StartupDunia

MarketHero is a new startup, currently in alpha, hoping to bridge the gap between the Indian stock market and Web 2.0.

Here’s how it works:

On signing up, each user gets Rs. 10 lakhs in virtual currency. You can buy - sell stocks traded on BSE and build a virtual portfolio. The ask - bid prices are actual, delayed quotes from the Bombay Stock Exchange. The idea is to understand market movements and share knowledge amongst the community.

Of course, ones with the most successful portfolios get bragging rights and listed on the ‘Hero Meter’.

Other social features are planned, which would make it a true social investing site like Covestor, StockPickr et al.

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BuzzinTown is a cool new community oriented site, which helps you discover local events in major Indian cities. Users can filter local events by categories (music and concerts, exhibitions, sports, theater etc.) and can also rate and review past events. Social features like user profiles with avatars, comments, rating and tagging add to the stickiness and interactivity on the site.

Users can also create a community around their interests - say “photo exhibitions in Bangalore” and other users can subscribe to the community, view events of that community. This is pretty similar to Orkut communities. However, since the communities are restricted to a niche (happenings and events), I’d hope that they reduce the extra noise and serve the purpose pretty well.

They also provide the ability for users to plan and organize their own events and send out invites to their friends.

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TringMe has introduced VoIP accessibility on low end, mass market mobile phones. Till now, TringMe mobile VoIP solutions were offered only for smart phones and required a data connection (GPRS / 3G). But with this latest offering, TringMe hopes to bring mobile VoIP solutions to the masses.

With this offering, TringMe has developed a well rounded portfolio - they provide click to call widgets, web based SIP phone, enterprise and consumer focused web based toll free service, mobile VoIP and integration with IM clients as well.

With some kick ass innovation, they definitely are catching my attention.

Helion Venture Partners has closed a second fund of $210 million. The first fund was raised in late 2006 and totaled $140 million.

They also plan to expand focus into high growth sectors like retail, education and and finance - basically, expand beyond the Internet and mobile space.

Here’s what Ashish Gupta, MD Helion VC, had to say in a DNA India story:

“Across the board, most VC funds have at least a couple of investments in the internet and mobile space. But the rate at which these investments have taken place has been slower than what everyone had made it out to be. It has not lived up to the hype or caught fire very quickly”

I guess, that’s one of the rationale behind expanding the focus.

Despite the fact that the Indian online population is small, they have latched onto social media pretty early. Social networking sites and blogs are the most popular forms of social media, with a large following from the Indian online audience.

• As of June last year, Orkut had 7.2 million unique visitors from India. Facebook had 0.78 million unique visitors, with a month over month surge of a whopping 230% (via AgencyFaqs)

• Assuming that India has 24 million Internet users, this means that about 30% of the Indian Internet users have used Orkut.

• Blogs have turned out to be shockingly popular - 85% of the online Indian users read blog

• Thats almost 20 million Indian Internet users

So, when it comes to digital marketing in India, are Indian marketers warming up to the social media phenomenon ?

In this multi-part series, I’m planning to pick each of the five channels (Orkut, Facebook, YouTube, blogs, brand websites) and discuss various marketing initiatives by Indian companies in each channel.

Advertising - Marketing on Orkut:

Several Indian companies were advertising on Orkut via AdWords, which Google had integrated into Orkut a short while ago. However, rising problems, mainly cultural, forced Google to remove ads from Orkut.

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Jason Calacanis started a great debate over the weekend by offering 17 free tips to startups.

The gist of the 17 tips can be summarized in two words - “Be Frugal“.

Some quotes and posts that I liked from other blogs:

From Mark Cuban’s blog:

• Don’t start a company unless its an obsession and something you love. (my $0.02 - even if you are passionate about your idea - startup, if there isnt a market need for it, chances are you might fail)

• If you have an exit strategy, its not an obsession.

• Know your core competencies and focus on being great at them. Pay up for people in your core competencies. Get the best. Outside the core competencies, hire people that fit your culture but are cheap

From Fred Wilson’s blog:

• I encourage our portfolio companies to hire a person inside the company to be an “evangelist”. That job includes blogging actively, reading and commenting and linking to other blogs, reaching out to the media and industry analysts and gurus, going to conferences and events, and generally getting the word out. (Google communicates primarily and frequently via blogs. Scoble did some great evangelism at M’soft)
  

Finally, I loved this from Tony Wright’s blog:

Human beings love formulas. Human beings who succeed naturally think that they’ve stumbled onto a magical step-by-step guide on how other people can succeed, too. They blog about it, speak about it, and generally spread their wisdom far and wide.

The funny thing is that when you read/hear enough of this stuff, you start hearing brilliant and successful people presenting advice that directly conflicts with the advice from other brilliant and successful people.

All of the advice that you read and hear is incredibly valuable– but it’s very situational. Add it to your “startup utility belt” and whip it out when you hit a bump in the road that looks familiar.

As an aside, I’m in serious awe of Jason’s marketing savvy and his ability to generate these blogosphere firestorms.

We keep discussing about issues like broadband penetration in India, attracting good talent, early stage funding problems etc..

However, at this time, I’d like to take a moment and solicit input from Indian startups and entrepreneurs.

• What are some of the pain points you are witnessing (have witnessed) related to the Indian startup scene ?

• What are the top 3 things you wish were different / can be improved in the Indian ecosystem ?

• What sort of response are you seeing from the online Indian audience ?

• Do you have any advice - tips for other aspiring Indian tech entrepreneurs ?

I hope these questions generate some healthy discussions, which will be useful to the entire community. Feel free to address any other topic, which you think might be relevant and useful.

I request all of you Indian entrepreneurs to provide your input - I know you’re busy, but your perspective is really important.

Rivals4Ever is a community driven site, where users can create rivalries on different topics. Examples of popular rivalries include ‘Coke Vs. Pepsi’, ‘Ferrari Vs. Lamborghini’, ‘Facebook Vs. MySpace’ etc. Users can opt for any one ‘contestant’ and then add photos, videos, weapons (pros) and weaknesses (cons) for that selection.

The site can be pretty engaging to passionate customers and can be possibly leveraged by brands to gauge their public perception. In my opinion, their Facebook app is more likely to become popular than the site itself.

All in all, i think its a good time sink site, something along the lines of FunPiper.

So says IDC India.

As per an IDC release ,

Excluding the established, large global players like Orkut, YouTube, Flickr, Wikipedia et al, IDC estimates that Web 2.0 start-ups have a combined user base in India of around 15 lakh users, after eliminating overlaps.

22 million Internet users in India.

About 9 million broadband subscribers in India.

Less than 10% of Indian Internet users make up the target audience for India Web 2.0 startups.

Is this the reason why VC’s are shying from early stage funding for Web 2.0 startups ?

What do you think ?