This seems to be buzzword in today’s web 2.0 scenario. We could see the mushrooming of social networking sites that are positioned for college goers, women, old age people, and may be to gay and lesbian (I’m not sure on this).
These sites provide tremendous opportunity for people to find new friends, enjoy time with people by getting date, even finding people for their business, people to sell their products and for satisfying day to day aspects in their life.
This space creates huge opportunity for intelligent guys who could possibly come out with innovative business model that could change the way we do day today things. Youtube is one of the greatest examples of this. This has certainly changed the way we think about our personal videos that could be shared online. It has really stood up against powerful competitors and eventually got acquired by Google for approx $1.65Billion.
Myspace is another example, but unfortunately founders of myspace couldn’t make killer compared to youtube (Even though it got sold around $565 million, analysts believe that it has more potential), but they made substantial returns. We knew the story of Facebook founder Mark Zuckberg, a young genius who refused billion dollar acquisition proposal from Yahoo (How many of us have the guts and confidence to reject this mind boggling offer). And Ofcourse there is flickr and another killer www.last.fm. Its software creates a personalized streaming radio station based on the digital music you already listen to, shares your playlists on the Web, and suggests music from other closely related playlists.
Americans are traditionally strong in founding brilliant tech companies that use to have innovative model with great business viability. So why not Indian minds couldn’t come up with the model that could eventually make millions for its founders. There might be lot of reasons behind this. May be, innovative model in this space might have been unleashed by the likes of facebook, Orkut (Not a brilliant site, but having good market share in India) and others who’re already in this business. I’m very much confident that there is huge talent, Infact genius minds available in India that could possibly works in order to bring unbelievable model that could have ubiquitous place in the history of web 2.0 culture.
www.slideshare.net is one of the brilliant examples of innovative model. It’s an online PPT sharing site which is definitely having the potential to become another blogger and wordpress. I don’t know how they’re going to commercialize it, but it’s definitely an innovative model from Indian Entrepreneurs.
We need online community that could provide support for Indian start ups to large extent. There is no doubt that there are numerous sites like venturewoods, startups.in that are providing support for them, but we need extensive support for start ups. There are lots of sites that are there in United States, but we don’t have any great site that could be helpful for startups. Startups need advice from great guys viz., Alok, Mahesh Murthy, and others. There are infact numerous intelligent people who’d be having tremendous experience in various sectors. We need online community that could connect and work for both of them. There are really quality people who would work for equity, who could work freelance and could effectively contribute for startups.
We need to create trust between persons engaged in this noble issue of building startups. It’s difficult, but it’s quite possible. There might be site in waiting that could really connect experienced guys with start ups. Who knows, because Indians always springs up with surprise like recent missile announcement by DRDO? I’m not kidding!
- APPLE – Mind Blowing Facts - January 26, 2012
- Its Black Magic Stupid! - March 24, 2009
- Funny Sites - July 25, 2007
You might want to check out – its an upcoming blog/site which interviews (and reviews) indian startups and has got some good content too.
i don’t agree with you rohit. I am an ex-entrepreneur and believe me we had hard time in getting things right. There is definitely a shortage of advice and mentors. Our senior never started company. Then how can you expect junior to know how to build a successful company and come up a stellar idea. Our company was incubated at IIT Delhi and no one knows there how to build the next youtube. You get all sorts of wrong advice from in-experienced people. After my frustrating startup experience, i left india. My advice to all young people, don’t rush to open a company in india, because no one is going to help you the day you start your company. Better go to valley and start there. Rather than writing inspiring blogs, please publish on data how many angels investments have been till date in startups with no revenues. I guess the answer will be zero. And then compare this with valley and you see the difference.
Techtribe is a great platform to connect with budding entrepreneurs and to learn from other people’s experiences and all.
The only problem : People are not ready to contribute and are only looking for their own gains.
People need to understand that gain comes after investment. You invest your time and intellect and maybe someday it might give you returns.
Hey,
Rohit is right somewhere….but there is an awesome site for such advice & for networking your career..
Go to http://www.techtribe.com...
It is made by Rohit Aggarwal & he himself gives free advice to startup’s in india & even’s funds them if the idea is good..
See it…
Cheers..!!!
Don’t think there is any shortage of advice. Nor do I think the founders of any of the truly innovative companies you named – facebook, youtube, google, myspace – spent there time looking for advice .