The website allows users to navigate through a process of increasingly streamlined refinement, purely based on visuals. Simar Singh reportsThe struggle to find exactly what you want online is often very real. Looking to simplify this very problem, e-tailing giant Snapdeal, at a preview at their Okhla office introduced findmystyle.in, a fashion product discovery engine that works by allowing users to navigate through a process of increasingly streamlined refinement, purely based on visuals. The company’s Chief Product Officer, Anand Chandrasekaran, describing the engine as a “open technology playground” that could be used by in-house engineers and users alike, said, “The feature will further enhance customer experience and make online shopping faster, better and more informative. With the introduction of findmystyle.in, we are looking to create an experimental playground and set the base for our image modelling, product search and discovery technology.” The website which is now live, allows users to make an initial selection of the category they are looking to make a purchase in after which, all kinds of variations of styles pertaining to the selection are clustered together and presented, from this the narrowing down process starts. Once, the user likes a particular style, they have the option of viewing similar products and are eventually redirected to the product page on Snapdeal’s flagship e-store, where they can complete the purchase. “Different strokes for different folks”, says Chandrasekaran explaining the rationale behind the entire mechanism and its attempt to essentially visually assist where description on an indivitual level often fails. “I might like a dress at a party, so I know what I want but can’t really describe it,” he says adding that this was where visuals would help a user identify what they are looking for. Chandrasekaran hopes that findmystyle.in’s image based discovery model will help the company understand how offline behaviour finds itself online and how this can be recreated and accommodated in the overall shopping experience. There are no plans of integrating findmystyle.in with snapdeal.com as of now and Chandrasekaran hopes that the product will “find its own niche”. The company does have plans to prompt regular Snapdeal users to try findmystyle.in by featuring it on the flagship store, however, how this is to be enabled is still being worked out. The site has been developed at Snapdeal’s Multimedia Research Lab in Bangalore and is the brain child of research scientists Gaurav Aggarwal, Nikhil Rasiwasia and Deepthi Singh. The trio had earlier founded Fashiate, a tech start-up that was acquired by the Snapdeal in March this year. According to Chandrasekaran, this research lab will see an investment of $100 million in the next two to three years. Findmystyle.in will currently only be available on web, as this, according to Snapdeal, works best with their plans to use the platform as a playground where algorithms and use cases can be tested and quickly changed.
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Quirk. Kitsch. Pazaaz. These are the three words which define a fragment of the sensibilities and the personality of Indian's urban youth - a group who, while being immensely aspirational and ambitious, know how to not take themselves too seriously. BW Businessworld's Simar Singh explores some lifestyle brands in the country that cater to this segment: Mad(e) in IndiaThe wordplay on the term 'Made in India' perfectly captures the very essence of this brand. Mad(e) in India was launched in January 2013 by Pankaj Acharya, who describes the lifestyle brand as one that "celebrates the quirks, colours, spirit and mysticism of India and its people". Inherently vivid, while creating the products, storytelling takes centerstage. According to Acharya, since their launch, the company has seen a 100 per cent growth rate. Last year the company raked in Rs 2.65 crores and is targeting Rs 5.25 crore this year. The entire venture has been self-funded till date with a total of Rs 3.25 crore being put in. The brand works on a hybrid model that combines e-tailing with a brick and mortar presence. Mad(e) in India currently has three stores and 19 multi-brand outlets. Acharya adds, "Going forward we will be adopting the franchising route to expand our offline footprint." The products are designed by a six-member in-house design team and manufactured by contract vendors under the brand. "We have also forayed into the Singapore Market, where we have an in-store presence at India Heritage Centre and our products are available in almost all the major international airports through various outlets," says Acharya. "We have recently forayed into corporate gifting segment too and that's a fast growing vertical for us. The dream is to make it a 100 crore brand in next 3 years." When asked about what differentiates the brand, Acharya says, "We are not only kitschy and quirky. Each of our designs is unique and we have a structured approach to design towards story telling. Our designs and products are strategically approached to appeal to a wider section of society, from age group 15 to 60 years." What's next? The brand adds new categories to its offerings every quarter and will be adding the t-shirts, vases, personal accessories, and wall arts in coming quarter and targets to open around 20 more outlets and one flagship store within the next three years. Happily UnmarriedOne of the older kids on the block, Happily Unmarried was started in 2003 by Rajat Tuli and Rahul Anand, who then fresh out of B-school had trouble finding accommodation and things to do up their home. Frustrated, the duo settled on the name "Happily Unmarried" and decided to start a service that would help people in similar situations. "That time we were not very clear about what all would we do. So a name had to be such that it would let us do anything. Happily Unmarried worked beautifully, we started by providing accommodation and furniture on hire but that failed miserably. Simultaneously we also started designing products which had a desi cool vibe. No one was doing anything like that, so the