The recently concluded Proto.in had participation from startups around the country. We saw most of the startup presentations and picked out 3 of our favourite startups from the lot that presented.
Favourite no.1
Inkfruit – It provides custom t-shirt designs created by designers. It is building a designer community by providing incentives on sale. Inkfruit is angel funded by Mahesh Murthy of seedfund and a couple of other angels. It claims to have already done Rs.2 crores in revenue from t-shirt sales.
Why is it our favourite?
Simple idea and great execution – The idea of custom printed t-shirts has been around for a decade. The killer aspect of this company is the fact that it harnesses the design ability of a community hence it takes the web 2.0 model of user generated content to t-shirt prints.
Existing revenue model and real revenues – Few startups have revenue model’s let alone real revenues and hence inkfruit takes the top spot.
Scalable model – They are planning on expanding to other items besides for tshirts which means it can scale with multi product offerings
Favourite no.2
LifeMojo – A Health and lifestyle portal. We had blogged about Lifemojo here. Its a part of the MVP portfolio of companies.
Why is it our favourite?
Unending need for health & Lifestyle – There are some businesses that ride a wave and there are some which can continue life long i.e. for example gillette i.e. shaving will be a necessity for as long as humans are around. Technology may change by shaving or hair removal as a need will stay. In the same manner health and lifestyle would be in focus for a lot of people for many decades to come and this where the Lifemojo guys are addressing a longterm and sizable market.
Opportunity for both product and media – Few startups have the opportunity to look at two alternative business models and lifemojo is one such startup which can take the media route i.e. content around health and lifestyle as well as the product route i.e. tools and applications to manage ones health and lifestyle.
Favourite no.3
IndiaKhelo – A platform targetted at corporates and schools for outdoor games. It will enable community by keeping score.
Large Market – India is a cricket crazy country so much so that school, colleges and even corporates have cricket oriented matches. But no one keeps score and this score isn’t available 10 years later when I want to boast to my children on my batting skills. Indiakhelo plans to solve this problem. This is a huge market and both corporates and schools would be willing to pay for such a service.
Multiple Customers/consumers - The customers could be schools and corporates as well as attendee’s to such an event could be charged to attend. Add to that the media created i.e. photo’s, videos and sporting gear could be available online which would again build traction and thereby creating advertising opportunity.
Opportunity for both product and media – Few startups have the opportunity to look at two alternative business models and lifemojo is one such startup which can take the media route i.e. content around health and lifestyle as well as the product route i.e. tools and applications to manage ones health and lifestyle.
The other startups that presented at proto.in are as follows:
- Noddler – A product which is a local language voice based mobile solutions provider.
- Remindo – A online platform that merges productivity and social activities for corporates.
- Lords Automotives – It has developed LPG fuel kit for 2-wheelers which is wants to commercialize
- Planettutor – An online tutoring service for school students currently focused on the International markets.
- Mosambe – A product by Kaasu Info Ventures which aims at providing a platform where employees can network with employers and employers can find the right talent.
- Ooha Services – An out of home Internet kiosk for surfing. Ads based revenue model
- Fachak- A content uploading/sharing platform that supports youtube, slideshare and scribd
- Taroby – An email sharing and collaboration application for entrepreneurs and small businesses.
- NuAlgi – A clean tech startup that helps converting contaminated water to clean bathing water.
- ArtinDynamics – It creates products in the Artificial Intelligence Space
- I-Flapp – A company that provides applications for flash/data drives
- Astuon/Yoplr – A holiday planning tool that helps you plan you holiday as well as request quote.
We would like to know which is your favourite startup! Do comment and let us know.
interesting.. all of your favourites are ‘real’ world services which are using technology well to add value… +1 for the choices
In fact, had asked a question for lifemojo on the proto blog as well.. on whether they are looking at providing enterprise support to ‘real’ health/fitness chains (fitness one/ vlcc etc)..
on an aside, lifemojo does some neat social tracking… a random comment i made (on twitter) asking whether they were monitoring the lunch at proto.in got picked up
You said InkFruit. What about Myntra ? they are doing same and have moved ahead like crazy …
@Raju: Not really inkfruit is building a community of designers and that is a key USP which is different from Myntra.
