Often we hear talk about the right ecosystem needed for entrepreneurs to thrive and build businesses of the future. However, rarely we ever find any effort made in this regard. In the recent past, only the TiE association has been instrumental in providing a global platform for SMEs to showcase themselves. Thankfully there is a welcome change in the status quo with the Proto.in, a premier entrepreneurial start-up forum coming into picture.

In its second edition in Chennai, Proto.in brought together investors, mentors, entrepreneurs, students and even industry bodies such as Nasscom and TiE. Vijay Anand the key visionary behind Proto.in feels that innovation in India is turning a new leaf now. It is about being different, being controversial and being out of the box, just like the Tata Nano.

Vijay says, "Since we are billion people country, most of the market segments are underserved. We need to monetise the emerging opportunities. When you compare the number of Indian companies and the number of firms listed in the U.S. stock exchanges, we haven't even started the journey. So it's time to take the lead and begin the journey. I believe that if 1% one innovative entrepreneurs lead, 99% will follow."

Is the great dotcom saga back in circulation... Seems like the big bucks are chasing the online dream again. Eyebrows were raised when the Indian social networking startup Desimartini was recently in the news for being acquired by HT-Media for a speculated figure of $5-10 million! The CEO Vivek Pahwa has now invested in a few other web businesses. We begin our coverage of internet businesses showcased at Proto.in with Antya Web Search, which was one of the businesses that got the seed funding from Vivek Pahwa.

Human powered online brand discoverer

Antya.com claims to be a simplified India-focussed human powered search engine aimed at non-internet savvy or advanced users looking for quick, reliable information on the web. Search engines cannot filter spam or outdated irrelevant content from search, discovery engines do not give the search perspective. Antya focuses on ‘discovery', and shows results in a graphical format that has better brand recall. It is a combination of a search engine, discovery engine (like Stumbleupon.com or Digg.com) and a regularly updated directory.

We could call it more of a brand comparative web search, which focuses showing the related websites or brand images of the key search word. Antya's mission is "To make all brands & businesses discoverable to the end user." But despite claims by the promoters that their critical user mass is building, they clearly have an uphill task in educating the so called ‘non-internet savvy users'. While prominent brands such as Rediff, Indiatimes, Indya, Indiainfo and Sify are still struggling to gain mind share among internet users, how does Antya plan to capture mindshare! Moreover, simple searches such as "Fine arts college India", "Coorgi food", "Mysore silk", could not pull out the connected brands since the humans behind the system are yet to update their database!

Mayank Gupta of Reviewsaurus.com who participated in the Proto.in proceedings, asks "Leaving aside search results, I still don't see any business model out of Antya and I wonder why any VC will be interested in funding them if they are depending on Google Ads themselves. So I'm still wondering if Antya should be considered as a search engine or should it be considered as a discovery engine."

Bringing transparency in property deals

While the debate about rages on about the overheating real estate market in India, online realty marketplaces are doing roaring business. But none of them do a due diligence of the advertised property nor do they help in brokering the deal. Particularly if you are an NRI, who wants to buy a property in India, there is little hope in getting any professional help. Thankfully, AtOnePlace.com has stepped to fill in this gap by creating an online real estate market place providing the information, trust and service level expectations of an average customer on par with international agencies. With its presence in the U.S. and India, atOnePlace.com provides solutions to investors by eliminating asymmetries of information and minimizing transaction inefficiencies.

This buyer-seller online platform caters to nearly 22 million NRIs acting as a normal real estate broker taking care of all the paper work, liasing and providing personalized services to far away clients. Not only the site acts like a broker, it also empowers brokers who can showcase their valuable knowledge about a particular location and sell properties to clients who are way beyond their geographic area.

However the biggest hurdle for AtOnePlace right now is the enormous spread of the black market in real estate in India. Gunjan Garg, CEO feels that nearly 65-70% of the deals finalized are not dealt on legal documents and lack transparency. So AtOnePlace is unable to capture most of the deals. But it has gained a good foothold among the NRI community in the U.S. through its Indian Realty Show.

While its business model is based on sturdy platform, Mayank Gupta of Reviewsaurus.com opines that "AtOnePlace definitely needs to work on the interface because until and unless customers can have a better experience with the website, it will be difficult for them to digest that the offline services are equally good."

Voice of the youth

Amidst all the tech professionals who were busy attracting the attention of VCs and investors at Proto.in, two boys were conspicuous due to their young age. Shiv Bhaskar Dravid and his team were there to present their fledgling venture, TheViewspaper.com. TheViewsPaper is a combination of blogs, social networks and magazine, which focuses on various subjects like politics, arts, education, sports, entertainment through the youth perspective. The portal is trying to bring the power of youth, who thinks that our society can be changed if the right steps are taken.

The site has voluntary citizen journalists who go important events such as the Delhi International Auto Expo and interview celebrities like the renowned car designer Dilip Chabbria. The Tata Nano review was put up on the site within a few hours of launch. Right now 110 regular writers are working for TheViewsPaper and soon it plans to have 3,000 members. Though online advertising is the only source right now, google ad sense does not make much sense for them. They want to focus more on getting national brands such as Mentos who has advertised its special offers.

Shiv Bhaskar says that traditional media such as Indian Express approach them to get views of the youth. But sadly TheViewsPaper does not realise that there are too many youth oriented websites and magazines which are fighting for their consumer's mindspace. While Indian networking websites such as Fropper.com, Minglebox.com, Ibibo.com, are struggling to fight it out with Orkut and Facebook, we have to see whether TheViewsPaper stands a chance with its politically correct views. In fact the struggle by JamMag, the youth oriented print magazine could give us valuable lessons.

Colourful ideas, but execution matters

Myntra.com comes across like a breath of fresh air amidst the clutter of technology heavy websites. Myntra Designs is an online marketplace for on-demand consumer products that allows users to create personalized gift items such as t-shirts, mugs, calendars, key-chains etc. Launched in beta in May 2007, it has received seed funding from Erasmic Venture Fund and a few angel investors.

Since general merchandise with customized printing is very much in demand, Myntra has already gained some good corporate orders as well as attracted individual customer orders.

Most of the orders are being carried out in-house right from fabric selection, merchandising, printing, packaging to delivery of the goods. At present Myntra manages 200 orders per day and outsources any big order. Scalability is built into the business model and soon Myntra will be capable of handling large orders. The typical order cycle is executed in 48-72 hours.

However, copyright issues are becoming a threat with copied images being submitted for printing orders. There is a ‘Report abuse' option for a customer to point out any violation. Mukesh Bansal, CEO says localization of content will soon happen and designs will be soon customized to local tastes. He is seeking people with design or garment industry background to help scale up the business. Backward integration with Tirupur t-shirt manufacturers is being chalked out for larger orders. However, customer reviews on mouthshut.com indicated that similar sites like Pringoo.com gave better printing quality as well as includes tax and shipping costs. Seems like the competition has already picked up steam! 

Roving reporter - Levine Lawrence

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