Attend the WATBlog Panel On "Digital Media in The Next Decade" on 16th October - Register Now!  We caught up with Rajesh Jain, Founder of Netcore which own MYToday the group sms solution provider which has now google to compete with which has recently launched google sms channels.
We quizzed Rajesh on Google, how he plans to compete with them, cost of running mytoday and his strategy to acquire advertisers for his sms service. Check out the interview below. Q) Google has launched sms channels what are your initial thoughts? Do you feel threatened? SMS is being percieved as the critical medium for mobile subscribers, something we had initiated two years ago. We pioneered permission-based services, and others are realising the power now. Mobile advertising will grow. The mobile subscriber base will be 500 million in two years; it is a big opportunity, more players are welcome. Where is the need to be threatened! In fact it is about growing the opportunity. When one is first in a market, there is bound to be competition sooner or later. In fact, in the coming months, I expect many more companies to enter this space. In the Internet too, IndiaWorld was the first portal (which I had launched in March 1995), and in the subsequent years we had various players enter the market. Over the subsequent years, many dropped out. IndiaWorld thrived, consolidated its market leadership position, and won. So, a launch of a product by itself in no way guarantees its success - even for us, there are many things that have not worked in the past two years. What is needed to win long-term is a combination of multiple things: vision, understanding consumer needs deeply, strong focus, constant innovation, money and an ability to invest for the long-term, and an organisation completely aligned to the mission (which in our case is to “be the Genie that makes the Mobile Phone into a Magic Lamp” for people), and of course, some luck! There are nearly 4 million MyToday subscribers with 11+ million subscriptions today for whom the service has become a habit with its excellent content and timely delivery. This is supported by a technology platform that can prioritise and customise each of the 12 million SMSes that we send out daily. And this is just the start. Competition helps bring out the best in all who are there in the marketplace hastening the pace of innovation, adoption and revenue growth. This is therefore good for everyone who has an intention of being a long-term player in the market. Q) Why would Mytoday continue to do well? Given stiff competition from someone like google? There is a critical difference in the two services. One is a user-generated and ad hoc content, while we believe in offering editorial content with specific deliverables which help in creating habit in consumption as our recent Nielsen study (covering 5,000 users) had shown. The study says 76% of our subscribers read every message, 84% say they receive the information first from MyToday before any other medium and 98% say they will continue with the service and recommend it to others. Q) Google already has a huge database of advertisers who would surely be introduced to sms channels once it matures how do you think that would affect mytoday? It will certainly help grow the advertising pie and then it is upto the individual service to offer best value back to the advertiser. I also think that every medium is different — and the mobile is not going to the same as the Internet. Monetisation streams on the mobile will need to be thought of very differently from the Internet. Unlike the Internet where the cost of each page view is negligible, there is a significant cost for sending out each SMS. While advertising is going to be one of the most important revenue streams, it alone is definitely not going to be enough to create revenue breakthroughs. This is where one needs to think of the concepts of “VAS Operator” and “Mobile Computing Operator”. I wrote about these on my blog recently:
http://emergic.org/2008/09/14/from-sms-subscriptions-to-vas-operator/
http://emergic.org/2008/09/15/from-vas-operator-to-mobile-computing-operator/ Q) Google has in the west acquired products after their own version’s didn’t work (think google video youtube story) Are you open to acquisition if its Google at a later date?
This is highly speculative and we are right now focussed only on building the service further. We have no such intentions. Q) How many smses do you send per day and what would be cost of sending those smses? We send more than 12 million sms per day and because of our innovative initiatives we have been able to tremendously reduce costs. Q) Lets say you are growing at the same rate for the next 2 years what would be the cost of supporting that growth? We would have broken even much sooner than the next two years and the service will be returning value back to us. Q) What is your strategy on the advertiser acquisition front? How do plan to build scale? The only way to acquire advertisers is to offer innovative solutions based on the native features and strengths of the medium, and return back a good value for their spend. We are building a large sales force in multiple cities across the country as well as working with partners to target specific verticals. Related Posts 
Attend the WATBlog Panel On "Digital Media in The Next Decade" on 16th October - Register Now! So Google India launched Google Sms Channels (still in google labs) on 1st of October a product very much like our homegrown Netcore and Webaroo products Mytoday and Smsgupshup. In Short Google Sms Channels allows any one to create an sms group/channel and besides for sending group smses one even add one’s blog feed or any rss feed to it and updates can be sent to the subscribers after they subscribe to the group. The very fact that three prominent bloggers have already blogged about Google sms channels and also created their own channel indicates that the blog feed feature seems to be a great one. You can subscribe to the WATBlog channel here 
Google Sms Channels - Validation OR Threat? The question to ask here is that if google has entered a segment should it be seen as a validation of the potential of that segment or should it be seen as the threat by the existing players i.e. Webaroo and Netcore? Well all said and done its google so expect nothing less it terms of product, marketing and free pr (from bloggers like me). While Smsgupshup and Mytoday have been evangelising this space for almost 2 years and have got it to this level google could take less than six month to take this market away? Right? WRONG! because smsgupshup and mytoday would be scaling at the sametime. Infact I feel this move by google just goes to show that the model has tremendous promise and is worth google’s time and effort to get into this market. Google had done the same when it entered the video market with google video and the app platforms with open social. One of our products Vs Our Company What most people forget is that for Google this is just one of its product headed by a team while for Webaroo and Netcore this is their only product (flagship product). Their entire teams are focussed on this opportunity. Also they are ahead of the curve by atleast 18 months in this space. But one may still say its google! Well how can one compete with google? Well Youtube did.. didn’t it? Infact Youtube was so good that inspite of having google video Google had to acquire them. I think the key is for these companies to be really good at what they do and they are already ahead of the curve by 18 months. How can Smsgupshup and MYToday Survive? The Sms groups business suffers from a cost increase with scale problem.which means the more you scale the more money you need. Think of it as the youtube of sms world with more videos to serve youtube had to increase its bandwidth capacity in this case for each outgoing sms smsgupshup needs to pay operators. Both Smsgupshup and Mytoday send about 10-12 millon smses a day and with their growth numbers it wont be late before they send as many smses as one of the big telecom operators do in India. Now thats a huge number of smses and even at 5-10 paisa a sms that they may pay to operators the total spend by these companies could be as high as 15000-20000 dollars a day which amounts to about Half a million dollars a month! And assuming they continue to scale the same way they did for the last 18 months this would be atleast 1 million dollars a month to just send out the smses! I think overtime it would be wiser for these companies to just build the network along with the operators i.e. bear the cost of network and get smses sent for free rather than pay for the smses or sell equity to Venture capitalists. The problem is 1 million dollars a month is pocket change for Google hence from a scale point of view google is best positioned in the market. What both Mytoday and Smsgupshup have going for them is the early mover advantage and they can use that to get ahead of the curve by focussing on user delight by launching more features and adding further numbers to their userbase. What Do Mytoday and SmsGupshup think of Google SMS Channels?  Here is what Beerud Sheth Co-Founder and President of Webaroo (which owns Smsgupshup) had to say about Google’s entry into Sms groups segment.
