Dec 24, 2012 ~ Web 2.0 Asia Blog

Monday, December 24, 2012

Why 2013 Will Be the Worst Year Ever for China Tech

11:19 PM Tech News No comments

Amidst all the 2012 in review madness, I thought it might be fun to turn our eyes to the future for a moment and make some predictions about what’s coming in 2013. Well, “fun” is a relative term. Call me a pessimist, but I think 2013 is going to be the worst year ever for China’s tech industry. Why?

Internet censorship will get worse. China’s Great Firewall got an upgrade this month, and the blockage of many popular VPNs has already begun to affect businesses. There’s no reason to expect that will get any better in the new year, with government mouthpiece the People’s Daily calling for stricter internet regulation and reports suggesting the government may implement mandatory real-name registration for anyone who wants to get on the internet at all. All indications are that next year, China’s internet is going to be less free than ever before.

Social media censorship will get worse. Sina Weibo had a pretty ridiculous year when it comes to censorship, but with the new 7-day search delay and rumors of a new, more thorough real-name system don’t make the future sound all that bright. But the bad news isn’t just limited to Weibo; we have seen indications that the government is concerned about newcomer WeChat — even as it uses the service to track dissidents — so expect that to get a censorship smackdown in the coming year, too.

The mobile market will be restricted. One of China’s tech regulatory bodies, MIIT, is planning to reach its cold, bony hands into the world of mobile app development and sales. Exactly how that will turn out isn’t yet clear, but MIIT’s regulatory processes are the reason an iPhone takes an extra three months to come out in China. App developers are understandably concerned that they’re going to be slowed down — which can be a death sentence in the fast-paced mobile ecosystem — or censored, or very possibly both. Whatever happens with this round of regulation, I would guess that this won’t be the only time we see MIIT interfering in the mobile space in 2013.

More state control is coming, or at least is planned. While the government has been pushing state-owned companies to operate like real companies and try to actually make money rather, it hasn’t gone to much effort to support domestic innovators in the private sector. For example, SARFT (China’s fun police and film censorship bureau) recently smacked-down Chinese startup Xiaomi’s attempts to get into the TV game, and it has also established a state-run subsidiary company that it hopes will control the domestic internet, mobile, and television industries.

All of this is bad for business. In addition to just being off-putting and restrictive, almost all of this is bad for business and development. China’s internet is increasingly isolated from the rest of the world’s, which stifles domestic innovation and discourages foreign investment. And China’s restrictive policies, coupled with the unethical behavior of some high-profile Chinese tech companies, have helped ensure that it is tougher than ever for Chinese tech companies to expand overseas.

Now, are there some signs of good things, too? Of course. Smartphone and broadband penetration are up and will likely continue climbing rapidly throughout next year. Internet speeds are getting faster, and we might even see China’s first 4G network in 2013 (but probably not). Still, though, speed and access are less meaningful when the number of things you can actually do on China’s internet seems to be dwindling by the day.

I think 2013 will be the worst year ever for the web/tech industry in China. Here’s hoping that I’m really, really wrong.

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How to Make Sense of KPIs

7:29 PM Tech News No comments

kpi

It’s funny how KPIs can become so confusing when it comes to measuring performance on an individual level. Say for example, $10 million could be clear as an organization sales target. But in contrast, it would not be so clear for a sales person. It could motivate the sales team to reach that goal but often it doesn’t communicate exactly what a person has to do individually in order for the team to to hit that $10 million target.

At a recent startup conference at Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, I had the privilege to learn from some very experienced entrepreneurs. One of them is Pawoot Pongvitayapanu who runs Tarad.com, and he shared a little bit about his experience of having his company acquired by Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten.

Rakuten brought much discipline into his company. He mentioned repeatedly that one of the most important lessons he learned from Rakuten was to set key performance indicators (KPI) and make them understandable and actionable at individual level. So let’s take that $10 million sales target as an example. This organization target could be broken down into groups and then down to an individual level. For example, if John is set to hit $300,000 worth of sales, then what would it take for him to hit that target? To illustrate my point, I have assumed some numbers below:

His deal/close rate is five percent
The target per deal is at $10,000
Each work day, he can speak to a maximum of three potential clients

According to the figures above, we can calculate that each month John can pitch a maximum of 60 times. So if he does that, he should be able to achieve $30,000 worth of sales (60 x 5% x $10,000). That means John should be able to hit his sales target in ten months if he works hard enough. With the figure broken down to an individual level, the numbers have now become actionable.