response was good", says Tuli. Fun, puns and many head-turning products later, the brand today has has 85 employees, an in-house design team of 12 people and a presence in all major cities in the country. Of course it doesn't end here. "We keep coming out with new products all the time. We have a online presence which is growing at a really fast pace, so the immediate focus is to make that better. We have recently set up a fully-fledged tech team to take care of that", Tuli says, elaborating on what the company has on its plate at the moment. The two-pronged growth strategy is to be seen through increasing its online presence via its website and physical presence through franchising and multi-brand outlets. When asked about the brand's marketing strategy, he simply replied that it was making their customers happy. What's next? The company is launching a range of grooming products for men, something that, Tuli admits, they are very excited about. "One needs to keep innovating and coming out with new things to keep the customers excited. That is our strategy", he adds. PropShop24Over a session of Suits on a Sunday afternoon in March 2012, three friends, tired of the drudgery of their daily routines started brainstorming for possible business ideas and two days later, the idea PropShop24 was born, a one stop shop for a selection of curated gifting products from around the world. And in December that year the idea became a reality. Sourcing products from the USA, Thailand, Hong Kong and Israel which cover categories spanning home, office, personal, gadgets, bar and party, and fashion accessories.According to one of the co-founders, Amtosh Singh, the focus remains on design and quality, placing test orders before getting into distribution agreements and getting bulk shipments. "In 2014, we also launched our in-house design brand. Our brand now includes all kinds of stationery such as notebooks, planners, folders as well as other fashion and lifestyle products such as sunglasses, laptop sleeves, coffee mugs, make up pouches etc", says Singh. The company has been growing fast since its launch and Singh says that the growth can be solely attributed to the multiplication of their initial capital investment. While professing their love for the online space the company realises the need to cater to the consumer who is more comfortable physically examining a product before purchasing it. "Our new office is going to be unique, combining retail space with workspace. We have a showroom being built within the office space. Customers can walk in, have a cup of coffee with us, buy a few products and walk out. This give us the chance to interact with our customers on a face to face level as well as hopefully build loyalty and trust for the brand PropShop24 in the long run", says Singh. "Our tagline is 'curators of cool' and we try to stay as true to it as possible and we intend to continue to do that even as we expand", adds Singh. What's Next? The creation of the company's office-cum-retail space. PlayClanWith the simple idea of "making mundane magical", Himanshu Dogra started PlayClan in 2008, a brand inspired by "everyday observations and local culture". "Our designs are a fusion of graphics and craft, narrating stories through artistry in fashion, home, accessories and gifts", says Dogra. None of the items sold are sourced and all the designs are created in-house, produced in their own facilities for quality control and all of their eight the stores are self run. "Since the objective is to enjoy and have fun with the creative process, we called it Play and all the hands that the design passes thought is the Clan. Once we find a theme or a story that we would like to play with, we research and detail out mood-boards that are then the starting point of our artworks. They go through printing, hand embroidery, construction and weaving before they are finally sold from our stores", says Dogra, explaining the brand's ethos. The interesting thing is that the brand does not use any images or pictures in their designs at all. There is an attempt to reinterpret every theme which is then redrawn in a unique style that best complements the craft technique that is chosen. "We also supply our collection to museum stores and galleries internationally and have we have been doing exclusive collaborations with various brands and corporates to offer a customised design solution," says Dogra, naming Luxor, Mehrangarh Museum and Gwalior Museum as a few of their clients. What's next? The brand will be launching it's exclusive store in Kolkata this month.
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HomeLane.com had earlier raised $4.5 million as part of its Series A from Sequoia Capital and Aarin Capital. Vishal Krishna reportsThe online custom interior designing company HomeLane.com is scouting for $10 million, as part of its Series-B round, to expand operations across seven more cities in India. Currently it operates out of Chennai, Bangalore, Kochi, Hyderabad and Hyderabad. The money will be used in tying up with furniture factories across the country and creating a market for local interior designers. It's current run rate, in terms of revenues, for the financial year 2015-16 is expected to hit Rs 72 crore. It has already tied up with over 350 interior designers. There are 100,000 interior designers in India. "We are using technology such as virtual reality that creates immersive experiences through our product Kaleido lens to help interior designers win customers," says Srikanth Iyer, founder of HomeLane. He adds that the "real world" solution was to control the delivery ecosystem, which was the carpenters and electricians. "Designing is easy, we finish the projects within 45 days and it is our guarantee. The unorganised segment takes 3 months or more to deliver the interiors," says Srikanth. The furniture market is Rs 50,000 crore in size and only 2 per cent is organised. HomeLane.com had earlier raised $4.5 million as part of its Series A from Sequoia Capital and Aarin Capital. It was seed funded by K Ganesh, the serial entrepreneur who has also seed funded companies Bluestone.com and bigbasket.com.
