Quikr Announces USD 8 Million Round by Nokia Growth Partners and other investors

Posted by Rohan Khara

Nokia Growth Partners Leads Round with Participation from Norwest Venture Partners and eBay Inc.

Quikr, India’s leading horizontal classifieds player, announced today the completion of a USD 8 million round for Quikr Mauritius (a holding company of Quikr India) led by new investor, Nokia Growth Partners (NGP), and returning investors, Norwest Venture Partners and eBay Inc.

Quikr (www.quikr.com) offers a web and mobile based classifieds platform that addresses a wide variety of local needs in 40 cities across India. More than 10 million consumers visit Quikr every month to buy, sell, rent or find things ranging from laptops to mobile phones to cars to real estate to jobs, and everything in between. Quikr is the leader in horizontal classifieds in India and the company continues to see rapid growth in the number of buyers and sellers on its platform. In a move that will further propel this growth, in the last 12 months, the company has transformed itself from an online industry leader to a player that leads across online and mobile media.

“We are impressed by Quikr’s growth and product leadership in online classifieds,” said Upal Basu, Managing Director, NGP Advisors India. “We expect the rapid adoption of 3G and Smartphones to create significant new opportunities for Quikr to deliver classifieds and other local commerce opportunities to mobile devices. We look forward to partnering with Quikr to support its growth in this high potential market.”

Pranay Chulet, CEO, Quikr, said, “We are excited to add a firm like Nokia Growth Partners to our group of marquee investors and look forward to growing and scaling our business further across online and mobile platforms. The NGP team brings extensive global insights and learning in mobile technology and services, and that is certain to further strengthen our leadership position in the market.”

Quikr is in a unique position where its simple platform addresses people’s transaction needs in a wide set of areas, hence its users come back to it again and again to use it in a variety of ways. By extending its platform from the web to mobile phones, the company has opened for itself a new market of hundreds of millions of users. With its broad user base and powerful appeal, the company has the potential to revolutionize the e-commerce landscape in India.

Quikr’s organic growth due to strong consumer adoption has attracted an impressive roster of investors from early on. The company was initially funded by Matrix Partners India and has subsequently attracted investments from Omidyar Network and Norwest Venture Partners. It is also invested in by eBay Inc. This current round is a strong validation of its vision and strategy, and further cements Quikr’s position as an innovative leader of the classifieds market.

I Bleed Blue!!!

Posted by Rohan Khara

Even though its been 4 days since India lifted the coveted Cricket World Cup, not even an iota of excitement has ebbed among Indians. However, as much as all of us enjoyed the result of this tournament, what is equally (i doubt if it's more) exhilarating is to watch the reactions of folks during the league and knockout matches which led  to the WC Finals @ Mumbai.

This Boston.com link has  47 pictures which showcase the roller coaster of emotions which denizens of cricket playing nations underwent in the last 1 month. Hors d'œuvre below:

Ecstasy

Faith

Anxiety

Dejection:

Beautiful Winter

Posted by Rohan Khara

While very few parts of our country are blessed with snow during the winter, it's a different story in some of the northern countries. Click on this Boston.com link for a visual treat of the freezing but beautiful winter across US, Europe etc.  A few appetizer shots below:

Torchlight Ski Parade in Colorado, US

A snow covered tree in Budapest, Hungary

Flamingos in Hamburg, Germany

Blast from the Past

Posted by Rohan Khara

2 days back I discovered something which reinforced my belief that comic book characters will never be forgotten; at least the Hindi ones have a long time to go before they die.

While cutting through the clutter of my Facebook ‘News Feed’ (I will take a quik detour: Guys – why are you using the FB status update box as your shrink? You are taking “What’s on your mind” tool tip way too literally. I feel the box itself should be renamed as “self-controlled privacy destroyer”. Well, that topic warrants a separate post by itself … let’s go back to the what we all love – Comic books!) I bumped into this link shared by a friend. This site, which calls itself PyaareToons, is an online repository of a tonne of Hindi comic books.

A child-like joy evoked as soon as I saw the pictures of Billoo, Pinki & Chacha Chaudhary on the website & I immediately scanned the “About Us” section of the website to check the profile of the blessed souls behind this idea. This site, which has “1,670 comics of 54 beloved heroes” is run by a Bangalore based individual whose goal, other than making sure that Hindi comic lovers can access all their favorite comics at one place, is to “Go Green Read Comics Online”. Guess what, buddy? You keep getting more of these bad boys on your site & I will definitely read them online and as a bonus, will also spread the word among other comic book lovers.