John now knows he is required to make a total of 600 sales pitches to hit his $300,000 KPI for the year. Anything above 600 sales pitches will give him a better chance to outperform his KPI. Most importantly, John can now see in more tangible terms that the figure is achievable.

Sometimes, goals are set unrealistically and it could be mathematically impossible to achieve them. For example, if John’s KPI is $500,000, then it’s practically mathematically impossible that he could hit the numbers. Based on his statistics, John can hit a maximum of $360,000 of sales in a year. Of course, along the way his closing rate or sales total could go higher, but from a management point of view, it’s better not to account for those chances.

Lastly, from a startup CEO point of view, breaking down KPIs to individual level can help you understand if you have enough manpower to hit the organization’s KPIs, and that’s a good way to avoid over-promising and under-delivering to your shareholders. The same principle can be applied across all kinds of KPIs which you might be measuring. Good luck!

From all of us here at TechInAsia, we hope you have a Merry Christmas, and that you achieve all your KPIs in 2013!

[Image credit: EPM Review]

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KakaoTalk Introduces Telkomsel Carrier Billing and Christmas Items

6:10 PM Tech News No comments

Korean-made chat app KakaoTalk is keeping quite busy this Christmas holiday, introducing two new features on its app: a carrier billing partnership with Indonesian telco Telkomsel and Christmas-themed digital items for iOS and Android. KakaoTalk’s global business development VP Yujin Sohn commented on the importance of the Telkomsel partnership:

Indonesia is one of our key markets and it has a huge potential. Now with the collaboration with the biggest telco in the country, I believe it will not only help our users to feel more convenient when they enjoy KakaoTalk but also help us create a new digital economy on our platform.

The Telkomsel’s carrier billing partnership applies for KakaoTalk’s iOS and Android users in the country. Those users can now purchase digital items such as stickers, emoticons, and themes with their Telkomsel phone credits.

The chat app plans to add more localized premium digital content by working with more Indonesian artists in the near future. We already know that KakaoTalk is working together with Indonesian artist Vidi Aldiano for its Plus Friend feature. The company has also just set up its Indonesian Twitter account @KakaoTalkINA last week to better cater to local users.

This is not the first cooperation KakaoTalk has set up with Telkomsel; other examples are KakaoTalk’s being part of BBM-like package deals for third party chat apps – the Telkomsel’s Opera Mini package and the Chat and Share package. KakaoTalk is also included in another Indonesian telco Axis’ Gaul package.

HO HO HO Merry Christmas

While the aforementioned Christmas-themed digital items can be accessed for free on iOS and Android, the same cannot be said for the Windows Phone and Blackberry platforms. Not only can the two platforms not send the Christmas digital items, they also cannot receive any. When a friend of mine tried sending a Christmas sticker to my Windows Phone, it said “this type of message is not supported.”

The company believes that the Christmas-themed digital items will be able to merry up the bulk of holiday greeting messages sent during the Christmas and New Year’s Eve holidays. KakaoTalk also released a Christmas sound emoticon (pictured above, left), which the company calls the first product of its kind in the hot chat app scene.

Anyway, merry Christmas guys!

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China Reportedly to Issue Mobile Virtual Network Operator Licenses.

5:19 PM Tech News No comments

img:socialmediaunity.com

It is reported that Chinese authorities will release licenses for mobile virtual network operators (MVNO) around next June. License-holding companies will be allowed to run basic telecom businesses by renting infrastructure from telecom operators or even through the Internet. Rumor went further that Tencent would be one of the first to obtain such a license. What’s for sure is MIIT, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, confirmed in July that regulations on opening eight “basic telecom businesses” to private investments was under development .

I met with an investor from the U.S. back in May 2009. It was his first time to visit China and told me he thought Tencent should add Skype-like voice-calling service to its QQ IM. I had to tell him the big three state-owned telcos wouldn’t be happy to see a private company doing voice services (disclusure: I was working at Tencent as a tech reporter then). Back then only telecom operators were authorized to run phone calling and other telecom services.

MIIT would go after illegitimate internet voice-calling businesses. A handful emerged then, such as the well-known UUCall, had to stop their services all together. In some areas of China, local divisions of operators would even cut off users’ internet connections when finding anywhere the Skype voice service was in use.

That’s still true today, in theory. But some unstoppable forces turned out to have made radical changes. As smart phones and 3G networks became widely available, internet companies, big or small, started developing mobile apps for Google’s Android Market or Apple’s App Store.

