Category Archives: Products

The Biggest Innovations never solved any problem!

Being an entrepreneur is exciting. And one question you hear often is – “What is the consumer problem that you are trying to solve?”

We try to reserve our weekend lunches for some awesome conversations over products, companies and where the world is heading in connected world. Last Saturday, Anupam Mittal (Founder & CEO of People Group, Entrepreneur behind Shaadi.com), my co-founder and myself discussed this over lunch – “Did Google or Facebook solved any consumer problem?”

Our interaction inspired me to write this post –

Solving a problem and creating a market are two different ways to look at any company or any product idea. Products or Companies that solve a problem are the Million dollar companies, while products or individuals who look at the industry from a radically different approach – are the most disruptive, innovative and create Billion dollar opportunities as they grow.

My conclusions were –
– The biggest innovations never solved any consumer problem
– The founders or entrepreneurs had a different approach to the industry
– In almost all cases, the entrepreneurs did not belong to the industry, had little or no experience in that industry.

Further thoughts are embedded in this SlideShare presentation –

Biggest Innovations Never Solved Any Problem

View more presentations from P J

Have a different approach. Think different!

Why Foursquare is better for Local Businesses than Groupon

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While Groupon has redefined local business and is in news for its fastest billion dollar revenue + its $700 Mn IPO, from a long term perspective I think Foursquare is a far better bet than Groupon.

Some of the many criticisms of Groupon –

Socially unconnected users
Concerns on validity of Business Model, just 3 years and now a IPO
Merchant side issues – 75% discount on products
Not much metrics available for merchants, no user contact information
Are new consumers acquired or are they deal seekers only
No technology barrier, 100s of Groupon clones have hit across the Globe
Though not many players are as large as Groupon, LivingSocial; Merchants have a choice
Intensive feet on street business with huge sales force.
Groupon Now – merchants are able to create own deals through Groupon

Take case of Foursquare – they could possibly over throw Groupon.

My contention is that any platform and service that can empower merchants to run business and acquire consumers (new/repeat) will be able to overthrow Groupon in long run. While Groupon clearly demonstrates that local deals work, Foursquare has the technology & product to take it to the next level and give a tough competition to Groupon where it hurts most – at supply side (Merchants or Local Business Owners).

The biggest ‘cry’ we hear against Groupon is merchants complaining – its only the existing customers who use Groupon coupons for deals, and new consumers are not acquired/retained.

On the other hand, Foursquare –

As a product, consumers checkin at all locations and businesses (small, local & large)
Foursquare need to move beyond check-ins for two reasons
> In sometime real consumers (not technology savvy early adopters) will not find value in badges & points.
> Foursquare will need to have a monetization model that works!

Foursquare has valuable insights about users for the merchants – people who have checked in. They just need to quickly enable self-serve platform for business owners with a global sales footprint.

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Foursquare can just topple off Groupon and with its solution for merchants that covers every pain they have with Daily Deals services like Groupon, Living Social and 1000 others only for one reason – Business owners know who are new/repeat customers

They can enable deals for individually and for specific type of customers
> Consumers who check-in for first time
> Repeat & Regular customers
> Consumers who have not checked-in since last 30 days
Decide what deal goes live when based on user interest, inventory available, and so on

More than that, they can –

Decide how much discount they should offer. To whom.
Take private feedbacks from customers on service
Push deals to customers on special occasions like birthdays & more
Pass on details about business Facebook & Twitter presence to customers – so that they can stay connected.
Analytics – who checks in, cost of acquisition of new customers, competition overview in same location

And most importantly – Foursquare should give ability to businesses to generate coupons, pass on to consumers in vicinity or existing customers which users can redeem immediately.

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In short – daily deals websites exploits local merchants. Foursquare can empower them!

The pitfall – Foursquare does not have a global sales footprint to enable this. Though technology savvy merchants back in US might adopt it, the business would scale when 1000s of merchants across the world are able to enable it. But again, thanks to the 8 Mn+ users – Foursquare already knows which businesses are popular and when they should start.

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If I had a million dollars and choice to invest in Groupon or Foursquare – i would surely bet on Foursquare!

My Prediction – Groupon or some player who has intention to venture big in local deals space will eventually acquire Foursquare or a majority stake.

Isn’t it time to re-look how TRPs are measured?

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This post is dedicated to John Wanamaker, credited for setting advertising standards and considered by few as father of advertising. John Wanamaker died in 1922. Had John lived today – he would have some interesting quotes to share on RoI in digital advertising.