My first tryst with comic books started with Enid Blyton’s wooden character Noddy. Well, it was not exactly a comic book but, at that age, it was very amusing to read about Noddy’s rapid head nodding. As I grew older, I was introduced to comical characters, given life by the famous cartoonist Pran: Saboo, Billoo, and Pinki ... the list is endless. For some reason, it was very exciting to read about how Saboo’s temper could lead to a volcanic eruption on the planet Jupiter & how Chacha Chaudhary’s mind worked faster than a computer. Reading them right now seems like an intellectual onslaught but, I have to admit these characters, with their “superior” sartorial style, are still fascinating. My cousins introduced me to comic books like Tinkle, Champak, Archie & what became my all time favorite: The Adventures of Tintin. I don’t think I can ever forget Captain Haddock’s colorful vocabulary, his trademark cuss “Billions of blue blistering barnacles” & the pair of clumsy detectives Thomson & Thom’p’son, who despite being ridiculously incompetent are given critical missions to solve. This comical journey, which started with native brands like Diamond comics & Amar Chitra Katha lead to foreign comic book publishers like Marvel & DC Comics.

A lot of Hollywood movies & animated TV shows have been inspired by these comic books. Right from Hannah Barabara’s uber successful Tom & Jerry TV episodes to Hollywood’s successful launch of Hasbro’s Transformers, resurrection of the DC comic’ caped crusader Batman & the Marvel superhero Iron Man speaks volumes about how popular these, & many other characters, are & will remain.

Every time I come across similar stuff, I will keep sharing them and for right now my request to all those comic book fans, who have a hidden stash of comic books or are aware of other similar sources, plz contribute them to PyaareToons.

6 months & still going strong!

Posted by Rohan Khara

It’s been a little over 6 months since I relocated back to India, & so far, have really enjoyed the experience. I will not say it has been “a roller coaster ride” since there were not too many highs nor lows (& hope there are not too many “lows” lined up) nor have I got too many “cultural shocks” (as my relatives back in the US had described) but what has been most interesting is the set of similarities & differences between what I had imagined life in India would be & what it has really turned out to be. Below is my attempt to describe those experiences.

The infallible support system

This one turned out exactly as I had expected.

By support system, I don’t mean just the family & other relatives who are always there when you need them (& also sometimes when you don’t). I mean the infallible support system right from domestic helps & cooks to kirana (grocery) & medical stores which do home delivery totally free of cost, to the DVD guy who will deliver the latest Bollywood flick at your doorstep (this is better than Netflix. In the US, you have to wait for a day for Netflix to arrive but here, you pick up the phone & order a DVD and its delivered within the next hr or so), to the top-notch e-commerce retailer who, beyond a certain threshold purchase, will offer gratis next day delivery.  I don’t think there are many countries in the world which offer ALL of these luxuries at a reasonable price. I still remember the first day after relocation, when, after dinner, I picked up my plate & washed it and then dried it with a cloth. My mother & wife actually chided me for doing this & warned me not commit this blunder again because if the maid were to see this, she would get spoilt. Then, it defied logic as to how on earth would I be spoiling someone by doing my own work? But then, 6 months down the line, I can see the wisdom in their words & now don’t “spoil” the domestic help in anyway.

SMS - India’s most influencing marketing channel

I thought that TV would be the most powerful marketing channel in India. It is strong but is second to the SMS.

Recently, in lieu of the much awaited Ayodhya verdict, the Indian government had banned Bulk SMS sending for almost 10 days. Why? Circulation of inflammatory & hate filled SMSs could evoke communal tensions.  That is when I was reminded how powerful that set of 160 characters is. I don’t think that other marketing channels will go extinct; Radio, TV, Print & Online etc will be around for some time but in a country with more than half a billion cell phones, SMS would be the one of the few ways to get in front of the users in the most cheapest & effective way. Just think of the various possibilities which can be executed via SMS – promotion messages & giveaways, discount codes & coupons, location based messaging, using it to drive audience participation for social causes, raise mass awareness etc

This medium, if used the right way, can become a powerful weapon in a company or our government’s arsenal – it can become like Rajnikanth – a one man army (I had to say this after the success of the actor cum legend’s latest multi-lingual release, “Robot”).

