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I recently had the opportunity to connect with Anurag Aggarwal, CEO and Co-Founder of KhojGuru (’Khoj’ means Search in Hindi), a new information service startup based in Delhi, India.  The site is currently in beta and gaining traction steadily.

So Anurag, how did you come up with the idea for KhojGuru?

It was about 18 months back when I first came to Gurgaon.  I was excited.  I had heard so much about it, its malls, its restaurants in malls, its shops in malls, its life in malls!  2 weeks later I realized that for everything I had to go to the mall or my local “kirana store” (neighborhood store) in the building.  I had no clue of other markets/shops in Gurgaon.  Worse, I did not know where to find a plumber because my shower was leaking or how to find a place so that I could get my laptop repaired or where to find the menus of home delivery restaurants!!

And then I and my friends decided to do something.  We made Khojguru to solve exactly all these problems.

Over this period we have evolved a lot through active interaction with over 10,000 retailers and many more users.

I know you have 3 founders, what is everyone’s background?

I’ve done my B.E. from Delhi College of Engineering and MBA from SPJIMR, Mumbai.  I’ve worked for over 1 year with GE Consumer Finance (India).  A strong marketing and operations background with an experience of handling big teams working across countries.  The other co-founders are Nitin Gupta and Amit Kumar Sharma.

Nitin Gupta has done his B Tech from IIT Delhi and MBA from IIM, Ahmadabad. Nitin has worked for over 2 years with Lehman Brothers (London). A Computer Science background and strong fundamentals in finance.

Amit Kumar Sharma has done his B. Tech. from IIT, Delhi. He has over 36 months of experience with technology companies and always works towards optimization and streamlining. He has very strong logical mind and is an expert at simulations and designing.

I love the catch phrase, “Isko Sab Pata Hai”, but if you were to describe KhojGuru to our non-Hindi speaking community in 1 sentence, what would it be?

Simple translation would be “He knows it all” :D.  But ya, “Khojguru is a friend that gets all the retail based information to the consumers anywhere, anytime”.

What is the revenue model?

1.  Retailers: We charge the retailers for different packages based on levels of accessibilty to the consumer.
2.  Advertisements: Online and on mobile advertising; mostly ad networks like google and some regional networks.
3.  Content providers: Revenue from content sharing with major content aggregators.

Let’s talk competition…do you have anyone else in this space?  How are you guys different?

Like any potential $1bn industry there are many players trying to capture the market. JustDial, Google local, Yahoo local, AskLaila and Burrp are the most identifiable players in this market.

We are different as:

1. We help retailers build or strengthen their brand in a particular locality. We do not intend to simply push forward the basic details like contact details and work timings.

2. We allow our users to get instant updates for their favourite category, outlet or brand. These updates can either be on the user’s profile page, email or mobile phone.

3. We have meshed the whole “locality based information on demand” service with social netowrking features, thus the users and retailers are empowered to share information with their friends/consumers, see what their friends/consumers and associates like/dislike, and follow other users and category experts to know more about options/potential available in their city. This in turn helps a retailer build or strengthen the brand in a locality, giving it an opportunity to target specific audience with specific messages in a specific location.

How big is the development team at KhojGuru?  How long did it take to go from conception to beta?

We have 2 core technical team members and it took us only 1 month from conception to beta. We believe in small and frequent launches.

So you’ve been around for 8 months, how big is the user community?  How many cities do you currently cover?

We have on an average 1500 unique visitors everyday. We added the registration feature in May’05 and we have an active network of over 1000 users in NCR.

We are focussed on Delhi/NCR as of now, with some test data launched in other 7 cities (Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata, Pune, Hyderabad and Chandigarh).

So fast-forward 2 years, how do you see KhojGuru evolve?  What are you guys currently working on?

Khojguru will be a comprehensive (internet, mobile and new media) platform for all retail, service and brand related information and transactions in major cities in India.

Do you guys have outside funding?  Are you looking for outside funding?

We do not have any outside funding. We plan to initiate fund seeking activity soon.

Finally, on a philosophical note, what piece of advice do you have for other start-uppers in India?

Just be patient, work smart and talk to a lot of people about your venture.

Well, that’s great advise. Thank you for taking the time and talking to me. The site looks great and I love the fact that it is indigenous to the Indian market and not just a bad ripoff of a site here. Good Luck!

Thank you, we are extremely excited about this venture.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 7th, 2008 @ 9:03 am on the category Indian Startups. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.