Thanks Rajiv for your choosing us as one of your favourites!
@manuscrypts – Yes, we are giving the solution to physical health/fitness/slimmming centers in a B2B model. And thanks for the lunch suggestion
I think they are also doing the same. If I am not wrong, they keep running some design contests around that community of designers. If Inkfruit is also doing the same, what’s the difference?
Hi Rajiv,
Thanks for putting Inkfruit on the number 1 spot!
I am of the opinion that end of the day these are all web2.0 concepts… but the fundamental question is “where is the money?”. inkfruit not sure if they are actually making 2Cr/year. if that is the case, then what the hell are they doing at Proto.in?
Besides one should understand that all your favorite sites are actually existing in a very crowded “me-too” vertical. India needs something different… we are still aping what is successful in the US and replicating the same. Because of which other industry segments which could actually benefit and create wealth is lagging behind.
India over last 18 years of open market economy produced a handful of portals with no ROI. There is not a single Indian global product that we all can claim was truly made in India.
I guess we are still stuck in the days of matrimonial, job, social networking portals and web property… i think proto.in and other such platforms should go beyond these outdated business.
Rajiv,
I am pretty sure that Myntra too is building a community of designers. They have a system where if a design submitted by a user gets sold then the user makes 10% of the selling price. Effectively the same thing.
They have quite a large pool of UGC – one visit to the site will show you that some people have submitted 600 designs. A few people touch 200 etc. So its a fairly interactive bunch out there. I dont think InkFruit is any better in terms of interface although in terms of orientation they do put more emphasis on the user though. Essentially they are a “me too” product. Do they have better people, resources, and processes? Your guess is as good as mine on that one. Both of us won’t be able to tell. No chance in the world.
Namma says that she’s not sure what they are doing at Proto if they’ve done 2Cr. a year. Im not so sure if i agree with her. For a business like this one where complementary assets like large scale production, distribution, servicing, collection, support etc. are more important than the core idea and technology of an e – commerce portal with social features per se, big monies have to come in to provide scale and stability. The guys have obviously shown that they can do things well with their turnover and probably will get the money to expand into things like mugs, keychains etc.
I do agree with Namma though when she says that we are aping models and stuck in a rut. The concepts of today are not leaps and bounds ahead of the concept of last year. Not by any stretch of the imagination.
And just btw, Myntra came to Proto last year with a turnover of Rs. 4 Cr. The market is obviously big enough for Myntra and InkFruit. Im not denying that however i am a bit disappointed at them being your top pick solely because they are not innovative in the larger sense of the term. There are a lot of (more interesting) startups up there and i would have loved to see a little but more about them.
@Harshil Karia: Point taken harshil.. But I still feel from the startups that presented Inkfruit was the most likely to succeed. Even a me too needs to succeed. And the way I look at it Myntra is itself fairly new to be termed as a clear cut market leader just yet. On the community front Inkfruit seems to be working on various initiatives for designers. On the whole it still does boil down to an execution game and given that these guys have been around for just a year or so its great to see how well they have executed.
@namma – Im no one to judge why they should be at proto but I can say that 2cr revenue isn’t great and the company which has just 14 ppl is pretty much a startup still.
Hi, interesting read about indian startups! I didnot follow much of the conversation above; it is too techie!
I think Inkfruit tshirts are pretty awesome!
I have been looking at the tshirts over the last few months and I think they rock!
I recently got an invitation from a friend of mine for Zahdoo.com. they are still in private beta. I believe the product was 100% developed in India. When I logged in it looked pretty normal and I started exploring different features..it blew me off. I am quite familiar with web 2.0/3.0 startups and technologies but this site was amazing. However I am not sure if they can scale up to support thousands of thousands of users. If their architecture can scale up we are looking at a real alternative to facebook and myspace of the world. Also for a change it is an antidote to lot internet time drainers out there.
Now whats web 3.0?! I’ve always believed jargon gets invented much faster than any tangible change in the internet space getting done.