Among them are a number of voice-related ones, including voice messaging apps, such as Tencent’s Weixin (or WeChat), Xiaomi’s Mi Talk and a handful others. Tencent’s Weixin, in short, is a mobile QQ added with some voice messaging and location-based features. Its popularity triggered the argument that it can replace phone calls sooner or later.

It would be more than voice calling if the rumor turned out to be true. In 2G times, QQ services were widely consumed by mobile phone users, through operators and sharing revenues with them. With MVNO licenses, internet companies who run a variety of services don’t have to share revenues of sales of mobile books, music or other value-added services with operators – so far China Mobile is still the big brother tolling the gateway.

Then existing telecom operators could only make money from data and leasing infrastructure. But by far the big three telecom operators make the majority of revenues from basic telecom services and can hardly make a profit from 3G, though they have gained a huge user base.

Is it that operators lost their own opportunities? As early as in 2007, China Mobile launched Feixin, an instant messaging tool that is actually similar to Weixin in function: a web-based user can communicate with a user on mobile phone, text messages are for free, address book can be integrated into it and the like. It is reported that the company have invested a huge amount of money in it in the past years. Official data show that Feixin had 270 million users as of the first half of 2012, but I hardly see people are using it. Feixin opened registration for users on China Telecom and Unicom in order to gain a even larger user base; however, that the company charges for sending messages to users on another network makes it look insane. All the three also developed every single mobile internet service those internet companies gained users or revenues from. But it turns out few worth mentioning.

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Revelation of Crucco: Attitude is Far from Enough

5:19 PM Tech News No comments

Crucco, Chinese apparel vertical targeting at young Chinese who’re attached to fresh design and simple living attitude, was reportedly in talks with potential sell. The Beijing-based startup was founded by VANCL veteran Xu Xiaohui, former associate director of the latter.

Insider revealed that the company even didn’t have enough money to cover its normal expense and had to break with several suppliers and manufacturers. Though Crucco is trying to sell itself or seeking for new financing, currently no one is willing to take over the hot potato.

Why is so difficult for Crucco to weather the winter?

Attitude is far from enough

The core ideology of Crocco is providing casual clothes with comfort quality, simplicity and creativity in design and delicate details, targeting at youth working in cities. Crucco promotes an attitude of slow living and slow fashion, against the fast fashion led by its peers like VANCL. But actually, running the company by sheer attitude is insufficient to cultivate the stickiness of users. Its targeted user group doesn’t have strong spending power. Its attitude also means that the company is targeting at a niche market.

Insuffient Design Capability

Poor design capability is one of the biggest issues challenging the company. Since its inception, Crucco is in lack of a strong in-house design team. The situation was compounded by its weakness in supply-chain controlling, so the quality of the products couldn’t be guaranteed. The defect of design capability might be the fatal wound to it.

Crucco’s founder Xu Xiaohui once admitted that he was too much influenced by Vancl. Crucco should be ‘unique and artistic’ instead of ‘general and wide’ like Vancl. Every B2C site should have a clearer positioning in the market and differentiate themselves from others. Crucco is no exception. As a matter of fact, Crucco did quite well on that matter, but it failed to recognize from the beginning that it’s far from enough to count all your business on a fancy brand story, you still need to have operate the business like traditional apparel business to survive the market, everyone can tell great stories, while only few can live them.

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Chinese Angel Investment Survey: We Need More Quality Projects

5:19 PM Tech News No comments

Half of Chinese angel investors realized more than 30% ROI on their investment portfolios last year, according to a survey by Chinese magazine Entrepreneur China (aka Chuangye Bang). The report also found out that a majority (more than 70%) of Chinese angels invested less than 5 projects over last year, highlighting the lackness in high-quality startups.

Here’re other highlights from the report which surveyed 309 Chinese angel investors：

Investment Amount

– 70% of angel investors in China invest less than 5 projects

– most projects (about 60%) get under RMB 3 million

– 38% angel investors invested between RMB 1 million – 5 million

– 57% of them invested between RMB 5 million – 10 million

– a small portion of them (5.8%) invested > RMB 100 million.

Percent of Share

Most of angel investors insist that if they hold less than 30% stakes, they won’t be controlling investors. More than 65% of Chinese angles hold less than 30% in their portfolios. That said, about 20% of these angels hold 50%+ in their portfolios.

ROI

The survey showed that only 1/10 Chinese angel investors lost money. Over 50% of them get a >30% of return while 18% get >200% in return.