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The deal size is pegged at $3 million but could not be verified, writes Paramita Chatterjee Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani is in advanced talks to invest in a two-year-old Bangalore-based start-up Mubble Networks Private Ltd, in his personal capacity, signaling a strong vote of confidence in the new breed of India's entrepreneurs. Talks are at an advanced stage and the deal is expected to close over the next few days, a person with direct knowledge of the development told BW. Mubble is a mobile first, India centric product in the telecom utility apps space. It is the first app in the world which automatically maintains a live prepaid bill for its users. The company was founded by three IIT engineer friends who have a strong background in marketing, analytics and mobile technology platforms. The Mubble app supports Indian operators across the country and is built for dual SIM phones. It works offline and what’s more, it is also available in all Indian languages – a true ‘made for India’ app! When contacted, Ashwin Ramaswamy, Co-Founder & CEO at Mubble Networks declined to divulge any details pertaining to the transaction. “Thank you for writing to us. We are in advanced stages of talks with various investors, and therefore, I am sorry that I will not be able to answer any of your questions for now,” he said over an email response. Nilekani, however, declined to comment on the story. Another person, an industry executive, pegged the deal size at $3 million. However, this could not be independently verified. The funds that the company is raising will help Mubble recruit talent. Currently the company has 12 employees including the 3 owners. So far, 2015 seems to be the year of startups with young entrepreneurs increasingly churning out winning ideas and attracting huge dollars in funding. In fact, investing in emerging businesses has opened up new entrepreneurial avenues for India Inc's head honchos as well who are now parking their personal wealth in startups. “While for startups, having senior executives on board obviously helps in gaining knowledge and strategic input, for industrialists and corporate honchos it gives an opportunity to bolster entrepreneurship,” said Raja Lahiri, partner at advisory firm Grant Thornton. Recently, Ratan Tata, chairman emeritus of Tata Sons, invested in taxi firm Ola in his personal capacity, while Nilekani was in news for his Rs 100 crore investment along with billionaire investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala in an entity that owns Café Coffee Day. Also, in the risk capital market, there is growing chatter that venture market is the place to watch out for. In the first half of the current calendar year, as many as 363 venture capital deals were sealed, three times more than the number of private equity deals, which stood at 99, as per data available with Grant Thornton.
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Mohandas Pai, the hot shot ex-chief financial officer of Infosys, minces no words. After taking over as chairman of the board at Manipal Global Education Services, he has dedicated a majority of his time to startups commenting on their current affairs and has become a self-confessed constitutional liberal fundamentalist. He believes that Article 29 and 30, which protect the interests of the minority, have been wrongly used by the political class to divide the country’s majority. He says that the political class should instead focus on providing 300 million jobs and adds that if India does not wake up to skilling individuals or providing them jobs then “we are sitting on a gunpowder keg, which can explode any time and destroy the social structure of this country.”Somewhere in the depths of his outspoken demeanour, he has also been, like other Infosyians, vociferous about setting up an ecosystem for startups to list in India and also raise money with reduced tax structures. Indian companies today are constrained by regulation and are “behind the curve”, since the wealthy are scared to invest because of tax implications, when it comes to global capital. He is also part of a government committee on road transport that aims to use technology to improve services for businesses and citizen. He has also set up a Rs 600 crore startup fund along with Ranjan Pai, the chairman of the Manipal Group, and has invested in a dozen odd startups.Mohandas Pai has an opinion on everything and constructs his argument pertinently. “The Competition Commission of India should look at the way discounting is done in e-commerce companies. Gross merchandise value is not a good measure to determine the success of these businesses,” says Pai in an interview with BW|Businessworld. He adds that such a measurement is a “fraud”.However, being the capitalist that he is, he adds that this business is here to stay. He agrees that these Indian companies must realise that being dependent on foreign funding can ultimately result in them shutting down if there is another business that can raise an equal amount of money and start discounting. “The consumer will always move to where there is more discounting,” he says. And this has already happened with Amazon announcing a $5 billion war chest to take on Indian startups Flipkart and Snapdeal. Pai believes that if Indian sellers are asked to sell at discounts then there is no one other than the consumer benefiting. Take away discounts and one would know how this industry really functions. That said Indian startups need patient long-term capital from within the country to help them succeed. “I see startups providing three million jobs in a decade and creating a value of $500 billion,” says Pai. However, for this to happen, the government should give startups support in terms of infrastructure, finance and information from the policy level, for this to become a long-term play. He says that India has plenty of problems to solve internally and startups can intervene with technology and services. India needs disruption in supply chain, health, education, financial inclusion and skill