Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 11:08:59 PST
Reply-to: indiaentrepreneurs@egroups.com
Re: Differentiating in overcrowded sectors

One can't disagree with the posts saying you can always find a better way to do things even in established sectors. (As somebody in the group - or was it Microsoft vs DOJ - said "long live innovation":-).

One was merely questioning the wisdom of so many near-identical online sites in major categories. For instance - and this is just one sector - can one really describe the product differential between rediff, indiainfo and 123india today? Yes, one knows that branding and advertising create differential in a world with parity products. But there too, can one really get a distinctive brand identity for any of these by looking at their communication? All one seems to see are large expanses (and i'm sure expenses) of hoardings with equally large site URLs and nothing else on them. Do we need to look at the mantra of "long live innovation!" in our branding and communication too?

My $0.02
Mahesh

>From: Brij brij_stuff@yahoo.com >
Reply-To: indiaentrepreneurs@egroups.com >
Re: Overcrowded sector?: education >
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 21:36:27 -0800 (PST)

Hi Mahesh,

It definitely makes sense if you are bringing some innovative touch to the already crowded market segment. Take the search engine market for example - How directhit.com and pinpoint.com (and many more to come) are trying to bring new ideas into search engine market. >If you critically examine all the portals/sites that you mentioned they lag far behind in terms of end user experience. Most of them are still in the novelty phase. If Subodh is bringing better execution and better ideas in education market then by all means welcome. long live innovation :)

-Brij > >

Mahesh Murthy maheshmurthy@hotmail.com wrote:
This may be a lone point of view - would welcome what others think: But do we really have room for another broad online education business in India? One knows of at least 7 that are out there already, in various stages of readiness. (Disclosure: we're investors in one of those, before there were 7:-)
On similar notes -
Do we really need another women's portal? (again, 7 and counting) - Do we really need another horizontal portal? (at least 8 I know of)
Do we really need another careers/jobs site? (at least 4 I know of)
Do we really need another cricket site? (at least 5 I know if)

Some experience with the online market has shown that in any sector, there usually is one clear leader, a couple of close-ish #2 / #3s... and then countless minnows. We work with businesses that have a good shot of being number 1 in their field - if not, we're not usually interested. I do believe a few other funders work the same way too.
There are countless verticals and niches that are ripe for being exploited, not just in India, but globally, from India.
Subodh, one would recommend that you do a search-and-sniff to find out what others in the sector are doing and then take a decision on what you'd specifically like to do.

My $0.02
Mahesh

From: Subodh gupta subodh@del3.vsnl.net.in
To: indiaentrepreneurs@eGroups.com
Subject: [IndiaEntrepreneurs] education fund
Date: Mon, Mar 27, 2000 at 19:41:03 IST (GMT+0530)
hi, i am one of the entrepreneure looking forward for incubaters/vc >who are specificaly interested in online education related funds can anybody give information regarding same
yours truly
subodh gupta