In a nutshell, Chinese angel investors prefer mobile internet, e-commerce and service industries and keep an eye on computer software, media and manufacture business. A small group of angel investors also step their toes into projects abroad.

Photo Credit: Bing Image

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Why Kindle in China Won’t Work

5:19 PM Tech News No comments

Let me start with a story I heard from an editor friend from Shanghai: a publisher recently ordered all of its employees to delete the Microsoft Office on their computer and replace it with WPS office, an Office clone made by KingSoft.

The reason for this switch is venal: Microsoft is at the gate, demanding 5000 Yuan per head. Threatened, the publisher simply decided to steal from Kingsoft; if they come a-knocking, I am sure the publisher will steal from somewhere else instead of paying a cent.

Now, if anyone should be interested in protecting intellectual right, it should be the publishers, whose goods are often plagiarized, downloaded, even counterfeited outright. However, the friend who relayed this story to me, an editor at the publisher, asked me why Americans are always so adamant in enforcing the law.

“Do people actually pay so much to Microsoft in the U.S.?” He asked. I said as far as I know, people do pay, it’s simply the cost of doing business, and they can make it back, because most of their goods are not stolen and are sold at full price. My friend seemed to have an epiphany: “Oh that makes sense. But since we can’t make the money back, we are not going to pay.”

Here, then, is a live example of what the book Why Nations Fail means by “vicious cycle”. Protecting intellectual rights benefit everybody, especially a content provider like a book publisher, but if no one plays by the rule, you don’t want to be the only sucker at the poker table.

This is also the reason why Amazon Kindle won’t work even if it’s allowed to enter China, which is still a question mark at this stage. Amazon prospered in the U.S. because of a comprehensive strategy, of course, but it also succeeded in a country where there is a strong foundation of copyright protection, and in a market enough people were willing to pay for the connivence of reading premium contents.

For Kindle to prosper, Amazon must succeed where others failed. Amazon must eradicate all of the free downloads from the Internet, closes all the small bookstores selling books for less than $1, and chases people who sell pirated books from their bicycles off the street. So basically do, what the omnipotent Chinese government is unwilling and unable.

Then, Amazon will have the pleasure of trying to persuade Chinese consumers to pay for stuff, digital stuff at that. Remember, this is a place where publishers, who rely on intellectual properties for a living, steal stuff relentlessly. And it will have to make sure they don’t pay for stuff to read on their Ipads or their phones, or pay to other vendors to obtain the same material.

With no illegal competition and a ready market to exploit, at last it comes the fun part. Amazon will have to negotiate with hundreds of publishers, most of whom are still affiliated with the government and move at glacial pace. Amazon would have to convince them that offering their content through Kindle is a good deal, even though all of them still rely on bookstores for much of their sales.

Faced with so many obstacles, I just don’t think Amazon has what it takes to make it work. Yes, in the long run offering Kindle may make sense, but then again, in the long run we are all dead.

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UC Web CEO Says ‘IPOs Are Like Marriage, Best Not To Marry Too Early’

1:02 PM Tech News No comments

UC Web is one of the few Chinese companies that has seemed immune to the “brand China” effect and has had impressive success in its overseas expansion. Most recently, the company’s mobile browser hit 400 million worldwide users, and has once again raised the question of whether or not the company plans to IPO.

But UC Web CEO Yu Yongfu said at a press conference recently that the company doesn’t plan to IPO immediately. Comparing IPOs to marriage, Yu explained:

Actually, if you can marry later it’s best to to marry early, because there are more residual effects of early marriages, and that’s why we’ve seen so many companies get divorced [i.e. delisted] this year.

Interestingly, Yu says that one of the things that could force the company to IPO would be its competition:

For example in the video industry, if Tudou IPOs, then Youku must immediately also initiate an IPO. But in this field (mobile web browsers) we’re a little better off; we have surveyed the scene and we don’t think there’s anybody who is capable of stealing our seat, so there’s not too much pressure to IPO.

Of course, not having IPOed means that UC Web’s finances are private, but Yu says the company is bringing in profits already and is in a great position in terms of cashflow. Assuming he’s telling the truth — and third-party firms have confirmed UC Web’s impressive market shares in China and India, among elsewhere, so he probably is — it looks like there’s no real reason for the company to IPO anytime soon.

[Southern Metropolis Daily via Sina Tech]

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Domestic Chinese Smartphones Attract Praise But Not Profits

10:26 AM Tech News No comments

We here at Tech in Asia have been very impressed with some of the low-cost smartphones coming out of China over the past year, and we’re not the only ones. But as Communication Information News reports, the innovation and price wars have come at the cost of profits, which are remarkably slim.