development. The reality, however, is that 60 per cent of startups will perish and the remaining 40 per cent will become global innovators. The smartphone has changed the game in favour of consumption and will eventually become a source of information for all kinds of services. “Today, there is obscene valuations following not so great ideas. It is absurd to see why only those who can raise large money survive. It looks very oligopolistic,” says Pai. India is dependent on a clutch of foreign private equity funds for the growth of its startup economy. He also discusses issues such as data sovereignty, where the data of Indian consumers is sitting on the servers of global corporations. “What is the Indian government doing in terms of this snooping that is happening in the West? The Prime Minister’s Twitter handle’s data is sitting somewhere else. We still have the mental moorings of being a colony.” He also takes a dig at net neutrality and suggests that it should be in favour of consumers and not companies that use free data and accumulate consumer traffic, through the telco networks. He says that Telcos behaving like “bullies” is not going to solve the purpose. These days, however, he is on the lookout for companies in the internet of things (IoT) industry. If Indian manufacturing can embrace IoT, then production lines can be automated, which will hasten the Make in India initiative. However, the conundrum is that with automation fewer people will be employed. So the opportunity is in building talent in services such as analytics, retail, supply chain and transportation. He warns that extreme poverty and lack of jobs will lead to the growth of evangelism (monotheism), which eventually will kill liberal education and scientific thought processes. No wonder India is a land of opportunity and a land of extremes.“Let us not light the powder keg or at least cut the fuse.”— Vishal Krishna(This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 24-08-2015)
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Ventureast is perhaps the oldest fund house in India. It has been around since the mid-nineties, and is in its fourth stage of funding Indian entrepreneurs. They have made a Rs 550-crore bet on Life Sciences and is in the process of pumping in another Rs 600 crore in the sector. The remaining Rs 1600 crore of the fund’s corpus has gone into investments in technology, distribution, agriculture and infrastructure companies. The fund is also betting on clean environment. It has invested in interesting ideas such as Central Parking Services (CPS), a tech enabled parking management company, 24LetterMantra, an organic food company, and Bharat Light and Power, a solar infrastructure management company. Sarath Naru, the Managing Partner of Ventureast, says in an interview with BW|Businessworld's Vishal Krishna the risk taking abilities of Indian entrepreneurs have gone up significantly because of the availability of seed capital. However, Sarath believes that Indian entrepreneurs need to build technology businesses that could solve problems related to consumption; such as connecting hyper local retailers to the supply chain and to the factories with a consumer play. Amidst the investment buzz in India, Sarath believes, the general rule of investing in ideas remains, which he means that only a third of the portfolio companies would become extremely successful companies. Ventureast has until now invested in over 80 companies.Here are the excerpts of the interview. What is the current idea behind investing?Seeing the current state of affairs in the e-tail sector, let me quote from Guy Kawaski. It goes back to the previous internet bubble in 2001. His comment was that "I am praying every day for the next bubble to come because I know now what I am going to do". We have seen bubbles and the entrepreneur in us wants to cut it fine because we do not want to miss out on the opportunity. It’s a repeat of the previous peak and we can be talk about winners and losers. In the end of the day the question remains have people created value? That is the way we look at it. By and large we are always moving forward with value creation. There will be transfer of wealth. From a strategy perspective, how do we look at it? We constantly track companies and we are trying to find the best companies before the foreign funds back a startup. There are businesses which will be generic businesses and market places. Market places will be very difficult to build because of the generic nature of the business. The one with the muscle will win. Its winner takes all market. Market share is not the only variable to success. There are good lessons and bad lessons. Many entrepreneurs can raise Series A and get stuck after that. These guys have to restart their lives. It is the nature of the game that they have got in to. What is the new internet business?Businesses that need capital are generic and on a horizontal platform. It is like land grab. Here the entrepreneur is taking a huge risk. The early investors need to take that risk and have to ask themselves if they have the ability to convince large funds to take a bet on their company. We take small bets. Our thesis is that we need to look at companies that have a lifetime for profitability. The next set of businesses is integrated to the real world, where we see they have competitive advantage in product delivery. A combination of real world and the internet is all we are seeing. You need something more than capital in these business cases. Ventureast is looking at B2B, B2B2C. Full stack businesses that look at real world integration. India is a cash economy and companies need to solve this problem of accepting payments in cash. We must use the internet to scale, but the delivery is a real world problem that companies must solve this. One needs to control the experience. The furniture etailers is something that needs a full stack. If someone can solve the experience then it makes great sense to invest in these customers. Can they customise furniture? This is the real world problem that can be solved. It can be solved by working with