Go4i's Gupta: An idea that never took off

Go4i.com

It was a horizontal portal promoted by one of india's largest media organisations, The Hindustan Times Ltd (Chase Capital was the other promoter). It was headed by Piyush Gupta, a high-profile former Citibanker, reputed to have been among the top 40 managers of the bank. Its advertising was reasonably good and loud enough to be seen. And it had enough channels to try and make a true horizontal play. An early-2001 IPO was being talked about. Unfortunately, the company's advertising-driven business model never really took off and in early 2001 (just around the time it should have gone for an IPO), Hindustan Times decided to cut its losses and bring the shutters down on Go4i.

-Sahad P.V.

Caltiger.com

In hindsight, Caltiger probably received as much press as it did because of its contrarian play. It was a Kolkata-based new economy venture. And, it was the country's first and last free internet service provider. That's right, users did not have to pay money for the company's dial-up service. The company hoped to make money by making them watch ads. The ISP was even thinking of streaming movie trailers to make money. The business model didn't fly; the company hoped to make a comeback with internet telephony, but that didn't work either.

-Sahad P.V.

Ideasnyou.com

This was a B2C venture promoted by former Cadbury Schweppes CEO Ashok Jain, along with investment banker Ashok Wadhwa, marketing consultant Rama Bijapurkar and some 30-35 pros from sectors such as fast moving consumer goods and banking. The company had four channels: Goodhealthnyou (a health products site), Familynyou (a peer-to-peer site), Cricketnyou and Customerpowernyou (a community of customers). Jain still heads Goodhealthnyou, which has metamorphosed into a "full-fledged healthcare communications firm" in his own words. What went wrong? "It was just the way the industry went," says Jain. "Asking this question now is as inane as wondering why the Sensex is touching 8,000."

-Priya Srinivasan

Hometrade.com

Losing out: (Top to bottom) Hometrade's Agrawal, Firstandsecond's MD G.B.s. bindra and PurpleYogi's Mathur

Well, this dotcom and its CEO made the cover of this magazine well after the dotcom bust, courtesy a scam involving corrupt politicians, gullible co-operative banks and provident fund managers, and government securities. CEO Sanjay Agrawal was arrested and everyone, including this magazine, pointed out how Home Trade had burned some Rs 65 crore on an advertising campaign featuring Hrithik Roshan (who later claimed he had not been paid the entire amount promised to him), Sachin Tendulkar and Shah Rukh Khan that did not really say what the product was (an online brokerage, if you must know). Not many mainstream consumer brands can afford to feature all three in a campaign. Then, those were the days.

-Sahad P.V.

Broadcastindia.com

It was meant to be a media-rich news channel with streaming audio and video. Founded by Sukaran Singh, son of TV personality Nalini Singh, with VC funding from Infinity, the site was probably ahead of its time. Now, when everybody is talking about triple play and delivering rich media through broadband, broadcastindia.com seems a prescient idea.

-Sahad P.V.

Firstandsecond.com

It set out to become India's Amazon, tried a Barnes & noble, offline-online experiment for some time, and continues to exist (yes, unlike some of the other sites on this listing it lives and you can still buy books and music on it). Yet, discounts seem a thing of the past (the fact that you pay less has always been one of Amazon's unique selling proposition) and the promise of what could have been remains just that, a promise.

-Sahad P.V.

PurpleYogi.com

Well, this wasn't strictly an Indian firm, but it was founded by Valley-Indians; Junglee's Rakesh Mathur was its CEO; and much of its technology work was being done out of Bangalore. With $33 million (Rs 141.9 crore then) in funding from companies such as Softbank and Infosys, PurpleYogi promised to personalise the internet experience for users, helping them easily access things that piqued their interest. Think of it as a smart search aided by software downloaded by users on to their machines. The company has since become Stratify and produces search and mining software targeting the legal industry, but the sexiness of being a purple yogi is long gone.

-Kushan Mitra

Dream that failed: (Top to bottom) Arzoo's Bhatia, India's Singh and Indya's Kar

Arzoo.com

In 1998, Microsoft bought out hotmail for $400 million and hotmail co-promoter Sabeer Bhatia became a poster boy of the internet and, back home in India, an icon worth emulating. Arzoo was the young Bhatia's next venture. It was born in March 1999, based in Fremont, California, with the back-end in Bangalore (his home-town) and everyone was of the opinion that it would revolutionise the world of e-commerce. Forbes said it could become the mall of America yet be as easy to visit as the neighbourhood shop. However, no one really bought anything on Arzoo, Amazon was already there, and by June 2001 it was all over. Arzoo shut shop leaving Bhatia with a hole in his pocket and a dent in his reputation he is still trying to repair.

-Kushan Mitra

Skumars.com

This site too lives, but the project that sought to invest $200 million to connect 30,000 kiosks across India to an e-commerce web through VSAT terminals is a long-forgotten dream. The company got into some trouble for taking too long to repay the Rs 1,00,000 advance each of the 30,000 franchisee partners had paid up and the venture ended up damaging the old economy textile company's image.

-Kushan Mitra

India.com

Today, visitors to india.com will find a free e-mail service that allows users to have a XXXXXX@india.com address. That's a far cry from a company that set off in 2000 to be "definitive internet company for people and businesses that have a link to the Indian community", according to a publicity release. Around the same time CEO Digvijay Singh said that his website would "as an early mover in the region, steer the country's inherent resources to help it realise its full potential". All very well; only, the company, then worth $130 million, claimed to be in the vague business of "distributing information technology products". By early 2002, the portal was gone; the e-mail service remains.

-Kushan Mitra

Jaldi.com

Jaldi touted itself as an online superstore, one where customers could buy a host of appliances and durables at prices no bricks and mortar shop could match. The premise behind this was demand aggregation: that Jaldi would attract enough users to then drive a hard bargain with manufacturers. However, customers didn't bite and by 2002, Jaldi was dead and gone.

-Kushan Mitra

Indya.com

Founded by serial entrepreneur Pradip Kar, with investments from the likes of Rupert Murdoch, Rajat Gupta, Ram Shriram, Sanjay Parthasarthy and Yogen Dalal, Indya was an ambitious horizontal play in the Indian internet space. The company hired the best (or most expensive) talent available, embarked on an advertising blitzkrieg, and launched its offering amidst much fanfare. Unfortunately, the site itself proved a big letdown (it was no Salon; let's leave it at that), and Indya never achieved anything close to its anticipated volume of advertising. By 2001, it was evident the Indya story was over. And in 2002, in an effort targeted more at saving face than picking up the pieces, Murdoch acquired all of Indya. It still remains Star Television's online arm.

-Venkatesha Babu