In fact, according to the Southern Metropolis Daily, domestic brands account for 50 percent of China’s smartphone market but earn just one percent of its profits. Who is making the other 99 percent of the profits in the industry? Samsung and Apple.

Granted, most of these domestic brands are quite young, but it’s likely many will still have trouble reversing this phenomenon anytime soon. Xiaomi, for example, has attracted a lot of praise, and sold 6.5 million phones. But like most domestic companies, it has built its brand on making high-quality but inexpensive smartphones, and a jump in price would bring profits but probably alienate fans and destroy the brand loyalty the company has been fostering over the past couple years.

Xiaomi, like other domestic handset makers, plans to get its piece of the pie eventually via software and added-value services, but as of yet, no one has been able to make much in that way. It will be interesting to see if in the next few years Chinese domestic companies continue down this path or whether some turn to jacking up handset prices and trying to make a profit from the hardware. But it’s clear that whatever else happens, something has to change; 50 percent of the market and only 1 percent of the profits is not where Chinese smartphone makers want to be.

[Communication Information News and Southern Metropolis Daily via Sina Tech]

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Xiaomi: 6.5 Million Phones Sold So Far

5:13 AM Tech News No comments

Chinese phone-maker Xiaomi has only been in the hardware business for only about a year and a half, but it has made a big impact in that time. And now we have new numbers that show how much of a dent that its phones have made in the smartphone landscape. Xiaomi team member Hong Feng has revealed that the startup has sold a grand total of 6.5 million of its Android-powered devices so far. That’s across just two current models – the flagship Mi2 and the cheaper 1S.

He added that the Xiaomi 1S – which is a revamped version of its first-ever phone – has sold one million units from its launch in August up to October of this year.

In the summer of this year, the Beijing-based company was thought to have passed the three million sales milestone. And in May, Xiaomi officially stated that it shipped 700,000 units in May alone. From those figures, it would appear that Xiaomi is still selling nearly a quarter of a million phones each month, but the new 6.5 million stat suggests that the number is not accelerating. But, being quite new to the hardware sector, Xiaomi tends to sell phones in batches as they become available, suggesting that they’re still grappling with the challenge of manufacturing enough of its gadgets to meet sustained demand. Or possibly creating artificial scarcity is good marketing.

Xiaomi’s Hong Feng (left) at a recent event.

It’s a strong performance, and reason for Samsung, HTC, Motorola, and other global smartphone brands to be very concerned. We’ve already seen China-brand phones take up 60 percent of the country’s smartphone market, led by the likes of Lenovo, Coolpad, Huawei and ZTE. And so Xiaomi is another contender for the top in that sector.

Hong Feng had one more interesting stat up his sleeve. He revealed to Donews that Xiaomi’s own Android UI/skin/ROM, called MIUI, has surpassed 10 million users worldwide. MIUI – which is the interface on all Xiaomi phones – can be flashed onto numerous Android phones and is popular among tweakers. The ROM supports 32 phone models and 23 languages thus far.

Xiaomi wrapped up $216 million in funding back in June, and its Twitter account recently teased a possible expansion in the Hong Kong and/or Taiwan market. For now, its phones are mostly sold online within mainland China.

If you haven’t seen it yet, check out our in-depth interview with Xiaomi founder Lei Jun.

[Source: Donews - article in Chinese; Lower image: Silicon Dragon Ventures]

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The Great Indian Startups of 2012 [The Dabangg Edition]

1:47 AM Tech News 1 comment

Indian startups have come of age. Like every year, we bring together India’s most amazing startups that were spotted. This year was a big year for startups with lots of great moves- right from all the action around incubators to the rise of early stage funding.

This years list is about some of the best startups that have geared up to make it super big. We selected them based on certain parameters:

1. Execution (so far). That is, beyond the business plan, how is the business shaping up? Are these startups going beyond product/market fit? In some cases, startups have gone to different markets owing to the global nature of the product itself.

2. Market understanding: Some of the startups in this list have taken a very niche implementation to solve a complex problem. And that may not be acceptable by all (customers), but sticking to one’s guns also is a trait of an entrepreneur.

3. Is this cool in an unsexy way? Building an ecommerce site is very cool. But building something which is totally different from the regular run-of-the-mill idea isn’t that cool (think hardware). Very few startups tend to take a path less traveled. And we were amazed to see how sexy these uncool startups were.

In short, the Dabangg startups of 2012!

