Nice article on what happens to female school and college toppers in India , more than 50% end up wasting their talent and skills. Most of the women who are showcased by the media belong to a rich/ famous family – they are some one’s wife / daughter / daughter-in-law / girlfriend and owe their position to their relationship, not their own competence. It is very difficult to start a business from scratch without any backing of any sort , not only do you miss out on the networking, many vendors will try to cheat you by charging a higher price / selling substandard material.
Month: May 2009
Online VC funding
Most of the online news coverage in India relates to startups and VC funding, but is Venture capital or an angel investor really required for an online business . Most startups in India waste a lot of time and energy trying to get funding when they should be focussing on growing their business. You can make a lot of money with just a computer and an internet connection if you are willing to work hard and understand the market needs, instead of believing the hype being published.
Digital media
India Today, India’s largest magazine publisher is not going to spend any more money on digital media, they are not getting the returns they want. You can make money from content, but you have to keep your overheads really low. Most big Indian media companies have plush offices and highly paid employees( very important for “status” in India), with those expenses, it is very difficult to be profitable online with content websites.
The other thing the publisher has correctly pointed out (which you will rarely see mentioned in India’s digital media) is that Google has a monopoly and often uses the information available to destroy /damage any potential competitor. I have personally experienced it and at least two of the ad networks I work with have specifically confirmed it. When the demand for advertising space exceeds supply, Google is happy to have content publishers, but now when the supply exceeds demand, Google shows PSAs on content websites who use Adsense so that the advertisers spend their entire budget on advertising directly on Google’s own properties.
Smaller Indian content websites can make money online, but few have the imagination, motivation or exposure to really grow big, compete with companies worldwide and beat them. They are too worried about others stealing their ideas. Compared to a decade ago, people in their twenties have a lot of distractions and often do not focus or reinvest enough into their business.
From my personal experience, when you are very small, the damage the big companies can do is more. Once you learn to out maneuver them and are more careful, at least some of them will stop wasting their money and leave you alone. Others will continue their attempts to damage your business, but just treat it like a game of chess, a form of entertainment. Lets see who has the last laugh.
India online
Unlike the rest of the world, the number of internet users in India is decreasing . Part of the reason is that there are almost no Indian websites which are worth visiting, most are just copy cats of foreign websites. They are simply not value for money, why will any one want to spend money making friends (90% fake) online. I like the way Chinese companies use the internet, they will directly tell you they got my email from one of my websites, they want to sell their product. I get a lot of friend requests from India along with photos, but I am NOT interested in making fake friends online, if you want to buy / sell / want advice, better to get to the point directly. I am very good at detecting lies.
Very few local companies spend any amount of time doing market research, they expend their energy and money spying and sabotaging any other company who they think will grow.Unlike coding where you learn a new language every few years, one of the better aspects of making money online is that experience matters. Till 2 years ago, most of the money I made from my websites was from a single source. Today, it is very diversified. My only regret is that I did not try the other methods earlier.
You may have an MBA from a top school, have hundreds of employees, passed all the necessary certifications or read all the blogs of the all the “internet marketing gurus”, it does not matter for online success. A large number of employees can be a problem when times are bad (the previous post on Infosys layoffs has been very popular)
Unless you have hands on experience in making money online from your own websites or online, you are unlikely to be able to formulate a viable monetization strategy or run a profitable online business.