Buzzintown.com, an entertainment portal which provides information and a guide to events and movies in cities across India. It also allows users to purchase tickets online. They claim to have ‘revolutionized the entertainment industry that has made life much easier today’.
Dr. Saran founded Buzzintown in 2007 and raised funding from Intel Capital in July 2008. We spoke to him to know more about Buzzintown’s revenue model, its users, competitors and scope in the entertainment space. Some excerpts of the interview…
Q: How did you come up with the name ‘Buzzintown’?
A: We wanted to use a “brand” that communicated – excitement… “buzz” was a natural choice of word. Since we are very city centric offering (we cover happenings in 19 cities across India, each with adequate level of detail, with their respective home pages), we decided to have a three word name – Buzzintown. It’s fairly common for buddies to ask “what’s the latest buzz in town”, “what’s the buzz on campus”… Of course, these days it is very important to be able to get the domain name (Buzzintown.com, .co. in, .in) also before you decide on a brand. We were lucky that people had not thought of it! Now, as we promote special events, their organizers tell us that it’s not just a show; we’ve made them the buzz in town!
Q: What motivated you to come up with an entertainment-based portal?
A: We realized that there were a lot of wholesome entertainment choices available to people in India, but most of us had no way to get to them. The information on them was missing. Print was the medium largely used for such communication, and in it, “movies” were taking all the space (large advertising budgets). Buzzintown was born with the idea of providing people rich information on all kinds of entertainment options, using all kinds of media available. We wanted to empower people with information, and let them decide how they wanted to spend their time.
Q: Initially, how did you promote Buzzintown?
A: We have not done any direct marketing so far. We have reached 1.2 million registered users and around 10 million page visits per month through word of mouth, our content syndication relationships, and our on-ground partnerships. We have always believed that content is the most important “start” – once we have high-quality, rich, localized content, as far ahead in time as possible, we would always find consumers. We spent the first 12 months in creating a network of stakeholders of the entertainment industry across India. Our content is branded and syndicated to our esteemed partners in all kinds of media channels – print, online, mobile, OOH, radio….
Q: Are there any celebrities or big names that promote Buzzintown or did in the past or will in the near future? How?
A: As of now we have not involved celebrities to promote our site neither do we have any such plans in the near future. However, we are the online partners for IIFA and the Delhi Daredevils cricket team. We also organize shows for celebrities, for instance we organized a Jagjit Singh Ghazal night in Delhi last month. Our TV offering –Jay Hind! – In collaboration with Undercover Productions (who produced/wrote Movers & Shakers) has become a big hit across India and has been endorsed by many celebrities in Bollywood and Tinsel Town.
Q: What in your view are the key elements for a startup to raise VC money in today’s times?
A: I don’t think today’s times are any different. It is always hard to raise money. Seldom does luck (or an industry bubble/wave) play a significant role – atleast I would not recommend someone to be an entrepreneur just for 6-8 months to catch that wave. So, a good idea, solid business plans around its monetization, and a well-rounded team – that’s all it will take. Believe me; every entrepreneur thinks their idea is GREAT or “monetization? Sure – why not? It’ll sell like hot cakes”, but its really far from the reality!
Q: Do you have a revenue model for this platform? What is it?
A: We receive our major revenues from the following sources:-
- Online Advertising
- Content Syndication
- Corporate tie-ups
- Online and Offline Ticketing
- Buzzintown “platform” used by the online fraternity.
Q: What is the breakup of users on BuzzInTown.com? Can you share the numbers with us?
A: We can always share our own data, but we prefer if people access external third-party sites to get this data.
According to Vizisense, Buzzintown is currently attracting 0.8 million unique visitors a month with total page views in excess of 5 million. The Portal’s major traffic originates from Metro towns as Top 8 cities roughly constitute about 50 per cent of traffic. Male users constitute 83 per cent of visitors whereas rest 17 per cent are females visitors. 37 per cent of the visitors are between the age group of 15 to 24. Whereas statistics show that 48 per cent of visitors connect from their work place.
Q: Has the recession affected your long term view of the Indian market?
A: We have come out with a more favorable outlook. We feel very happy to see the resilience of the Indian market (compared to other economies). As long as we are cognizant of that fact that we are part of a larger global movement (and can’t be insulated from everything that’s happening outside our borders), we should be able to cushion the impact of sudden fluctuations and market changes.
Q: What is your game plan to tackle challenges, usually?
A: FOCUS! Focus on content, focus on driving value to our consumers, focus on reach and letting people get access to the information in whichever medium they are most comfortable in!
Q: Who are BuzzinTown’s competitors?
A: Each and every guy with “5” events with them is our competitor. On the contrary, no one today as the singular focus on becoming a wholesome entertainment hub as much as Buzzintown. An external audience does takeBookMyShow, AskLaila, Burrp in the same league as Buzzintown – we feel each of them have their strengths. Buzzintown focuses on “dynamic” content, not just ticketed shows or static information… e.g., we would like food festivals or chefs specials for the week, as part of “food & dining” rather than the name of all the Chinese food joints in your town!
Q: What are the various sectors that you find lucrative in the Indian space?
A: What can be more lucrative than Entertainment? It’s the LARGEST growing sector, in India and globally! It’s growing faster than our GDP, its being consumed faster than new stuff can be created! We’re in the midst of it. All other allied and related sectors are working with Buzzintown (you will see in the coming months) today!
Q: Where do you see BuzzinTown 5 years down the road? How?
A: Buzzintown will become a platform for all stakeholders of the entertainment industry (including “fans”) to interact with each other for mutual “benefit”. We have already started to eliminate inefficiencies that exist in a complex and fractured network today. We have moped from being just an events listing, to an online entertainment hub. This expansion will continue – providing detailed and customized information about all the entertainment options available in a particular city or across the country according to the user’s need. We also plan to expand our presence to 35 cities by end of 2010.