In no particular order, here goes our compilation of Amazing Indian startups, the 2012 edition.

Chargebee

Chargebee provides small and emerging businesses to automate the entire billing process to run subscription services. With added features like flexibility to change pricing, offer discounts and run promotions without the need of a developer makes this an attractive proposition for startups looking for automation in subscription billing. [» Read: NextBigWhat's coverage of Chargebee]

Programr
Programr is an online playground for programmers.Through Programr you can code, run & share all type of apps – console programs, webapps, rich media apps and mobile apps – completely online. Programr makes it easy for its users to learn new technologies, sharpen their programming skills and showcase talent to the world. Nice piece of technology that has a wider reach among those who want to learn app development
» Read: NextBigWhat’s coverage of Programr
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Instamojo
Instamojo aims to simplify the entire process of selling your stuff online with a link. Currently, it allows users to set up their account by entering their Facebook credentials and start giving away things for free. In the current model in which the site is operating, there are two sections, either you “give away stuff”, which could be an old book, clothes or something else altogether.
» Read: NextBigWhat’s coverage of Instamojo
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SupportBee

SupportBee provides companies with a software solution to solve their customers’ problems in a manner that is effective. It aims to change all this by providing small and medium enterprises efficient tools for problem solving. It does this is by the means of a software based system which heavily resembles Gmail, but which might have a hidden advantage considering the fact that the learning curve is smooth. Great offering.
» Read: NextBigWhat’s coverage of SupportBee
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GazeMatrix
gazeMetrix allows media buyers and media monitoring companies to accurately identify, measure and analyze presence of brand logos in video streams coming off live TV streams and even internet videos/photos. Combining our state of the art computer vision technology in the cloud and an amazingly simple UI, gazeMetrix lets you quickly get to the stats that matter to your brand.
» Read: NextBigWhat’s coverage of GazeMatrix
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Pugmarks.me
Pugmarks.me takes a very fundamental approach to content consumption on the web – i.e. of trusting the social web. Available as a browser plugin for Chrome (and bookmarklet for other browsers), Pugmarks lets you ‘pugmark’ an article making it discoverable to those who follow you. The company offers 4 main call to actions: Pugmarking, recommendation, suggestion and grow.
» Read: NextBigWhat’s coverage of Pugmarks
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TheMediaAnt
TheMediaAnt aims to democratize information related to media options for mid-sized companies including small enterprises, which don’t have access to media agencies.The company started in June this year helps advertisers and media owners in following ways:
For advertisers, it offers detailed information regarding various media options and media planning for non-traditional media.” Bridging offline<->online results in a huge monetization opportunity.
» Read: NextBigWhat’s coverage of TheMediaAnt

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Aaramshop, ZopNow, BigBasket

Groceries are often clubbed together, hence we have clubbed the players !

Aaramshop :is a Delhi based startup that is bringing grocery shopping online. The startup is bringing existing retailers online. A user can choose their nearby Kirana Store from the listed stores along with a convenient time of the delivery. The local store would be informed about the order and it would be delivered to the address at the time mentioned with the payment of cash only on delivery.
ZopNow: Started by Bal Krishna Birla (ex-CTO of askLaila) and Mukesh Singh (ex-CTO of MakeMyTrip), Zopnow is an online grocery store that is now open for business in South Bangalore region (covers Jayanagar, JP Nagar, Bannergatta Road, Koramangala, HSR Layout, BTM Layout and Sarjapur road).
BigBasket: BigBasket.com is an online grocery store in Bangalore, Mumbai and Hyderabad. With over 10,000 products and 1000 brands in its catalogue consumer can right from fresh fruits and vegetables, rice and dals, spices and seasonings to packaged bread, bakery and dairy products. All of these have done a great job in defining this market.

» Read: NextBigWhat’s coverage of Aaramshop | ZopNow and BigBasket
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MadRatGames
MadRat games is a venture started by a few IIT grads that are actually taking a bottoms-up approach to changing the education system in India. The venture is started by Madhumita Halder, Manuj Dhariwal and Rajat Dhariwal. They all moved from the software world to teaching young children and now, running the games startup. One of the few startups that understands the human psychology of learning and has implemented well.