This post is inspired by one of his very famous quotes – “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.”

The term RoI became a buzz word ever since Digital advertising started to gain prominence in last few years. Talk to any brand manager today on digital spends through any channel – Search, Social, Display or Email – his quick conclusion on effectiveness of any campaign will be based on ROI.

Pitch any campaign today on Digital – both Brand Manager and the Digital Marketer sound no less than a Investment Banker trying to advice its client on a multi-million dollar deal discussing on its investment, profitability and more. The same Brand Manager or Media Buyer will simply look at TRPs of any channel/program and allocate about 50% of its media spends to Television, distribute a significant chunk between Outdoors, Newspapers, Radio and leave a minuscule 5%-10% to Digital.

Well, this post is not about how Digital Medium today is perceived as ROI driven, this is very unlikely to change in coming years. The question to raise is – isn’t it time to re-look how TRP ratings are measured rather than blindly accepting the reports as provided.

First – to know more about what is TRP and how they are measured using people meters – read this excellent post on Television Point.

For those who have not seen a People Meter – here is one below:

credit: image source

Here are some questions usually asked about the authenticity of TRP ratings –

In India – TRP People Meters are installed only in 16 cities across 9 states; Less than 10,000 people meters are installed – would they be good enough to reflect insights on Television Viewership of a country as large and diverse in demographics & culture as India?
There is little or no transparency on number of households with People Meters installed, techniques of data collection & interpretation, and how the data is extrapolated to whole population. Are there any validations if the meters were correctly operated and data collected the way it should have been?
People Meters were always perceived as expensive devices since invention; with advancements in technology – why have the People Meters not proliferated to a wider reach.
Is there any control by Government authorities on collection of this data and authenticity of same.
How will any marketer, advertiser or broadcaster challenge authenticity of the weekly TRP ratings released.

And in world of digital economy, let me add few more questions to above arguments –

Now people are socially connected through social networks, it is very difficult to spot people who mention they have subscribed to People Meters.
On Google’s image global index – there are not many images when you search for “people meter”.

In todays world anything that happens in offline world leaves a footprint online. Absence of digital footprint for “people meter” wants me to question the proliferation of such devices in real world.

The DTH Effect –

Direct-to-Home (DTH) or Satellite Televisions are today immensely popular amongst masses. In India – its reach is 20 Million households in 2010; and India is expected be the world leader in DTH subscriptions. 20 Million would be a better representation of viewership data – compared to the dismal < 10,000 people meters installed by TAM in India.

aMap works with DTH service providers – but it is unlikely to capture data across all subscribers and might be following the people meter approach. Brand Managers are believed to be more inclined towards TRP ratings provided by TAM for decision making while aMap ratings are for reference.

Its most unfortunate if DTH platforms are unable to track viewership data. Thats like Air Traffic Controllers saying – there are 500 planes in skies today – we are unaware of their origins & destinations, can confirm with pilots only when they land.

TRP Measurement – Its time to Change!

Fundamentally – People Meter approach will always be poor representation of the population. As spends on digital media start increasing and reaches a critical mass, sooner or later TRP measurement will be questioned by same decision makers who accept it blindly today.

Fortunately or Unfortunately, the future of TRP & GRP measurement is digital. Existing global players like Nielson, TNS, & others involved need to look beyond people meters and embrace the medium.

Here is overview of how possibly TRPs will be measured in digital world –

Develop applications across digital channels – Internet, Mobile (Java, iOS, Blackberry, Android, Symbian and others)
For every location (geo by country / location) – populate information stream of programs currently broadcasted at that time.
Allow users to select the programs they viewed and report the same back to the measuring system through the applications.
User demographics will known at time of App-Registration.

There are ways to authenticate user viewership patterns. Instead of focusing on data collection through people meters, with same efforts & resources – it will be possible to crowdsource viewer-ship data for programs and channels across millions of users – all in real time.

Future Prediction – by the year 2022 (exactly 100 years after John Wanamaker died) – people meters and traditional TRP measuring practices will be obsolete. They will be measured through digital medium! John Wanamaker would have proudly said – “Thanks to Digital, I know exactly which half of my advertising money is wasted!”

Absolute Selfish self-promotion –

I future-gaze based on trends in consumer internet, user acceptance of technology innovations and its impact on lives of people.

My thoughts on Future of Television have been well received and acclaimed by a few users who took notice. Beyond which I have no expertise/experience in Television Domain.

Username or Email Id – Just figure it out

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Naukri & Monster, I respect both – as a service and as a product.

