Exclusive Interview -Prerna Gupta and her Vision with Yaari.com
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Social Networking has gained huge momentum in India. This upward stride of the acceptance of social networking has given birth to a lot of Indian social networking websites. WATBlog conducted an email Interview with Prerna Gupta, CEO of Yaari, which is a social networking targeting Indians. Prerna’s Interview was insightful as well as candid and diplomatic.
Q) How different is Yaari from any other social networking site, what are its advantages and Disadvantages over other social networking websites?
All social networks are fundamentally the same — they connect and entertain their users. Social networks differ in how well they are able to do this, and in what ways. Our goal is to create a social platform for Indian youth to express themselves freely and have fun. We will differentiate ourselves by doing this better than our competitors, and mobile will certainly be an important component of our strategy in the months to come. Our biggest advantage — you can connect to your Yaari network from anywhere via your mobile phone, using simple SMS commands.
Q) Statistically what is you’re a) user base? b) New Registered users per month?
I can’t share that info at this time, but I can tell you that your estimates of our page views per user are low. Our internal stats are closer to what you’ve listed for iBibo & DesiMartini. In any case, our current traffic stats are just the beginning. We are working to resolve some of our site speed issues, and we expect to see a spike in traffic over the next few weeks.
Q) What is your revenue Model like?
Our revenue model is based on online and mobile advertising, premium SMS and ecommerce.
Q) How successful is your mobile scrapping feature?
Our mobile functionality has been very successful and is an important point of differentiation for us.
Q) What are your thoughts on Minglebox’s funding?
I think it’s great that Minglebox was funded. I know there has been a lot of criticism around the inside connection, but I’m sure Sequoia would not have made the investment unless they saw a promising opportunity. I view it as a vote of confidence for the Indian social networking space.
Q) Are you’ll looking for funding?
We are not looking for funding currently, but we are likely to bring on an investment partner eventually.
Q) What are your future plans for yaari? What is your target for the coming year?
We are focused on growing our user base and becoming India’s largest social networking site within the next two years. Our goal for the next year is to become one of India’s Top 10 Internet destinations.
Seems like women are driving the social networking growth in India. Kavita Iyer, whom we interviewed recently, regarding the 7 million funding, has also been interviewed by Deccan herald where she talks about the future of Minglebox.
We hope both these women inspire other women to take up entrepreneurship. Wishing both these women best of luck, and well keep an eye to see which of them lives up to their own aspiration.
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Prerna seems to have missed the second part of your first question. Let me list a few -
yaari.com is built using e-mail addresses stolen from unsuspecting customers. Then they spam them till they get tired and sign up and during the sign up process they steal more e-mail addresses. How long do you think this business model can continue ?
If you have any doubts about the popularity of yaari.com, do a google search with yaari.com and scam as key words and you will know how popular they are. It is only a matter of time before this is shut down.
yaari.com is a SCAM and I hope Feds comes and shut it down. Looking at her business practices, I am now sure that they do not teach business ethics at Stanford.
Everyone,
Are you all going to complain or are you going to DO SOMETHING?
Yaari’s practices are not just unethical they are ILLEGAL.
They contravene the U.S. CAN-SPAM Act.
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/canspam.shtm
1) Go to the FTC page http://www.ftc.gov/spam/
Do you know the name of the company (Yes) (hit next)
2) Click on “File a Complaint” (on the left column).
It’s a bit slow so be patient.
3) Click on “FTC Complaint Assistant” (On the right)
4) Is your complaint concerning identity theft – NO (hit next)
5) Dissatisfaction with other Business Practices (hit next)
6) Select “Internet” and “Other Internet Practices” (hit next)
7) I have a complaint about my options (or lack of) for protecthing my privacy online. (you can also select option 1 if you have children in your email list). (hit next).
For the company details enter http://www.yaari.com. You can use Prerna@yaari.com for the email. (Just put zero dollars).
For Step 5, I put the following in the additional info
“This company is a social networking site. They contacted me by sending an invitation that impersonated the email identity of someone known to me. After signing up on their site http://www.yaari.com I found out that they take all of the addresses from my email address book and send invitation emails to each contact that claim to be from me. I believe that this practice contravenes the U.S. CAN-SPAM Act.”
– Please don’t just grumble. Make a difference: File a complaint with the FTC.
Tim