Just read this in the morning on startupdunia and was suddenly awake to the fact of a deadpool forming in the indian startup scene especially when in comes to web centric startups. Two of the startups that we have featured earlier on WATBlog have gone bust or have put themselves up on sale.
First one being saffronconnect.com (the site doesnt work anymore!). Saffronconnect had launched as a social network for musicians and independant music bands and was very NRI focussed. They like ixigo which got recently funded too presented at the first proto.in event. I remember meeting manu kaushish who was the founder of saffronconnect last year and remember telling him that he should change the options of anyone joining the social network to only focussed on musicians i.e. stop allowing non musically inclined audience to register on the site so the sign form should have two categories either i belong to a music band (in which case i need to post my bands music) or I am a music fan of a band (in which case I post which bands i like). Well I didnt meet or interact with manu after that but im not sure what went wrong. But this should be a sign of warning to all those startups that failures will be a part of this boom era and one needs to be humane enough to accept them and move on.
The second startup is ByIndia which was giving out 5 million sweepstakes and we had criticized the same. The web 2 corp which had acquired byindia is now selling it on ebay and bid starts from 0.5 million $! Web2 Corp have cited reasons such as they would be focussing more on commercial sale of their products and hence due to the restructuring an ad supported web portal doesn’t fit into their over all company strategy. So not exactly bust but ByIndia is up for sale on ebay! For a site which claimed to be the “fastest growing search engine” thats as good as being bust!
But the above doesn’t stop newer and newer startups from springing up on the scene. Two new startups have sprung up.
Suswagat.com – An events based social network – Suswagat.com is a Hyderabad-based start up promoted by a Silicon Valley entrepreneur. It is a event planning centric social network. According to the founder the portal thrives on information gathered collaboratively, enables event managers or anyone promoting an event to list their events, share event photos and videos. Apart from event listing, the portal allows users to upload photos and videos associated with various categories of events such as product and brand launches, movies, food festivals and talent shows. There are players like EventsInIndia.com, Seraja.com, BuzzInTown.com, KyaKare.com, IndianEvents.org
Revvs.net – A social network for MotorSport Enthusiasts – With ForceIndiaf1 popularising motorsports in India like there is no tomorrow and with them using the online platform aggressively there is surely good potential for a neutral motorsport oriented social network. Revvs.net does exactly that. We have reviewed a similar community in xbhp which is for bikers. I do feel that well thought out and well structured vertical communities will work very well as they have a strong fanatical group of followers in anycase which if grouped online in a community form can bring great results.
minglebox just shutted down there music service too.
According to me the reason why these startups failed was either coz of getting too early in the market or coz of choosing a Marginal Niche (for getting rid of competition ) which may take a longer period of time to evolve in indian web.
Jhoom.in has also shut shop apparently (via pluggd.in)… i guess its a bit like stocks – fundamentally strong ones will survive sensex bloodbaths.
Out goes MeraTrip.com… Also BangaloreTommorrow.com…
Internet in india also needs new products n services that will attract first time users and induce marginal users to increase their internet consumption portfolio
Otherwise u will be serving the same set of ads to the same set of users.
Interesting story about Saffron connect .. we run an online music community called Muziboo.com with just music (audio) as focus and discussions around the uploads (by musicians)
Please check it out .. I am mentioning this here as you wrote about the advice you gave to saffron connect .. bulk of our users are musicians (amateur and professional)
Regards
Prateek Dayal
Co-founder Muziboo.com
I guess, Seraja.com is also officially closed (again an info from pluggd.in )
I heard that the saffron connect technology and music deals were sold and they are now powering an upcoming social network for the music market in India. I wanted to know how I can contact the people who funded this?