This is my last post on VW till I return from my US trip in July .
We are approaching tax season in India. For a number of years in the US I have used the Quicken family of products including Turbo Tax. There are other interesting personal finance sites like Bank Rate, Lending Tree, Value Line, Motley Fool etc. to name a few. I am interested in getting involved in a play along the following lines in India.
What is the play?
A destination site to help individuals invest in various asset classes in India. Individuals could be resident in India or overseas.
Can critical mass be achieved?
Yes it should be possible to get over a million users.
Can critical mass be monetized?
Yes getting an average ARPU of Rs 1000 ($25) per year should not be hard.
Lots of people have tried and not got much traction. Why will this play succeed?
Good question which I would like anyone who sends me a pitch to answer. I obviously believe that the play will succeed which is why I am interested.
Can a startup do this? Will it get killed by deep pockets of existing media / financial services players?
Good question which I would like anyone who sends me a pitch to answer. I obviously believe that the play will succeed which is why I am interested.
The Bottom Line
I am looking for entrepreneurs who are passionate and capable of executing this play. If you think you have what it takes I will be delighted to interact with you.
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Hey Mohit,
That record producer is clever…he has sealed his revenues by asking the talent to foot the production bill…He cares two hoots whether the album is a hit or a miss.
Now the Talent will have to find a music distribution company (hardest part…like finding a publisher for a book written by a first time author…which will not easily uptake an album unless there’s a reasonable degree of success) to market it by spending on publicity / prints…Talent’s own revenue will come much later.
VCs will not even touch it with a barge pole, unless they have a clear domain expertise in music industry.
hi,
I am writing something totally unrelated here. I was discussing with an upcoming singer who has struck a deal with music today for one album. But he has to bear the production costs. ( around 8 lakhs ). I jokingly asked him to go for a VC. ( although he doesnt understand this term ). Lets make this upcoming singer a business model . His earnings are the revenues. ( record deals + concerts etc. ) and the VC picks up a stake in this.
I was wondering if any VC or angel would be interested.
Hi BB/ Deepak / Mohit,
Thanks for your feedback. Yes customer data security is of paramount important to us, that’s why at RupeeX we don’t ask any personal information from the individual. Anonymity is one of the principal which we follow.
Pls do let me know if you have any feedback / problem / feature request while using the site. You can drop me a mail yogeshDOTranganathATrupeelogDOTcom
I like the idea – I had spec’ed a retail tax software but gave it up because it’s too difficult to get serious traction on its own (plus at the time there were too many “attachments” to give). Now it’s a real opportunity with the new tax forms , ability to file taxes online etc. I’m writing a series on my blog (click on my name above) to help with this years tax forms.
I liked rupeex – and I’ve become a member. Some of the functionality is awesome – for instance it even extracted correct information out of a sharekhan contract note I used! Fantastic stuff, but perhaps the interface needs to be more simple and attractive.
I must agree with bb that an offline software would probably make a lot more sense given the privacy issues. Even in my blog I have mentioned about writing desktop software for online capital gains calculation – a software I have not had too much time to write although my CA would kill for it 🙂 (I intend to import the results into Tally so I can get a real balance sheet)
I’m more interested in a play on stock market (or “capital market”) analytics. Personal money management is a part of this equation but it’s a small part – the analytics of personal finance is a more attractive phenomenon (tax optimisation strategies, asset allocation, portfolio balancing etc.) to users that have the patience to enter information. And to those who don’t I would prefer a desktop software that can help.
bb,
I particularly like your comment on the perception of privacy. It is important. In cards for instance the perception in the US was that putting your card information on the net was not safe while the reality was that it was much safer putting it on a credible site on the net then give it to a waiter at an upscale offline restaurant( a whitecard could be created using a skimmer).
I think it was NDTV that did a show where in India you get a persons bank statement, cell phone records etc. etc. by paying small amounts. There are many weak links in the privacy chain.
Besides privacy in an online only solution bandwidth and response times could also be an issue.
With all the comments it appears that creating a winner is difficult but people like Yogesh and others probably believe they can and as I said in my original post that there will be probably more than just one winner in this space apart from plays like Yahoo Finance, CNBC – Money Control or the broker sites.