Friday, August 10, 2007

India is marching ahead

I thought it was a joke when I saw the link with the text "Start a New Life with SecondShaadi.com". I thought one of the NRIs with a good sense of humor wrote a blog, making fun of Indian "match-making" aka dating sites. I continued to believe that this is a joke when I saw the Copyright note as "Pahwa KBS. All rights reserved." I thought the author is smart enough to coin a last name - first name combination that sounds like "bhakwas" - or rubbish in Hindi.

After careful analysis, it dawned upon me that this could be serious business. The CEO is from some management institute, must have done his due diligence before starting a venture. Who knows, there must be venture capitalists who might have done their due diligence before funding it. It could be a simple number game. They must have thought - "About 10 million Indians get married every year. Of this, if 5% are remarriages, we have a business of 500K people who are looking for a product to cater to their needs. That will be our product". (Disclaimer: All numbers here are purely fictitious.)

But someone thought of purely Indianising the dating market. The major matrimony sites launched brands to cater to various ethnic groups. There are still fragments to be captured and so Mr. Pahwa came up with his secondshaadi.com.

Be prepared to expect the launch of gayshaadi.com and lesbianshaadi.com soon. AFAIK, these are remaining fragments.

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