Customer service sucks

I know what you are thinking.  Anyone who comes from the US will have higher standards of how customers need to be treated. Before I give details, let me specify that I had some pleasant experiences as well. Few, but they were definitely memorable. But most were extreme experiences.  For e.g., we deal with a company which solves some of our operational needs. Now, every time I call them to complain about their product not working as it was promised (which is about 4-5 times a week), they have absolutely NO ASNWER … They just keep quiet. I sometimes ask “Hello … are you still there?” to check whether the guy has hung up on me.  I think the account managers & customer service associates at this company follow Omertà, the Sicilian code of silence. They must have been trained to not say a single word when the user complaints. I am so used to yelling at them now, that if I don’t call them for a day or two, I feel uneasy & yearn for the catharsis.

The other end of the spectrum has been full of sales & account managers who wanted to befriend me on Facebook, hang out with me & also watch a movie and grab dinner over the weekend.  For these guys, customer service means ‘customer smothering’. When called for an appointment to explain their offerings, these come in about a batch of 2-3. All of them give their business cards in the Japanese style – there is the bow, the card is held with both their hands, the front of the card facing you so that you can read the details & as their smile widens, he hand is gently pushed towards you, so that you accept the card.  Once this docile act of card exchanges is done, all of them have a change in behavior – It’s like they are on steroids while explain what’s going on at their company. All of them have different answers to my questions which change again, once I ask the same set of questions over email. I remember this specific case where someone from a top notch telecom provider visited our office & walked me through the details of his company’s offerings with a lot of poise & confidence. I was very impressed with his knowledge. After he left, he called up after half an hour & said that his manager would like to meet me the next day. When the manager actually came in (after a week), he said totally different things & presented different commercials than what was offered by his direct report.

Also, the other thing here is that there is this compulsive need for customer service people to have an answer to the consumer’s question. Very rarely have I heard these guys saying “I don’t know but I will find out & follow-up”. Maybe it’s a cultural un-willingness to not have an answer but then someone should train them that it is important to give the right answer than giving any answer then itself.

I knew this aspect of India would not have improved but was hoping against hope that it would have.

Media –It’s all about creating sensations

This one was quite contrary to my expectations.

What’s going on with our media? Every news article is so spicy & the headlines are always a cliff-hanger. More than half of the topics don’t even deserve the precious print or digital real-estate; leave apart their front page status.

Right from making Kareena Kapoor’s vital statistics a national issue to whipping Commonwealth Games head, Suresh Kalmadi for everything that is going wrong right now in the country, the media has been reduced to a source for providing baseless & senseless entertainment. They just move on from one topic to the other without even thinking if they are providing any value or information to the end-user. Do the journalists even think about presenting the right, un-biased facts & following up a story to the end or has their job just become to ensure that their TRP or readership stays at an all time high? Do the media companies care a hoot about how the reader’s expectations or are they content with their tabloid like journalism & not bothered an iota by our dwindling expectations of them?

We like to talk big about our country with words such as “India Rising”, “India Shining” or even “Incredible India”. But then the one source which our citizens rely on for true & honest information, the media, is not doing its job & if this were to continue, I think we should start thinking of a different name for ourselves; something like “India - Entertaining”.

Well, these were some of the key observations which I had in the last 6 months & I am sure that as more time passes by, I will have even more colorful experiences to share. There were a few others as well, like road rage, poor infrastructure etc. but I consciously stayed away from them because those issues have been beaten to death, so no point repeating the same thing. But the fact remains that as much as I have enjoyed my 5 yrs on the other side of the ocean; I look forward to a very exciting & eventful life in India.

How about “Citizen Devo Bhava”?

Posted by Rohan Khara

Have you seen the latest refresh of the “Incredible India – Atithi Devo Bhava” (meaning: The guest is God) TV ads sporting Aamir Khan, encouraging us to behave in a more hospitable manner so that more tourists visit India, view us as warm, hygienic & caring people, go back to their countries & spread the word and fuel a loop of even more people coming to visit us? It’s great that Ministry of Tourism (MoT) gave thought to the correlation between more foreigners touring India and how we are perceived by them.  Also, there couldn’t have been a better choice than Aamir Khan to become the face of this slogan. Full marks to MoT! I just have one question. Why do we need the causality between becoming more respectful & attracting more tourists? Why can’t we just do it for ourselves & the billion other people living in our country?

