Anupam
Mittal is the founder and CEO of Shaadi.com which was founded 15 years back, and it is now regarded
as the world's most successful matrimonial site. Mittal founded Shaadi.com
after he met a marriage broker. Mittal has been included in BusinessWeek's India's
50 most powerful people and has been recently conferred the Karmaveer
Puraskaar. In an exclusive interview with AlooTechie, Anupam Mittal shares the
story behing launching Shaadi.com and the 15 year long journey.

15
years ago, internet was a luxury in India. What was the idea behind launching
Shaadi at that point of time, and especially when you come from a background in
textiles business?

I was exposed to business at a very young
age and I realized over time that building consumer businesses is what really
excites me. My father had a textile business so I joined his business after
college. In 1996, there was a lot of buzz about the Internet in India. While
several internet start-ups were developing a variety of web-based solutions, I
was evaluating the right vertical to get into the Indian Internet market.
That’s when I came across a professional matchmaker in India and his business
model intrigued me and as I drilled down further I realized that basically he
went from door to door within his community, and to people he knew and carried
‘resumes’ with him. Essentially, the choice of a life partner was determined by
how far the matchmaker could travel and how much weight he could carry. I
wondered what would happen if we took away the spatial and geographical
limitations away by putting up profiles on the Internet. Thus, Shaadi.com was
set up to provide a superior matchmaking experience by expanding the
opportunities available to meet potential life partners.

The
business started as Sagaai.com. What was the objective behind changing the
brand name?

In 1996, the launch of Sagaai.com was
accidental. However by 1999-2000 when the dotcom bubble had burst in the West,
I saw some serious indications of growth on Sagaai.com. It was around 2000-2001
that I bought the Shaadi.com domain name. I was certain that Sagaai.com as a
name wouldn't work. We needed something short, one that could strike a chord
and be easily remembered. Sagaai.com didn't have that ring to it. Plus, people
spelt it differently. So I decided to buy Shaadi.com, which I was convinced was
a great name for a matrimonial website at a hefty price and risk of $25,000! This
was really all the money we had!

What
were the initial challenges that you have faced while setting up Shaadi.com?
How did you convince your consumers in order to build trust and make online
payments?

Poor connectivity, low bandwidth and a lack
of credit card penetration were major challenges when we started our Internet-related
businesses. However, when we started Shaadi.com, most of our revenue actually
came from NRIs. The number of resident Indians who used the platform at that
point was low compared to NRIs, thanks to India's connectivity challenges. Over
the years, this has changed. A significant portion of our revenues come from
within the country.

Traditional and arranged marriages over the
internet were a laughable idea when Shaadi.com started. At that time, the
mind-set of Indian parents was conservative and technology–shy and here we were
– a tiny company with renegade (read naïve) entrepreneurs trying to reinvent
marriage in India. We had to spend significant energy on PR and significant
money on media to educate people about the advantages of online
matchmaking.  We were lucky in the sense
that the media was very friendly towards what we were trying to do and we were
able to drive tremendous awareness through well executed PR and friendly
reporters.

It was also a huge challenge to get Indians
to pay online but overtime we realised that Indians are very value conscious
consumers. Online one cannot have a sales person thus it was harder to convince
them. Hence, the way we sensitize them is by providing them a lot of services
free, the reason being only when you provide them with a lot of value will they
be willing to pay. So for example let’s take Shaadi.com one can come there,
look at profiles, click on the best-suited profiles and send in ‘interests’ but
only when someone accepts an ‘interest’ is the time when we ask our consumers
to pay. This works as a win-win for Shaadi.com and our customers.  When we launched this model most
dating/matchmaking sites in the world moved to the same.

The other big challenge was in hiring people.  The first few years were spent making all the
wrong hires and the next few years in correcting them.  Our hiring strategy was simple – hire anybody
who will join.  For the most part people
did not want to join a small, unknown company trying to do something as
‘foolish’ as reinventing marriage. 
Especially after the dot com bust this problem became worse.  A couple of years after founding Shaadi.com I
realized that our technology was a complete mess as we had hired the wrong
people and I did not understand enough about technology to be dangerous.  Luckily for me, my cousin Anand Mittal,
joined as a co-founder and took over the technology reins.  He has been one of the pillars of Shaadi.com
since.  Over time though, I learned to
‘sell’ my vision and people started to buy in. 
Fortunately for us, the smart ones did. 
Through years of mistakes and painful times, I can now confidently say
that we are at a point where people want to join us and we have a very clear
idea of who we wish to hire.  That makes
all the difference.

How
has the scenario changed in the last 15 years?

15 years has been quite a journey, at that
time the Internet was just starting up in India. Today, the growth in this
industry has been tremendous. If you look at the Internet eco-system as a whole
and if you look at India, particularly, what’s happened now is that while the
growth is there, the usage is increasing and there are about 65-70 million
active Internet users. The real story is that these people are now transacting
online. These people have come online in the last 3-4 years and so now you’ve
got about 15-20 million people online in India who are actually transacting.
This lends to the e-commerce boom that you are seeing.

So, the e-commerce industry is suddenly
large and matrimonials and other classifieds are a part of it.  The other thing that has happened is
intensity of usage.  Social networks have
given people a good reason to be online and that eventually benefits the entire
eco-system.

