World Wide

Two years,five websites and over a decade of market research down Ankur Warikoo sure is high on internet. “This time it is education on internet to be precise,” he says,as he uploads his new study website studytimes.com,a venture of Accentium Web Pvt Ltd,of which Ankur is the co-founder. “This,because on the global scale education gets about three to four times more clicks than even the auto sites,” Ankur further narrows down the search according to popularity and points out that test preparation for entrances like CAT,IIT and GMAT get maximum clicks,along with searches on colleges and their rating. “In Punjab and Chandigarh almost every graduate student would have gone online atleast once for these,” he shows us the 25,000 colleges and 4,50,000 courses on offer on his website alone and the umpteen sites floated with sample test papers. From amongst the courses,Ankur tells us while medical and engineering still top the list,fashion designing,business studies,architecture and law are fast emerging on the search list. This,as he browses through his other websites that venture into diverse verticals including marriage,cars and women.

“Going by my website gaadi.com,in the first hand cars segment Maruti and Honda cars appeal to many while in the second hand category Tata,Hundai,Honda and Maruti fight for space,” he lists that even in wedlock the preferences vary from the first marriage to the second. “Looks,salary packages and cosmetic deals give way to compatibility and common interest but incidentally religion remains strong in both the cases,” he opens his site secondshadi.com to substantiate his findings.

When talking about people and their preferences,money matters can never be far behind and so loanboss.com opens its kitty of research. “Personal and car loans,that’s what people are looking for and for investment,it’s still life and health insurance,” chips in Vivek Pahwa,CEO Accentium Web Pvt Ltd,who shows us one of his first websites and tells us that people just register their interest to invest online but for actual investments prefer real faces. “That’s the reason our website acts just as an aggregator. We take inputs from consumer and pass it to the relevant banks and financial institutions,” Vivek,who’s also won Asia’s Best Young Entrepreneur of the year Award,points out. As for their own revenue model. “It’s mostly through advertisements. We opt for sustainable business formats,” chorus the duo,who after completing MBA from the Indian School of Business,Hyderabad started the venture along with two other friends and have been on a roll ever since. “The average is about nine months for one website. This when we have a few developing side by side.” Now that’s something!