It’s been close to 6 months since I relocated to India (in Mumbai) from the US & so far, the experience has been good. I don’t have any major complaints about settling in, part of the reason being, I was in the US only for 5 yrs (which I feel, is not too long) & so am still used to daily hiccups (like the “chalta hai” attitude, people not respecting your schedules, multiple reminders to get a small thing done etc ) in my motherland.  However, on viewing the Incredible India ads, I was slightly annoyed because MoT had to resort to a cause like tourism & being more sensitive to non-Indians, in order to evoke habits of more cleanliness, honesty etc among the Indian denizens.

There are enough number of domestic causes which warrant a campaign geared towards citizens & government becoming more responsible & accountable to each other. Have you ever closely passed by folks who are happily disposing nature’s call back to the nature? Has your vehicle taken a dip in the sewage-water ponds which fill up crater sized, slip-disc inducing potholes on the roads? How about being stranded in traffic for hours because water-logging, during monsoons, brings life to a stand-still? Have you been reading about the spur in diseases, some of them fatal, due to the lack of sanitation & hygiene? What about the honor-less tradition of honor killings? Have you seen how even a dry run of the Commonwealth games arrests day to day life in our capital city of New Delhi? How about the limitless corruption which thwarts all kind of progress? The list is endless & these causes hold enough water (pun intended in some cases) to have multiple awareness campaigns addressing them. The goal of these campaigns should be to draw a picture of how addressing the core issues improve the overall quality of life for the average citizen. With that taken care of, we will have automatically moved one step forward in making our country a more attractive place for tourists.

I definitely don’t want to impale the euphoria created by the MoT’s Atithi Devo Bhava campaign. The core message of getting Indians to be more responsible & hygienic is bang on target. I think that these messages could have been evoked using other socio-economic motivations which right now, I feel, are more crucial & important than being conducive to tourism.

Economic Times names Quikr as one of India’s Top 50 Digital Brands

Posted by Rohan Khara

Close on the heels of winning the AlwaysOn Global 250 Award, Quikr has been named as one of India’s Top 50 Digital brands in a special issue titled “’Most Trusted Brands ‘  in Brand Equity (Economic Times) dated September 1^st, 2010.

We want to send a big Thank You to our user community for their valuable support and feedback. This also serves as a testimonial to the Quikr team’s laser like focus on making Quikr the one stop to ‘buy, sell, rent or find’ anything , quikly & easily!

Thursday night is the new Friday matinee!

Posted by Rohan Khara

Disclaimer: I am no film critic. I was an ardent (& now a disappointed) Bollywood fan who spent a lot of money watching most of the movies released in 2010 within the first 2-3 days of their release.

What’s up with Bollywood spending buckets of cash on promoting movies which end up performing so poorly at the box office?

While flicking through channels sometime back, I saw this interesting interview on the tactics the producers use to market their films wherein I learnt that they spend close to a whopping 10% of the film budget for promotions!

Right from releasing flicks on Thursday night to asking (forcing?) the star cast to contractually commit to globe-trot for red carpet movie premiers, b-town is firing all cylinders to ensure that crowds flock the big screens when the movie ships.

But is it really working? Is the whole shebang conducive to commercial success? The answer, so far, is No.

The celluloid industry lost Rs. 200 cr. in the Q1 2010 & is set to lose ~Rs. 250 cr. in Q2 (Source: BT article on June 23^rd, 2010).  If the goal of all these promos is create more buzz & drive more footfall to the theatres, the idea is not a very solid one. Yes, the addicts will queue up regardless of the release day or time but nowadays, the rest of the folks wait for the reviews & if they get enough unfavourable ones, they don’t go to the big screens and spend a fortune watching the film.

The verdict is that content rules supreme & no matter how international the star cast is (Yes  ... I am referring to Kites. I am yet to make peace with the fact that I spent a fortune watching it & it was aired on TV a month after its release) or how much you spend on promotions to trigger virality (Abhishek Bachchan touring around with an entourage dressed like characters in a song in Raavan), if the story is not captivating the movie does not rake in the moolah.  Now this is a no-brainer but look at what has happened to films in 2010. Most of the films released so far this year either did lukewarm or simply sucked at the box office and all of this because of weak storylines. Either folks felt short-changed after watching, the much awaited & preceded by fanfare but in reality a syrupy & flop, Kites (I really need to let go of my grudge here) or they felt clueless after watching Paathshala, wherein my personal opinion was that the actors need to go back to acting paathshala. I literally tapped my heart and said “All Izz Well” while watching it. If the directors would have spent extra time & a part of the promo budget in vetting the story a little more, the results could have been opposite to what they were in reality.

