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DOT.COM: Q&A ''All This Is Just The Beginning'' Sreekant Khandekar, Co-founder, Agencyfaqs!, chats with BT's Praveen S. Thampi on the media portal's survival secrets. What exactly was 'the' factor behind agencyfaqs!'s success? ...The idea, the first-mover advantage, or the way things were executed? A. Yes, agencyfaqs! was a good idea and it was first in. But 'the' factor has been the execution and the constant innovation.
How far has the 'Khandekar' factor (he was the founding editor of A&M magazine) influenced things? People far better known than I have failed on the Net. The fact of being known arouses some early interest. After that, if surfers don't like what they see, they couldn't care less who you are. Your survival strategy in a nutshell... While our faith in the Net has never wavered, even in the boom we had our doubts about whether throwing money was the best way to get it back quickly. You may be ready for the market but, is the market ready for you? Our strategy has been to pace ourselves, scaling our effort as Net usage improved. Now, after the crash, do you think dotcoms can survive as independent businesses? The world may have been a saner place before the term 'business model' came about. It's fine to apply that to businesses with history. To cubbyhole all Net enterprises into a handful of types is dicey. Yesterday, a real-world presence was a liability. Today 'click-and-brick' is a virtue. Who knows what fashion tomorrow will bring? All of us need some humility, some sense of 'I don't know the answers but I am going to find out'. Far less money would have been be wasted if we had gone with an explorer's mindset rather than a consultant's (consultants always know). Yes, some dotcoms will survive and profit as independent businesses, others won't. Generalisations are dangerous. When do you see agencyfaqs! becoming large enough to be public? Scalability is already considered to be an issue with your site...
Scalability is a big word, and one that isn't well defined. People can't even agree on how to spell it-with or without an 'e'! Barring the odd idea of pure genius, such as, say, Hotmail, few ideas are scalable to infinity. However, several Net ventures, including ours, are capable of growing far, far faster than almost anything in the real world. Our immediate objective is profitability, by late 2001. Once you are profitable, suddenly everything else becomes possible. Look, nothing stops agencyfaqs! from expanding beyond India. But haven't we seen enough disasters of entrepreneurs trying to force the pace too quickly? We have a rather old-fashioned view that if we get the product and the marketing right, everything will ultimately fall into place. So, what is in the pipeline? Is your present revenue model supportive enough for the long run? We are already the most effective and innovative way-in any medium-for media companies to reach advertisers and their agencies. Whether in terms of content or advertising or services, we offer options which are possible only on the Net. This has brought in strong advertising which will continue to grow: we expect to have every single major media company on board. Now, we have launched Brandfit, a
qualitative media tool that has been marvellously well accepted by Indian
publishing. Simultaneously, we have entered reverse printing auction and
have some truly large companies as our clients. Plus we have two major
products coming up in the next couple of months. And yet, all this is just
the beginning... |
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