They both must have (and continue to) contributed to careers of many people in India. Awesome products – though I always wished their search worked better. This post is not about search – but how even big and highly used products overlook simple usability and product management basics.

Have noticed this repeatedly and wondered – why do both (Naukri & Monster) provide option to users for selecting login credentials between username & email address? Isn’t it really simple to decipher on-the-fly if the details entered by user is/is-not a email address – a email address will always contain “@” sign or a “.com” or some domain suffix?

Other critical mistakes –

Naukri – Homepage just missed out in labeling and pointing out the Password text-box completely. Although, it is a web standard that after Login text-box the next logical text-box is for Password; Don’t recollect seeing any other website which has taken this assumption for granted.
Monster – Why not provide users options to login from its homepage itself rather than taking them to different page to login. It is consumer service, or is Monster not expecting frequent repeat usage.

Takeaways – Don’t over look the basics.

Social Commerce is Simple

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Social Commerce is Simple. Here is how you solve it in 24 hours!

The Context of this post: Have been hearing & participating in some awesome conversations lately about Social Commerce. Someone explained me this – Transactional eCommerce is Big. Social media is where all users are today, it is already very Big.

So, Social + eCommerce = Social Commerce = Very very big!

Hence there is lot of interest today in products and platforms that are trying to bridge the gap. Analysts are predicting that its the next big thing and stating it is reaching its inflection point.

Completely agree with all that. But Social Commerce is simple, here is how you solve it.

Social commerce is Simple

View more presentations from P J.

Oooops, btw did I tell you that more than $50 Million has been invested till date to solve this Social Commerce problem that merchants can do it themselves in less than 24 hours!

The following text is not included in above presentation.

Some key insights for players in Social Commerce:

Existing ecosystem of eCommerce and Social Media is sufficient for building a Social Commerce without intermediation of players who do not add any value.

It will be difficult for a:

Existing social player to exploit potential of social commerce by introducing a new ecommerce service
(Facebook or Twitter trying to build a Amazon)
Existing ecommerce player to exploit potential of social commerce by introducing a new social service.
(Amazon trying to build a Facebook or Twitter)

Most current players who are trying to build solutions are concentrating on building their own ecosystem of users & products – which is not impossible but extremely challenging. Reason being – such players do not own the products or the users (users that have more tight social connections as on Facebook & Twitter)

Unless a third situation happens – someone builds a valuable middle layer that provides affinity to both – social & commerce. As an platform in this case you need to provide enough value to users (either users from Social Media or users from eCommerce).

One such promising player is FourSquare. They add a new value of – “checking in” to its users that are socially connected. Their current efforts are concentrated on getting these Social Connections to checkin to venues – which is demonstrated by its 6Mn+ users.

For purpose of this presentation I have kept other Social Models out –

Foursquare: Because its reach is still 1% compared to Facebook’s 600 Million users.
Groupon: It is a commerce player, but not social player. Groupon is not user engagement – view Fred Wilson’s comments here: http://t.co/p78buu0

Drop me a mail, Available for Coffee and endless Product Management Conversations on weekends 🙂

Predictions – Biggest Exits in Indian Internet Space in coming years

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There would be multiple Consolidations, Mergers, Change of Strategies by lot of VC-invested companies by 2015.
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Product based eCommerce companies:
Lot of interest seen in recent times by VCs. LetsBuy, Snapdeal, FashionAndYou, Flipkart, and so on, Infibeam as well (though still not part of any portfolio yet). Future of eCommerce companies will depend completely on two factors:

– Internet penetration in India > 200 Mn by that time
– Improvement in eCommerce transactions (Infrastructure + User Comfort)

The rate at which investments are made are much higher than rate of growth of both the factors mentioned above – which in a way may be good – as all invested companies will act as catalyst in growth and get new set consumers on-board.

If we see an IPO exit for atleast one of product based eCommerce companies that will be awesome; One or Two VCs in India (without naming any here) have been actively investing in eCommerce space. There may be a very high possibility that they may merge two or more portfolio companies to form an large entity, which may be just a good acquisition target for Amazon or an IPO exit.
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Group Buying companies:
Was surprised (like many others?) with GroupOn‘s decision of acquiring SoSasta. There are established players in Group Buying space, I’m sure GroupOn has seen some merit and synergies. For existing leading players like SnapDeal, Deals and You and Taggle – they will continue to grow and have to.