designers and manufacturers. Now is the time for such businesses. What kind of businesses that use technology can add value in India?The handyman market is there. About eight years ago we worked with ProHandyman, the entrepreneur had a brilliant customer acquisition model, he had a door to door model of selling where he would tie in with Croma and gets a contract to service consumers. The entrepreneur’s problem was with execution of getting the plumber or a carpenter to the home on time. It was a hub and spoke model in Bangalore and Chennai. At least now the acquisition problem is solved and we need to crack the service part. Handyman service is very protocol driven and technology should track every activity and process. There are consumer services which technology can solve. Take for example Portea, about a third of the consumers need nursing and physiotherapy. The delivery has been done with smartphones. Solving the technology part is easier; it is the cultural part that is difficult. Can these individuals who are professional nurses make it on time to the destination of the consumers and follow processes. Again we come back to the real world delivery problems. We are looking at a company that allows patients to connect with doctors for surgeries. Hospitals have changed their mode of operations, they are providing infrastructure only. The doctors have to pull patients today. If technology can play a role here then it is a good business to look at. We would like to seed such a company, about $1.5 million is going in. Hospitals have built too much capacity and they need to utilise it. These internet companies can help these hospitals get more patients for surgeries. A patient’s family spends more on the first two days of the surgery and the hospitals want to bring the average length of stay down to increase revenues. Portea has signed up with Manipal to continue monitoring the patient after surgeries. The company makes sure that the person goes home at the right time. The insurance companies are happy because it is data and are happy that people are cared at home rather than a hospital. We had several telemedicine companies in the past and not many came through. The hand-held phone has changed the way you can do diagnostics. The device play is meant for specificity and accuracy of data being collected. Scanning pictures and sending it from remote areas. There is a point of care solution for the company that we have invested in. It is an exciting company. What about skill development as a business?The biggest challenge is no one gives value for certificates. Imagine you getting paid the same salary even after having a qualification, although you have better skills. This is difficult to solve because the companies that employ such individuals need to set a clear path for these individuals. The first wave of course was BPOs and call centres. We skilled so many people and there was too much supply. I think education is a space we still have not found a company that makes a different. But there is a lot of interest from entrepreneurs who want to give back to society in terms of skill development. India will continue to have opportunities for disintermediation, can we make people self employed by using technology and finance. There is also a case for startups that are getting in to financing of small businesses in rural regions. This is a service that can use information and services. What about manufacturing, design and retail services?Make in India has two or three elements to it. India cannot compete with China in scale, investors cannot get into companies that are playing the price game and we need to find companies that can be unique in intellectual property. Clearly we have missed the bus in manufacturing. However, Ventureast is betting on design services and have a portfolio company. In retail there is a play for entrepreneurs in build cloud based services to connect FMCG and Kiranas or small stores. We have already met such a company. The ideas that are coming to the table today are certainly better. Life Sciences is an industry that we will bet on going forward.
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An educational technology start-up, founded by three Indians and a German student in a US university, has received a whopping $100,000 funding from a private investor. CampusKnot, the online educational hub founded by three Indian students Rahul Gopal, Hiten Patel and Perceus Mody, and German student Katja Walter at Mississippi State University, has been designed to increase collaboration among faculty and students. The $100,000 funding by an unnamed investor from the Gulf Coast, has set a record for private investment in a student-run start-up at the MSU, Clarion-Ledger newspaper reported. Free to users, the site is a clearinghouse for schedules, assignments and other academic events. It also offers a marketplace for textbooks, including a feature making them searchable by title, subject and author's name. CampusKnot debuted in 2013. Since then, creators spent two years refining their project at MSU's Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation in the College of Business. Gopal and his co-founders hope that the CampusKnot eventually will serve as a single site for students to easily reach teachers and classmates, residence halls and student organisations -- plus offer space for faculty to post course syllabi and related academic material. The completed site would also allow students to access automated calendars based on their network groups. Gopal is a senior aerospace engineering major while Patel graduated from MSU in 2013 with a degree in information systems and is pursuing a second degree in marketing. Mody is a senior majoring in medical technology while Walter graduated in May with a degree in art and graphic design. Though still in a testing phase, the company currently is recruiting student leaders and faculty members to form focus groups for a soft launch of the site this fall. "We are not looking to have a job; we are looking at creating jobs and helping to solve educational problems," Patel said.