“Since its launch nearly 18 months ago, Sms GupShup has been a big believer in the power of sms based mobile communities for consumers to engage with each other and for advertisers to target them effectively. In that time, SMS GupShup has grown to over 10 million users, with numerous advertisers starting to take this medium seriously. It is natural that large, fast growing spaces will attract large players, which will in turn lead to faster growth in this space. This launch by the largest media company only validates the viability of this emerging medium and should serve as a wake up call to more advertisers to explore and embrace this medium. At SMS GupShup, our job is to continue doing what has worked well for us so far: obsessive focus on customers (not competitors), rapid product and business innovation as well as evangelizing the medium.” Do check out our earlier interview with Mr. Beerud Sheth on the opportunity in this market. Here is what Rajesh Jain Founder of Netcore (Which Owns Mytoday) had to say about Google’s entry into Sms groups segment. So, a launch of a product by itself in no way guarantees its success - even for us, there are many things that have not worked in the past two years. What is needed to win long-term is a combination of multiple things: vision, understanding consumer needs deeply, strong focus, constant innovation, money and an ability to invest for the long-term, and an organisation completely aligned to the mission (which in our case is to “be the Genie that makes the Mobile Phone into a Magic Lamp” for people), and of course, some luck! There are nearly 4 million MyToday subscribers with 11+ million subscriptions today for whom the service has become a habit with its excellent content and timely delivery. This is supported by a technology platform that can prioritise and customise each of the 12 million SMSes that we send out daily. And this is just the start. Competition helps bring out the best in all who are there in the marketplace hastening the pace of innovation, adoption and revenue growth. This is therefore good for everyone who has an intention of being a long-term player in the market. We shall be posting an exclusive detailed interview with Mr.Rajesh Jain next on this Google move Mytoday’s startegy and more. So stay tuned to WATBlog. Related Posts 
Attend the WATBlog Panel On "Digital Media in The Next Decade" on 16th October - Register Now! WATBlog in association with ECell IIT Bombay is organising its first panel discussion on “Digital Media in The Next Decade” on 16th October in the evening at 5.30pm in PC Saxena Auditorium, IIT Bombay. The Panel would be followed by a dinner and mixer at IIT. 
We invite all the readers of WATBlog to register asap for this event as there are a limited 200 seats in the house. One can register here ->  About the event The WATBlog Panel On Digital Media in The Next Decade examines how the new media landscape will unfold over the next few years. Who will be the key agents of change and who will benefit from these shifting market dynamics? Some of the leading lights in Indian Digital Space will highlight the complex roots and dynamics of digital media development as more consumers go digital in India. They will delve on the future of this space as Indian firms go local in content and targetting while global players enter India and traditional players go digital eyeing the sizeable digital consumer. What do we expect to answer Via WATBlog Panel * How will Digital Media Transform in the Next Decade? * What are the new technologies likely to transform the industry? * Panellists' picks: What will be the next big thing? Where will the most valuable opportunities lie? * How far will mobile and wireless technologies go? * Will the challenges encountered so far prepare us for the challenges of the future? * How can organisations adapt to and capitalise on the digital media developments expected in the next 12 months? * What is needed? In terms of People, Standards, Technology and Investments? Who should attend and why? Digital Media Professionals - All those connected with the digital media space be it web or mobile publishers, digital advertising/marketing enthusiasts or technology analysts/developers should attend this event to get a perspective on the years ahead and also to actively participate in the discussion. Traditional Company Professionals - Those belonging to traditional media can learn a lot from this panel on what to look forward to from the digital media and how their company can go digital in the years to come. The discussion will be followed by dinner and mixer at IIT Mumbai. Details of Event Date: 16th October Time:5:30 PM - 8:30 PM Venue: PC Saxena Auditorium, IIT Mumbai (Powai) The Discussion: “Digital Media In The Next Decade” Moderators: Rajiv Dingra Founder & Chief Blogger, WATBlog.com Panelists: Surya Mantha - CEO, Web18
Viraj Malik - Managing Director, Percept Knorigin Ashish Gupta - Managing Director, Helion Venture Capital
Send your questions to us at rajiv AT watblog DOT com. For sponsorship of the event, e-mail rajiv AT watblog DOT com. Most Commented Posts 
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