggest bet is now on context based social networks. Large - small, generic - branded, public - private… Every single trusted relationship or network will be moving some parts of their interactions and transactions online. With the diversity in consumer tastes, preferences, needs and desires there’s place for a quite a few people to help provide those platforms and tools.

People say ‘there can only be one Facebook, one Twitter, one Google Wave’. My only answer is that large corporations by definition are ‘feature focused’ to cater to mass markets. Small startups find opportunities in being ‘customer focused’. A few marquee customers, some references and you’re ready to roll.

3 years from now, I could be eating sour humble pie .. but then the bet’s worth it

Got a first taste of the startup scene in Delhi at bcd7. My brother recommended the event and it turned out to be a pretty good Sunday. Free breakfast, Free lunch .. Free T Shirt - you can’t go wrong! For the tweeters/ twitterers(#bcd7)

Overall, I was impressed.

The host - International Management Insitute.

The host B. school IMI was impressive and the entrepreurship club (Ecell) seems very progressive. They have been doing live projects with startups (next one in November). There’s a John Mullens seminar coming up. Top that with barcamp and I give them full marks.

My 3 favourite startups - phokatcopy, videotap and imo

1. Phokatcopy - A startup is as good or bad as the founding team. The ideas will change, the model will get modified - so it’s basically what the people are like. That’s where I believe that Harsh Narang has what it takes to make this a good business. The company essentially provides free paper (good quality, non-wood based) to the photocopy wallahs at the colleges. The paper has ads on one side and they are meant to use the back side to copy. If the student spends Rs. 20 or more on phokat copy, he/she can re-deem that money through mobile talk time, ice creams, clothes etc. Every 100th phokatcopy user wins an ipod.  The advertising medium is novel - repeat viewing for same ad - extremely targeted for the segment. Every player in the game is incentivised.
2. Voicetap- The basic premise here is that they provide access to experts for any and every subject. So in case you’re not getting any joy from google or you’d rather talk to a person then all you have to do is add getafixx@voicetap.in to your gmail contacts and say ‘hi’ in the chat window. Young dynamic team. Look out for a new site and launch in Jan. They’ve got a phone based model as well. Their revenue model is based on payments from corporates for the branding they get out of promoting their experts.
3. Imo - Out of 50 finalists at TC50, there were about 48 from US and these guys were the only ones from India. The company has made an iphone app which can then use the phone like a joystick or mouse for PC games. The future versions aim to make it as good as the wii experience for any PC game. The went on to win the best presentation at TC50. Watch the video on the site - it’s pretty funny!

While some people were asking ‘What’s TC 50?’, for me this company is the hottest thing in India right now. Keep an eye on these kids!

Here are the top results from TC50 this year.

Wikipedia - A widget is a portable chunk of code that can be installed and executed within any separate HTML -based web page by an end user without requiring additional compilation

Righto. umm.. err - so what was that again? Basically you know the ‘BBC’ or ‘joke of the day’ box you see on igoogle - that’s an example of a widget. So what’s so cool about that again? Technical details aside - here’s what’s so revolutionary about widgets.

Media Variety - A widget can take just about any media type… text, pics, video, audio, flash based games. Which reminds me of one of my favourite widgets - super mario (Yes! you can actually play right here!)

800K installs of this widget and growing

Omnipresence - It can go anywhere and everywhere. You don’t have to code again… and it’s got the poetic beauty of of drag and drop. Imagine you have this brand new video you want to show the world. You put it up on your website and you wait for people to come and see it. AAh…. what if people could take a copy of the video with them and deposit it all over the internet… on facebook, on their blog, on rediff, on in.com … etc - check out this radio player

Now - you’ve never heard of this station before… but at one glance I’ve already found 150K people who have installed music widgets like this.

Monetisation Don’t wait for those eyeballs on your site. Embed that advertisement in your widget. Whatever the topic, whereever you are, let the long tail take your widget for a ride. Instead pumping in PPC dollars to pull visitors… your widget will get the impressions and clicks.

Here’s a widget for my blog. Click on ‘Get Widget’ and take it everywhere with you.. You can probably see the ad in between

Measurement Analytics aren’t too far behind… data on number of installs, views, demographics/ geographies… you’ll know whether your campaign is hitting home or not.

So - if you’ve read down till here then congratulations. You’ve completed Widget 101. Now the sales pitch

Gaboli helps Indian content publishers, advertisers and enterprises get more bang for their buck by widget creation, distribution, monetisation and measurement. If any of the above interests you - we’d be glad to help you widgetise your assets.

(PS - the blog took 2 days cause i kept playing the mario game in between.
PPS - i just made up the phrase ‘widgetise your assets’.. sounds quite cool doesn’t it?)

Gaboli launched in November 08 with Ashok, Tarun and of course our good friend Dushyant (Who’s been kindly putting up with all the indecision that goes hand in hand with any startup)

What does Gaboli mean? (Yeah right.. like I’d tell you that easily!)

So we fight on the usual stuff - product vs service, volume vs premium, kingfisher vs heiniken… but here’s what we’re pretty sorted on -

1. Gaboli creates and manages social networks.
2. Our first vertical is education. Our unique ’OneSchool’ platform allows for any institution’s students, faculty, alumni, admin, recruiters etc to connect real time in a virtual community.
3. Research driven product development and consultative rollouts for user adoption set us apart from the ‘dime a dozen’ web developers
4. We provide services on online marketing - SEO, SEM, email marketing, social media, virals, widget distribution etc etc.

We’re already working with 3 top notch customers and on track for kick starting our hi-technology roadmap.

If none of the above makes any sense, I’ll say what I usually say when my neighbours and relatives ask, “We make websites, but cooler than the other guys”

Jai Ho!