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Ability to quickly get a customer on board, scale at will and deliver a performant system will determine how you set yourself apart from others, writes Rahul JoshiRecently I was part of a spirited discussion with my fellow partners and advisors on positioning one of our products. Question at the table was who is your target customer for what you have built? We had launched a couple of products as part of our business software application suit. Coming from a technical background, our focus from beginning was to ensure our software covers all the business processes that an organization may come across. Over a period of time as we kept getting to know about scenarios not addressed by our software goal was to quickly turn around and account for it. In the quest of not coming across as lacking, improvements to the product preferring efficiency of speed over design were a priority. Soon it grew richer in function and feature which we could boast to show the depth in our product line. However it had a down side the way we approached it. Support and maintenance grew significantly for things that could be termed as “bolted on” to the product over the course of time. When few well-wishers with a business mind started asking questions as to, “Who are your primary customers”? “What core business problem you are trying to solve for them?” that forced us to re-think our strategy of being everything for everyone. Although this seems obvious in hindsight, however it wasn’t until we experienced it that it came to full realization. In fact offering everything under the sunis something startups should diligently avoid. It does not make sense from a cost perspective either where your financial resources are always constrained. There are several advantages to knowing the space you are going to operate in. To start with, it helps narrow down your competition. With a well-defined set you can do a better job of competitive analysis. We would often go in and pitch our entire list of features and functions. Lot of money and time was spent on it so we wanted to let the prospect know we have it. However it would discourage some prospective customers who were looking for only a subset of what we had to offer. It created a perception that since it has so many things it would be expensive than the other guy. Of course ultimately we also had to compete on the price with the other players who had limited functionality but covered the customer’s needs. The flip side was also true with large deployments. We matched the requirement but it carried the risk of coming up short in terms of showcasing it as a platform that can adapt to changing business needs. Knowing who you are building it for also helps set up and align your internal teams. Hiring the right technical skills, identifying appropriate technology platform, identifying early customers all can be determined accordingly. If targeting a common problem for which a solution is offered at low prices, one needs to capture a larger share of the market. It’s a volume business. Ability to quickly get a customer on board, scale at will and deliver a performant system will determine how you set yourself apart from others. On the other hand in a niche area where it is solving a critical business problem, precision and reliability may take precedence over other factors. It is an attractive proposition for investors as well to see a product targeted to a specific market as it helps gauge the potential and thereby their return on investment. A business in consumer retail that appeals globally has criteria on how it’s valued while a B2B business that caters to niche industry has its own way of determining what constitutes a good rate of return on investment. It goes a long way when you can clearly convey what it is that you do and how you can help my business. Not only does it showcase expertise in this area but also that you believe in it strongly to justify all the time and resources you have thrown at it. It gives the customer confidence that they will not be left alone when they sign up for your product. Figuring out your target customer is not just true with software where I first experienced it. The same principle applies to almost any other product. If you are running an e-commerce site dedicated to a specific area may it be apparel, crafts, electronics or any other, due diligence must be done on your target customer. Is it about affordable products or making a fashion statement? Is it about consumers who are early adapters of technology or is it about folks who are looking for well proven products and the experience it provides? For one of the e-commerce sites I am associated with, we are often tempted to carry products which complement our offering. They are very appealing and believe will be well liked. However, the test it has to pass is does it fit the overall theme and nature of the products we say we offer and our customers expect of us? Too much deviation and you may start diluting the very brand you are looking to build. There is no right or wrong option. There is a market to be served in each case, however you must choose. “Indeed we are in this market” is an excellent choice. “We chose not to be in this market segment” is wonderful as well. However “we cater to all segments” may leave you with a short runway, often knocked down by the established players in each segment. Where does your product stand? Now is the time to choose. The author, Rahul Joshi, is a start-up entrepreneur and founder of nectarfarm.com
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