This entry is being reposted from my personal blog.
The Web2.0 era has spawned a bunch of Indian startups in the consumer internet space, most of them in the mass-market, B2C space. One company that is making the right moves and going places (notwithstanding the naukri.com episode) is Bixee, the Bangalore based website.
Bixee has had two websites for a while: glogblog.com – a community based classifieds site (with a tongue twisting name) and bixee.com – the job aggregator site; while the classifieds site is loosely modeled on Craigslist, the job site is (to my mind) the first Indian aggregator site worth any mention. A few days back, Bixee launched Pixrat, a cool social photo bookmaking tool (somewhat like flikr-delicious hybrid); also around the corner is a real estate site allbhk.com (not yet launched) – I guess its likely to be another aggregator site for properties & real estate.
What I like about their approach is three things-
1) Firstly, in the consumer web space, where barriers to entry are low and failure rates high, Bixee isn’t putting ‘all its eggs in one basket’; rather they are spreading their risks across a barrage of potential business ideas
2) Secondly, the areas they are trying to focus on (except the job space) are characterized by the presence of a profusion of mediocre websites (web 0.0?), none of which have critical mass, leaving the doors wide open, for a well designed aggregator website to hijack a sizable chunk of the traffic.
3) Thirdly, the UI design of all their websites is very much in the Web2.0 mould: simple, neat & clean, using white/pastel shades etc.
Their websites/blogs don’t tell you anything about the company or its promoters. I think it must be a bunch of diehard Web2.0 enthusiasts behind these endeavors.
Obviously, getting the product out, is only half the job; the other (and trickier) half is to gets the targeted audience to actually use it and generate substantial, sustainable & scalable advertising revenues out of it ( I’m not totally sure but I think the revenue model behind all their websites is based entirely on Google adwords, contextual ads etc) .
I think Bixee has made a good start out of the blocks….let’s see how they fare up to the home stretch.
hi,
Informative, .. one thing id like to know is how would even an ardent and regular internet user come to know of a startup..i understand its an elementary question about marketing but whats the most common means of getting your product to be used by the consumers?
Ujjwal,
Thats a million dollar question and there are no easy answers. There are two things involved specifically -1) getting people to know about your product, which is only the initial push ; 2) and then getting people to actually start using the product.
The first part though tough is still doable if you know how to ride the viral marketing wave. But the second part is purely about your product and whether or not it offers any real value to users.
amit
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I found Gladoo.com, IT focused job aggregator for India quite impressive. I love its home page especially. This was launched by Avake Technology the company that also launched India’s first comparison shopping site TolMol.com.
I think, both TolMol and Gladoo from Avake are worth a watch.
i have need for a job in airways
Well, TolMol.com is one of the leading comparison shopping site in India. I’ve found this site really interesting where you have everything that helps in making your buying decisions like products, their comparisons from different sellers, deals, shopping blogs, news, reviews and many more. It’s a full shopping experience.