The Dabangg Startups

» Read: NextBigWhat’s coverage of MadRatGames

Affine Analytics
Affine Analytics identifies 40- 50 parameters affecting sales of an e-commerce company and created a tool which could help the company improve on its rate of conversion.The company has also developed a framework which can be applied to companies that want to bring down time taken go through data and come up with reports. Affine does similar work for companies in various segments like retail, banking and financial services and e-commerce.
» Read: NextBigWhat’s coverage of Affine Analytics

DelightCircle
DelightCircle’s first product around which his whole business is built, is a simple app from the outside. Simply put, it tells people what discounts are running at nearby shops, runs loyalty programs by rewarding shoppers for performing small actions like checking out a product by scanning its barcode using the application and manages various loyalty cards owned by the user. In the future, it will enable customers to make payments and buy products through the app.

So many players in this space, but they got the B2B sale going. After all, app businesses need real connect with the brands and consumers.
» Read: NextBigWhat’s coverage of DelightCircle

BrizzTV
BrizzTV enables the digital cable & satellite based TVs (the ones with CAS) to broadcast Internet content directly on TV as a channel (i.e. datacasting), without any need to have Internet connection. All that you need is a direct to home (DTH) TV & knowledge of how to press a remote key to be able to enjoy Internet content on TV. Technology meets the idiot box.
» Read: NextBigWhat’s coverage of BrizzTV
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Musicfellas, OkListen
Musicfellas: Musicfellas, a music discovery platform which provides a 360 degree listening experience to the melomaniacs. The inspiration for Musicfellas was a music blog which the founder Mayank Jain used to write after his full time job. The blog focused on the latest music gigs, events and new talent. Taking cue from fun he had writing the blog and his own passion for indie music, Mayank founded Musicfellas and launched it formally early this year.
OKListen: OKListen is a pro-musician digital platform that helps musicians to sell their music directly to their fans and enables music lovers to discover new content from indie artists and support them. Great cosumer play on indiemusic.

Clubbing them together as they all need to work together to grow this market.
» Read: NextBigWhat’s coverage of Musicfellas and OkListen
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Diabeto
Diabeto is a combination of improbable in the country with a nascent (hardware) startup culture. Diabeto is providing a modern day solution to keep a track of the blood sugar level. In the land of diabetes ( India has the world’s largest diabetic population ), Diabeto is first in the new phase of home grown personalized healthcare devices. Diabetes meets a sweet technology implementation.
» Read: NextBigWhat’s coverage of Diabeto
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Giveter
Giveter finds relevant gifts based on recipient’s age, relationship to gifter and occasion. The company, also helps finding gifts based on recipient’s personality and gifter’s mood. Giveter has tied up with variuos online website/brands/physical stores with expertise in different product verticals. A promising play on discovering gifts (recommendation engine).
» Read: NextBigWhat’s coverage of Giveter
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Unicommerce
NCR based startup, Unicommerce has launched its SAAS based warehouse management product, Uniware to cater to the needs of ecommerce companies, grappling with order fulfillment processes and looking for cost effective and speedy solution. Uniware assigns unique serial number to every unit that enables etailers to track various details such as vendor, purchase date, product expiry and unit specification. SAAS based order management product for ecommerce companies. Promising play.
» Read: NextBigWhat’s coverage of Unicommerce
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UnMetric
Unmetric, the social media benchmarking company (Chennai based startup) aims to bring competitive benchmarking and intelligence on social (Facebook, Twitter) and other media. Besides comparing the performance of competing brands, Unmetric also benchmarks brands against their sector so they know if they are “on par”. The web application captures everything that matters, including fan and follower growth, fan profiles, response times, timing and insights into content strategies. Went global. More aggressive.
» Read: NextBigWhat’s coverage of UnMetric
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EZETap
EzeTap, a mobile POS company, is a merchant solution. Unlike some of the other similar solutions in this market, EZETap has a hardware accessory that actually reads the data of the Magnetic stripe of the consumers debit/credit card and securely transmits it to the server for processing. Launched. Raised funding from Peter Thiel and others.
» Read: NextBigWhat’s coverage of EZETap