Possible exit for them will be Google (since they are starting with Google Offers) or an acquisition by eBay; or maybe GroupOn India may now want to expand presence with one more acquisition. Not to forget that LivingSocial will also come knocking. Now that eBay has ventured into Group Buying space – it has much higher accountability as deals are now served by eBay and not marketplace. eBay India may acquire someone if they decide to have an experienced them to execute this business vertical.

Expect one very large player to enter Group Buying space in next 1-2 months, if well executed – in all probability it may give tough challenge to current market leaders.

Unfortunately many small players will hit the dead pool (few of them have already) due to execution challenges, expansion costs, and lack of operating revenues to keep going as the model is very easy to replicate, but not easy to scale with thin-margins and high acquisition cost.
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Online Travel Companies:
Clear IPOs for Yatra & Cleartrip. Will be great exit for all invested players. GoIbibo and ezeego1 are also leading players in travel domain – Goibibo’s exit may depend on ibibo’s overall plans, ezeego1 may raise capital through markets directly bypassing VC route.

Redbus is promising, they are very high on number of transactions – ticket size may be lower compared to Airline tickets, but % margins will be definitely higher. In all probabilities – Redbus may too hit an IPO or will be an acquisition target for Yatra or Cleartrip (listed travel companies by then as MakeMyTrip has acquired Ticketvala)

I hope someone in Indian Government thinks of the opportunity of listing IRCTC on stock markets.
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Ticketing eCommerce:
BookMyShow will expand to more geographies – they have presence in Malaysia & New Zealand. To get to more such markets, they will require more capital – further investment and definite IPO candidate. Reliance ADAG is trying to make it big in entertainment through BIG – they might knock doors.
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Technology Companies:
Pubmatic (industry’s first yield optimization player) may get acquired in few years. It faces good competition from AdMeld & Rubicon Project, however none of these yield companies are focusing on small publishers (the long tail) which may be the key to larger success.

iYogi by all speculation is IPO bound. Slideshare is leading in its segment and may be a great exit story. Fusion Charts is another one that may be acquired for technology and customers; and so is Martjack.
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Advertising Networks:
Existing players – Tyroo, Komli, Ozone Media, AdMagnet and others. Do not forecast a immediate exit for these players – the number of players in this segment has been same for long time (no new entrants) – and otherwise too existing players seem to looking outside of India, are they hinting saturation of market? The frequency of acquisitions of pure advt-networks has decreased outside India (no big news in so many months?).

There is no distinct advantage over each other and offerings (if Vizisense is treated as product outside of Advt-Network). Would have been great to see an situation like AdMax Network (owns up majority market share in countries they operate – very tough competition to Google as they have leveraged on local language audience which is majority).

Google has played a flattener by opening up its unlimited inventory on Doubleclick exchange through Google Certified AdNetworks program. Post which the publisher development story may have taken some hit, but wondering why have not the Indian Advt Networks integrated on Google’s Doubleclick exchange yet – expand you publisher network!

InMobi which is now the largest mobile advt network (outside of Google/AdMob) – maybe one of the biggest exits through Nasdaq IPO. There is no immediate need for Google to buy another mobile advt network – that leaves IPO as only logical exit unless AOL, Yahoo or Microsoft realize that they haven’t looked at the mobile monetization business seriously.
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Matrimony Portals:
BharatMatrimony (Consim Group) would be going for IPO in coming times. Not aware of any investors in Shaadi.com (although there are in Mauj & Fropper), if business is profitable and there are no investor pressures – unlikely to see an IPO from them (at least before BharatMatrimony).

Read somewhere that Jeevansathi has abandoned markets in South India (not sure of this), however its already a part of listed InfoEdge group, spin-off very unlikely as numbers are reported as part of InfoEdge.
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No Clear Exits:
SMS GupShup, Guruji, mCommerce companies (PayMate, mChek and others) are few companies I am not convinced of having an clear exit strategy. (Someone do throw light on this)
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Promising Startups:
The next wave of promising startups in India will be product-driven companies. Although the eco-system to fast acceptance of technology products is not so strong right now – it will be in coming years. Emergence of interesting start-ups like Practo, Zaakpay, Grexit, emo2, Workasaur are first steps in that direction.
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Hoping to see many success in next 5 years! Best Wishes
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This opinion was posted originally as an answer on Quora at: http://www.quora.com/Which-Indian-internet-company-will-have-the-biggest-exit-by-2015

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Category Archives: Products

The Biggest Innovations never solved any problem!

Isn’t it time to re-look how TRPs are measured?

Username or Email Id – Just figure it out

Why LinkedIn should acquire Quora

Adapting to how consumers think offline (in real world)