So here’s the message for you Bollywood - get up, dust yourself and improve your products ... because if you don’t, you are leaving me with only 2 choices:

a)    Only watch those films on the big screen which have been produced by or have Aamir Khan as one of the actors (looks like he is one of those few who knows what he is doing)

b)   Rent movies & watch it in the comfort of my den. At least, I won’t feel the guilt of buying expensive tickets for senseless cinema.

Quikr selected as an AlwaysOn Global 250 winner

Posted by Rohan Khara

Recognized for creating technology innovations for the Global Silicon Valley

Quikr – India’s leading horizontal classifieds website – today announced that it has been chosen by AlwaysOn as one of the AlwaysOn Global 250 winners. Inclusion in the AlwaysOn Global 250 signifies leadership amongst its peers and game-changing approaches and technologies that are likely to disrupt existing markets and entrenched players in the Global Silicon Valley. Quikr was specially selected by the AlwaysOn editorial team and industry experts spanning the globe based on a set of five criteria: innovation, market potential, commercialization, stakeholder value, and media buzz.

Quikr and the AlwaysOn Global 250 companies will be honored at AlwaysOn’s eighth annual Summit at Stanford on July 27th, 2010, at the Frances C. Arrillaga Alumni Center at Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA.

This two-and-a-half-day executive gathering that highlights the significant economic, political and commercial trends affecting the global technology industries. Summit at Stanford’s goal is to identify the most promising entrepreneurial opportunities and investments in the global tech industry.

“After examining the companies that are on the AO Global 250 list, it’s obvious that innovation is not only alive and well in the Global Silicon Valley, it’s accelerating in economic power and scope.” says Tony Perkins, founder and editor of AlwaysOn. “The companies certainly represent some of the highest-growth opportunities in the private company marketplace.”

The AlwaysOn Global 250 winners were selected from among thousands of domestic and international technology companies nominated by investors, bankers, journalists, and industry insiders. The AlwaysOn editorial team conducted a rigorous three-month selection process to finalize the 2010 list.

A full list of all the AlwaysOn Global 250 winners can be found on the AlwaysOn website at:http://www.aonetwork.com/AOStory/Announcing-2010-AlwaysOn-Global-250

Speaking about the achievement, Pranay Chulet, CEO, Quikr says, “Being shortlisted as an AlwaysOn Global 250 Winner is a result of our relentless commitment to Quikr’s users. It has always been our endeavour to make Quikr a place where people can ‘buy, sell, rent or find’ things in the shortest time and the easiest way possible. We dedicate this honour to our community of users across India who love the experience we offer, and as a result, and come back to us again and again.”

About Quikr
Quikr is India’s leading horizontal classifieds company. Quikr was launched in July 2008 and is currently present in 40 cities across India. Quikr provides the local community in every city a platform where consumers can buy, sell, rent, find something and address a need while doing so, in over 150 categories. Quikr is backed by Matrix Partners India, Omidyar Network, Norwest Venture Partners and invested in by eBay Inc. Quikr was formerly known as Kijiji.in.

About AlwaysOn
AlwaysOn is the leading business media brand networking the Global Silicon Valley. AlwaysOn helped ignite the social media revolution in early 2003 when it launched the AlwaysOn network. In 2004, it became the first media brand to socially network its online readers and event attendees. AlwaysOn’s preeminent executive event series includes the Summit at Stanford, OnMedia, OnHollywood, Venture Summit Mid-Atlantic, OnDemand, Venture Summit Silicon Valley, Venture Summit East, GoingGreen Silicon Valley, and GoingGreen East. The AlwaysOn network and live event series continue to lead the industry by empowering its readers, event participants, sponsors, and advertisers like no other media brand.

How would have today’s gadgets blended in with the ’90s?

Posted by Rohan Khara

Gizmodo ran a Photoshop contest as to how the current state of the art gadgets would look when blended into the '90s culture & the results are hilarious!

I have included a few below but to see all the pics, hit this link.