Further, online matrimonials are now
culturally accepted as a good way to find a potential life-partner thanks to
all the time and money we have spent educating people.  Thanks also to our competitors, past and
present, who have assisted us in doing the same.  We can now focus on business metrics as
opposed to trying to create awareness.

In terms of people availability, this has
changed enormously in the last 15 years. 
We finally have a pool of talent for the Internet industry and I think
that is perhaps the most important change that will determine the success of
the industry in the future.

The other change I also like is that internet
companies don’t have to pay advance monies to buy advertising anymore like was
common a few years back.

In short, everything has changed … for the
better.

How
the company has been growing in the last couple of years in terms of revenue?
What are your revenue expectations this fiscal?

We are happy with our growth over last
couple of years and continue to execute on the business plan.  Today I see the size of the matchmaking
industry at 5000 cr but most of it is unorganized.  The organized component is only 10%.  While this may appear small, it affords a
very large opportunity to anybody who understands this business and is in it
for the long-term.  I think we can
continue to grow above 30% for the next 20 years since we have such a long way
to go.  The key lies in being able to
understand your consumers and build products that address their pain
points.  We have built our entire
organization around this ethos.  Now, we
just need to execute for the next 10 years and we would have built a highly
profitable company with a Rs 1000 crore in revenue.

What
was the initial investment that was pumped into Shaadi? Has the company started
making profit, if not how soon you see that happening?

We started with Rs 2 lacs. Over time we
raised approx. $12 m and yes, we are profitable.

What
was the idea behind launching Shaadi offline centres?

Marriage is a very personal and culturally
sensitive issue especially in India. 
Here the entire family is involved in making the big marriage decision
and so it became very evident to us that we needed to provide a human touch for
the more traditional mind-set.  When we
first launched the number of people online was also limited so another reason
was to really expand the market.  Today
the Centre network is an assisted matchmaking business that not only helps
people find partners but also helps people in understanding how to get the best
out of Shaadi.com. The Centre network provides a personal matchmaking service
in a comfortable setting using cutting-edge technology.

After
Shaadi.com, you have launched Makaan.com, Mauj Mobile Froper.com, AstroLife.com
and People Pictures. How has been the experience of operating in three
extremely diverse businesses?

We were early entrants in the Internet
space in India and could consequently afford to be opportunistic.  Mauj/Mobango and Makaan.com were
opportunities we saw in the market and we went after them.  We realized that we could build valuable
businesses in these segments using the core competencies that we had already
developed and we succeeded.  Fropper.com
was a play in the emerging social media space but competing with global majors
in this area was never going to be easy and so we gave up this battle.
Astrolife was an attempt to organize a very large unorganized industry in India
but we underestimated the challenges. We have since divested. People Pictures
was a result of my passion for films and I hope to build it into a viable
creative studio some day.

What
are your priorities at People Group right now?

There is only one priority currently i.e.
scaling up.  We are in 3 great segments
of the industry – matrimonials, property and mobile applications – all of which
provide secular growth for years to come so everyone is focused simply scaling.

Do
we see People Group going for an IPO soon?

It is hard to say for sure at this point
but it is something we continue to discuss.

Shaadi
has advertised both on conventional as well as new media? What were the
different objectives behind advertising offline and online? Does brand building
happen on internet?

When we started in 1996, advertising on the
Internet was inexpensive because the Internet as an industry was not doing
well. Also companies like Yahoo and MSN were selling space at meager costs.
Buying an entire homepage cost pittance at that time as compared to what it
costs today. What we quickly did was we used this opportunity wisely and
cornered our distribution on the Internet. We had partnerships with Yahoo, MSN,
Rediff and more. As a result anywhere one went on the Internet they would see
Shaadi.com as the matrimonial partners.

Today branding on the Internet is an
expensive affair but it is something we continue to do.  However, acquisition is what we focus on as
far as the Internet is concerned.  Besides
we use TV, Outdoor, and Radio as well. 
Integrated campaigns are critical to get the best result from brand
advertising.  Broadly though, I believe
brands are built through great products and great customer service.  Advertising can only support the brand.

When
is the right time for an entrepreneur to exit a business?

It depends on the entrepreneur’s goals, the
business he has chosen to be in, and his abilities.  If an entrepreneur has chosen a very large
market to build a business in, has leadership in that segment, and possesses
skills to scale, there is probably little reason for him to exit.  However, if the characteristics are different
then he should consider exiting at the top of the hype cycle, which of course
is easier said than done.

What
would be your suggestion to budding entrepreneurs?

If you are looking for start-up capital
send me your business plan.

One
good decision and one mistake that you have made in your entrepreneurial
journey!

The best decision for us, I think, was to
put all the money in our bank and acquire the domain 'Shaadi.com' in 2000.  Everybody advised us against it, and thought
I was crazy but in hindsight it turned out to be one of the single most
important decisions we took.  Until then
the site was called 'Sagaai.com', a term which is not very well understood and
can be miss-spelt in many ways.

We have made many mistakes and we continue
to make them every day.  However, if you
had to ask me for the single biggest mistake I have made, I will reserve that
for another interview.  Talk to me a year
from now.