Entrepreneur Roundtable, Mumbai

Panelists: Hrush Bhatt, co-founder, Cleartrip.com; Saurabh Gupta - CEO of Phonethics Mobile Media; Naveen Tewari - CEO of MKhoj; Saurabh Khullar, Co-Founder of Ideacts; Jiby Thomas, Co-Founder of Quickr
Theme: Before & After (Starting Up) 
Date: Friday, November 14th
Time: 3-5 PM
Venue: Sequoia Capital India Advisors, #404, Ceejay House, Shivsagar Estate, Dr. Annie Besant Road, Worli, Mumbai

Note: The roundtable is not open to an audience

(more…)

Marketing 2.0: Digital Transformation - Niche to Mainstream - 14th Nov, Taj President, Mumbai

You’re invited to join MediaNama and 9.9 Media for the Marketing 2.0 Conclave being held in Mumbai:

Topic: Digital Transformation - Niche to Mainstream
Date: 14th November
Time: 9:00 AM - 6:00 PM
Venue: Taj President, 90, Cuffe Parade, Mumbai
Agenda: Download (pdf) 

To attend: Register here
To sponsor: mail advertising@medianama.com or call Umang at +919999000785

The discussion will focus on understanding how CMOs can leverage digital media like Mobile, Internet, Blogs and Communities, and we’re expecting participation from senior marketing professionals and decision makers from across FMCG, Auto, Telecom, Consumer Durables, Technology companies etc. Speaking at the conference, apart from yours truly, are:

Greg Verdino, Chief Strategy Officer, Crayon Consulting Group 
Ireena Vittal, Partner, McKinsey & Company
Ajit Balakrishnan, Chairman and CMO of Rediff.com
Santosh Desai, MD & CEO of Future Brands
Debabrata Mukherjee, Director Marketing, Coca-Cola Korea
Vikram Sakhuja, CEO, Group M
Partha Rakshit, MD South Asia, Nielsen
Mahesh Murthy, Founder & CEO of Pinstorm
Rajiv Hiranandani, Co-Founder and ED (Revenues) of Mobile2Win
Manish Vij, Co-Founder & CBO of Quasar Media

MediaNama Wishes You A Very Happy Diwali And A Prosperous New Year

Good news to brighten up your evening - the BSE sensex closed almost 500 points up, and above the 9000 mark at 9008.08. We’ve been through some turbulent times this last quarter, and we hope that this Diwali brings with it happier and more prosperous times.

At MediaNama and MixedBag Media, we thank you for your time, inputs, suggestions and trust, and promise to continue shining the light for you. 

Coming up: Earnings, TiECon2008 Live, Mumbai Trip

We’ve got a packed schedule over the next three weeks or so:

Earnings

Apart from NDTV, HT Media and Idea Cellular which we’ve already covered, we will also be bringing you earnings updates from the following companies - Cybermedia, Geodesic, Info Edge, UTV, Web18 (Network18), Bharti Airtel, Moser Baer, Sify, Northgate/Bharatstudent, Onmobile, RCom, Tanla Mobile, Tata Communications, Rediff and IOL Netcom. We also hope to have something to report regarding Eros, Live Current Media, Unitech and Videocon - updates from the last two regarding their telecom operations Unitech Wireless and Datacom.

If you think there are any companies from the digital business that we’ve missed out, please do let us know.

TiEcon 2008, Live

– Live: We’re also covering TiEcon 2008, live. If you’re attending and would also like to offer your impressions of the summit, live, please do contact us at - nikhil AT medianama DOT com.
– Interviews: for interview requests, please contact us at nikhil AT medianama DOT com.

Mumbai Trip: Two Events, Meetings, Hiring

I’m in Mumbai from the 7th to the 14th of November for:
– I’m on a panel on the viability of Social Media for brand communication at the Marketing 2.0 conference on the 14th.
– Meeting a few companies for discussions on how their business has progressed over the past couple of quarters
- The IAMAI Digital Entertainment Summit 2008 on the 11th.
- Hiring: Most importantly, we’re looking to hire a full time journalist in Mumbai for MediaNama. We’ll have updates on that soon, but if you know what we do, and are interested in joining us, please do send your CV across to careers AT medianama DOT com

MediaNama Discussion, Meetup Or Mixer (Mumbai)

We wanted to host a discussion while in Mumbai - there are two topics specific to content and its monetization which we’ve very very keen on right now.