MyParichay
Bangalore based MyParichay, which simply translates into ‘my introduction’ is a next generation e-recruitment solution based upon social hiring. MyParichay is an intra-network present on Facebook that makes the entire the experience of recruitment more transparent and engaging by tapping into people’s social connection by focusing on recommendations and referrals. Social hiring – they recently cracked a deal with HT Media’s Shine.com
» Read: NextBigWhat’s coverage of MyParichay
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Jai Heart
Jai Heart provides an overall estimate of an individual’s susceptibility to developing heart disease facilitating more targeted screening. Jai Heart analyses DNA from saliva/cheek cells to look for genetic variations associated with heart disease. This is integrated with client’s medical history and conventional risk factors provided online.
» Read: NextBigWhat’s coverage of Jai Heart
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Plivo
Plivo provides basic building block APIs in the form of Plivo XML and HTTP API, to create telephony apps, so developers can completely do away with learning the nitty-gritty of the telephony plumbing.
Plivo APIs provide functions like Outbound Calling, Fetching Number List, Checking Account Details etc and the company has launched its API platform for voice and SMS applications.” Niche implementation. Global product.
» Read: NextBigWhat’s coverage of Plivo
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Healthifyme
Healthify aims to simplify healthy living. The startup strives to create solutions on mobile and web that nudge people towards healthy behaviour.
» Read: NextBigWhat’s coverage of Healthifyme
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Vizury
Vizury’s re-targeting solution Visitor Relationship Management (VRM) enables eCommerce and online travel companies to better target advertisements using digital data in a phased manner. The solution is used by companies such as Webjet, Virgin Airlines, Expedia, Zuji, Netshoes, Viajanet, Zozo, Kokuken, Ctrip, Yintai, Jabong, Jet Airways and MakeMyTrip.
» Read: NextBigWhat’s coverage of Vizury
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Plustxt, Hike and Imsy

Messaging is hot and all of these players have taken a different appraoch to messaging.

Plustxt is initially targeting niche (NRI) segment with its local language offering. Imsy has taken a very platform approach and Bharti’s Hike is targeting a global audience.
» Read: NextBigWhat’s coverage of Plustxt, Imsy and Hike app.
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Mettl
Mettl is an online assessment platform that enables hiring managers in companies to measure and track skills of pre-hires and employees. Using the site, a company can create a standardized assessment based on their own requirements in less than 5 mins. The company focuses on multidimensional testing instead of just testing one’s coding skills.
» Read: NextBigWhat’s coverage of Mettl
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Dexetra
The Bangalore based startup, Dexetra has so far launched 2 successful product – Iris and Friday. The integration will enable you to ask questions about your life, yes, about your past moments and it will use friday app to fetch you answers. Iris has server over 250 million answers through the platform and Friday boasts of over 100 million documents to the Friday cloud. One of the few kickass apps from India, Dexetra has integrated both offerings Friday and Iris in one app.
» Read: NextBigWhat’s coverage of Dexetra
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Power2SME
Power2sme helps small and medium entreprises to cut purchase costs with the help of experienced professionals. The company aggregates the demand of hundreds of SMEs that enables the company to obtain the best possible pricing for their procurement needs.
» Read: NextBigWhat’s coverage of Power2SME
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Innoz
Innoz’s flagship product 55444 also known as SMSGyan is an offline search engine that allows its users to search the web by sending an SMS .Users will receive a specific answer of 480 characters within seconds with an option of retrieving further information on the query, if required. Consumers can choose to get charged a rupee an SMS or an avid user may opt for a monthly or daily subscription. Innoz recently served its billionth query on sms.
» Read: NextBigWhat’s coverage of Innoz
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HelpShift
Helpshift addresses the growing need in mobile for customer service and has raised seed financing round of $3.2M led by True Ventures and Nexus Venture Partners. Helpshift’s mobile solution is offered as a SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) and is hosted in the cloud. The company currently provides support for Apple devices (iOS) and HTML5 and is committed to being cross platform.
» Read: NextBigWhat’s coverage of HelpShift
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Reverie
Reverie’s product for text display for Hindi and Arabic languages have been pre-integrated into Qualcomm’s reference design (QRD) with Android Gingerbread OS and Qualcomm’s 7x2x series chipsets. Reverie’s text rendering engine and fonts for Hindi and Arabic languages are pre-built at the operating system level into the Qualcomm’s customized version of Android.
» Read: NextBigWhat’s coverage of Reverie
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Ayojak
Ayojak enables users/small and medium businesses to organize conference event, ticketing event, membership/group event and social event. Features offered includes event registration, attendee management, payment processing, ticketing, reporting and promotion.
» Read: NextBigWhat’s coverage of Ayojak
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iStream
iStream is a video aggregation service that provides an online content streaming platform, where users can discover content across multiple genres like news, TV shows and Movies. The digital media company founded by Radhakrishnan Ramachandran and Chellapa Dhanukodi offers video content across all major Indian languages.
» Read: NextBigWhat’s coverage of iStream

What’s your opinion on the list?
If you are wondering who are the ‘graduates‘ (i.e. not really a startup anymore), we will share that list tomorrow!

[image credit:wikipedia/wikipedia]