Entrepreneurial Opportunities in the Online World by Alok Mittal (Canaan Partners), Kiran Gopinath (Ozone Media) at OMCAR 2009
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Posted by Deepanwita Chatterjee | at May 23, 2009 |
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Loading ...Today we have gathered for OMCAR 2009 and the room is full with enthusiastic audience. Kapil Gupta, co-founder OMLogic Consulting introduces the speakers for the next session Kiran Gopinath (Co-Founder, CEO, Ozone Media) and Alok Mittal (Managing Director, Canaan Partner). They are going to take a session on a very interesting topic ‘Entrepreneurial Opportunities in the Online World’ and I am LIVE Blogging the session. There are quite a number of entrepreneurs among the audience and it is going to be extremely useful for everyone.
The reach of internet is expanding and it is growing at the rate of 25% user growth which can translate into business.
He says that the internet penetration is going beyond the metros and that the range of usage is vastly increasing with the inclusion of videos and travel oriented sites. He says that today there are a lot of businesses are on the internet, it started with employment and currently covers advertising, travel, matrimony, gaming, real estate and there is no end.
He speaks on the importance of SEO, and speaks about an online book selling business which is hugely successful, inspite of spending any dollar on marketing. He cites the example of Chakpak which rode on SEO and did not spend any dollar on marketing. That signals how important SEO is for any online business!
Next he goes on what interests him on the internet from a funding perspective - concept Arbitrage. He starts by saying, ’search engine’ has a global implementation while there are places where local presence is required like job, matrimony and travel. He says that sadly these spaces are done with from entrepreneur perspective. Areas which are not done with are e-comm, advertising, education, insurance, personal finance services. Very useful information for the aspiring entrepreneurs among the audience!
He says that luckily there are some aspects that are unique to India - mobile penetration is more than internet penetration. But not every aspect of the internet can be extended to the internet space and vice-versa. Expanding in the mobile domain needs a lot of innovation and Indian companies can take a lead in these areas.
He touches upon some examples
- Financial Services - Due to deregulation happening where private players are participating this area is looking up and there are vast opportunities in insurance, payment space, general wealth creation, comparison shopping businesses , transaction processing businesses etc.
- Education - He says that it is a known fact that the working age population is going down and the labor markets are going to be strong.
- E-Commerce - There is a growing comfort with e-commerce thanks to online travel. But still e-commerce opportunities on product or service has not been explored currently.
- Social Media - There is a distinct pattern for entertainment in India ex. Bollywood. There are many underlying opportunities which can be explored in this area.
Alok touches upon a very interesting fact, the growth of mobile is helping Social Media. He points out to the sms alert system on Facebook.
He now speaks on the investment interest on Canaan Partners which is early stage business, preferably on the technical domain.
He speaks on their business interest on consumer internet - Bharat Matimony, Chakpak ; on the Mobile domain - Cellcast; on Enterpriese and managed services - iyogi and UnitedLex.
Kiran Gopinath starts the talk by focussing on how to explore the business opportunities on the Online space.
He rightly says that online business is not much different from the offline model. Innovation, understanding the customer, and building the right team, which will help to execute the business plan are some of the very important and common areas to both online and offline business models. Could not agree more!
He says that there are a lot of business opportunities in the Online space. On one hand there is the big picture, big business like financial services and on the other hand there are small areas. He speaks of a very interesting example - Driverbangalore, they provide you drivers if you contact them.
Innovations are the key to success in the online space, you can’t be a me-too, you will have to constantly continue innovating.
Rightly said and we fully agree to it. He wraps off the session by adding that things change very rapidly in the online space. The session is now moving in Q&A mode.
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Alok,
as you mentioned four sectors Canaan would probably look into for investment. Under your enterprises and managed services, can we have a SAAS (Software As A Service) model for example like 37signals.com (subscription based monthly payable service) as a probable investment opportunity.
Or do you see SAAS to grow in India for variety of services like crm/erp/accounting ?