In case you have a space on offer, or are interested in sponsoring the discussion, please do get in touch. Else, if you have a space to offer for a meetup, for around 150-200 people, please do contact us at nikhil AT medianama DOT com.

@MoMo Delhi: MediaNama Discussion On “Mobile Advertising On WAP, SMS, Voice, Video and Apps”

MediaNama Launch Discussion: In Case Of A Downturn - Reduce Spending On Technology, Double Your Sales Team, Merge To Scale

MediaNama went live a month ago, and on the 18th of July, we held a launch discussion and mixer at the PHD house, with Mahendra Swarup, Chief Mentor of Smile Interactive, Murugavel Janakiraman, CEO of Consim Info (Bharatmatrimony Group), Sanjeev Bikhchandani, MD of Info Edge (India) and Sidharth Rao, CEO and co-Founder of WebChutney on the panel, moderated by Kushan Mitra, Assistant Editor of Business Today, and me.

Mint has a nice writeup on our launch discussion and mixer, and Siddharth Puri also blogged about it here. Some notes from the discussion on “Surviving a downturn”:

What To Do In A Downturn

Mahendra Swarup: Stop innovating where it costs you. Technology absorbs a lot of money and costs. Stay put with whatever you have, and look for a strategy where you have alternative revenue streams.

Sanjeev Bikhchandani: If you look at what happened to Info Edge, March 2000 we closed the financial year at Rs. 36 lakhs. In March 2004, when we were climbing out of the downturn, the turnover was around Rs. 24 crores. We grew around 60 times during the recession. How did we do it? The first thing is exactly what Mahendra (Swarup) said - we were very very underinvested in technology then. We said - this is the product. we have a tech team of four and just do what needs to be done and what’s essential.

We just kept opening new branches, kept adding new sales people. Sure we made losses for two years, but it was a low cost operation. Our strategy was - how long will one sales guy take to break even. When there’s a sign of a slowdown focus on- ensure your product is doing well, and if it is, don’t over-invest in your product. Ensure that the value is measurable, and then cut your costs and double your sales team. Go out and sell.

Sidharth Rao: Most entrepreneurs who start out, start out thinking what can I do so I can raise money. Interestingly, while we are known for WebChutney, we launched with a B2B site in the publishing space. We were waiting for the phones to ring and they never rang - we launched in 1999 something in the B2B publishing space, the day that Nasdaq melted. Three weeks on, we knew the phones wouldn’t ring and we shut the site down, and switched to marketing services.

J Murugavel: Explore tie-ups. We tied up with Sify, Rediff and others as a matrimony channel partner. During the recession, they were willing to tie-up even though we were not VC funded. So there was an opportunity. One has to be careful about putting the money where you have better ROI. Look at innovative ways of promotions - like media companies are giving advertising inventory for equity, you can go to portals for the same thing, so you can put money behind better ROI.

On VC Funding, Me-Too sites, working margins vs scale and more. (more…)

MediaNama Launch Discussion @PHD House: Thanks For Coming

I’d like to thank everyone - around 200 people - who came for the launch of MediaNama.com. Firstly, would like to thank our panelists for the event - Mahendra Swarup, Chief Mentor of Smile Interactive, Murugavel Janakiraman, CEO of Consim Info (Bharatmatrimony Group), Sanjeev Bikhchandani, MD & CEO of Info Edge Ltd (Naukri.com Group) and Sidharth Rao, CEO and co-Founder of WebChutney, and co-moderator Kushan Mitra, Assistant Editor of Business Today for taking time out at incredibly short notice.

I took some notes from the discussion, and I will have a post on it up soon; we’ll have a video up too, courtesy The iimagiineers. If you took any photos, please do upload them on Flickr, with the tag “medianama launch”. Some photos, and more here:

(note: do add names to the photos in the comments on Flickr, so we can update accordingly)

I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who’s helped set MediaNama up; I heard the term “one man army” mentioned a few times, and that’s just not true - whether at MediaNama or at my last gig, a lot of you have been there to help with advice, suggestions, tips on design, products, business segmentation, code, stories…everything. Thanks :)

There’s much that has been done over the past four weeks, but much more left to be done before this baby graduates from a crawl to a walk. We’ve only just gotten started.