Burrp, the reviews & lifestyle website is launching a revamped homepage. Deap Ubhi (who heads burrp) has sent me screenshots of their yet to be released design, which looks a definite improvement- it seems slicker and more responsive. Burrp is slowly but surely gaining traction. 
They started off with the Mumbai edition and have since launched Bangalore & Kolkata; Delhi is planned next. They have 5000 registered users and serving about 1.5 lac page views per day. 85% of their users are above 25 yrs; 40% are women and the three main user segments are- college students, working professionals and stay at home woman. Future plans include splitting the website into two sections- ‘Burrp! Local’ & ‘Burrp! Life’. Burrp local will be city specific and will expand into newer categories of local content (e.g. local events), while Burrp Life will focus on the lifestyle segment. The online magazine Blah, that they launched some time back is probably a build-up to this strategy. Also on the anvil are plans for introducing SMS-based and IVR-based search.
You can listen to this podcast interview with Deap on Podtech’s India channel, where he talks about their future plans to approach VC firms for funding.
Something that I REALLY LIKE about Burrp (and its team) is their accent on organic growth and reluctance to overload their webapp with features. Their launch (4-5 months ago) was low key but they have consistently gained in traffic. They are adding features and sections incrementally, and I think it is based on insight & feedback from users. I think there is a learning here for all of us- unless you are a Google or a Yahoo, there is no substitute to organic and sensible growth. Many of the sites that I have reviewed on Webyantra in the past (or other ones that I did not write about), fail miserably on that count. People who create webapps should desist from bombarding their users with senseless add–on features. New features have to dovetail into the core product and it should be driven by insights gained from actual user behavioral patterns. There has to be a demonstrated ROI behind every new feature, for it will make the system bulkier than without, more difficult to maintain and more confusing than before, leading to dropouts amongst the initial adopters. Case in point- many social networking sites have a classifieds section at the time of launching- I think that’s sheer senselessness.
New Interface looks good , and will be looking forward to the delhi edition.
But 150000 Page Views/ Day sounds a little high, alexa says it has views just a little more than webyantra :). Maybe i shouldnt be trusting Alexa :).
Vikas,
Thats the figure that was shared with me. The figure looks believable to me.
From my experience, Alexa is not reliable for actual numbers but ts a reasonable indicator for the traffic trends.
amit
Great post Amit, youve got a knack for exposing these types of strategic things that are so important for everyone to understand. Been following these guys for quite some time and must agree. Out of all the rubbish we are seeing out there, these guys really shine. They are chipping away and I would not all be surprised if they are the one winner of the lot.
Even I think that they don’t get that many page views. I wrote a post about why I think so, which you can read here.
Basically, it’s more than what TechCrunch gets…. and that is why I can’t believe it.
Thats good, burrp ! Lets see how their new strategy goes. I am heading content development team at http://www.eventsinindia.com- The site is started by CMU alumini and is a very popular website in india as it is one stop shop to get the details of events. In the near future, we will introduce premium content like details of events, photographs and chit chat with events organiser.
Stay tuned !
Oops here is the right link:
http://www.eventsinindia.com
Sorry for double post !
Thanks Akhil, we are pushing ahead with our strategy coz more than anything else, we feel our users will appreciate our efforts.
As for those questioning our traffic – we are strong believers in the phrase “Build it, and they will come” only our version is “Build something useful, and they will come in droves!”
how did you take into account the countless RSS feeds that mike has on techcrunch? 150K pvs is nowhere near what techcrunch accurately receives. it only counts the pvs on the actual url.
Very nice review. I like your insight about the Organic growth for the new small startup.
I’m also not fan of Alexa, but it does give you some indicator.
@Sudhansu, Nice comparison.
Nice review. I did read about Burrp in a Businessworld issue. They seem to have a promising service to offer. Best Wishes to them.
Cheers,
R
Came across another interview of burrp here:
http://www.pluggd.in/2007/04/in-deep-conversation-with-deap-ubhi-of.html
They need to be thinking widgets – that’s real organic growth and it’s just a matter of syndication. You-tube style cut and paste code is all that they need to get other bloggers pushing their stuff out to the users.
Guruji needs to do the same thing…
Roj
yes alexa is joke i have hack for IE if we install it then rabk will increase easly
You could have given a link to Burrp atleast. Forcing the readers to type a URL by hand is not good. 🙂
And I read somewhere that Om Malik walks out of any presentation where Alexa traffic is used to validate the successful adoption of a portal. 🙂
Los Creador recently interviewed the founder of burrp.com, Mr. Deap Ubhi. From advice on being more capital efficient to starting his own venture fund, Deap shares it all. Read more about it at http://www.loscreador.com/2007/06/11/burrp-deap-ubhi-tells-lc-of-his-hunger-for-food-and-technology/
They can revamp all they want.. but Deap aka Saajan Ubhi and Anand Jain can’t take burrp very far.
They have betrayed their best friends, insulted their families and destroyed their own reputation so they can act like burrp founders.
Indians believes in keeping their word, dignity and respect. I could spit in both of their faces and they won’t have a word to say.
My 2 cents.
Who gives a shit about the cofounders, burrp is still the best site around.
Hey Paul, another thing that Indians believe in is SELF-respect…put your jealousy aside and stop crying…we are here to comment on the content, not to use this blog as your forum to unmask your own inadequacies…get a life!
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