Often incorrect as a model but the media-shy – Anupam Mittal is the Founder and CEO of the People Group.
Recognized as one of the maximum modern firms within the us of a; a number of the maximum famous ventures founded through the group include companies like Shaadi.Com, Makaan.Com and Mauj Mobile.
Besides his operational function at People Group, Anupam is also recognized to be one of the maximum successful Angel Investors, Founding Member & Past Chairman of the Internet & Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and additionally the Founding Co-chair of H2 India.
Personally talking, Anupam the MBA in Operations and Strategic Management from the Boston College in USA is married to model Aanchal Kumar and is presently based in Mumbai. Professionally a model turned actress, Aanchal quite a regarded determine amongst the model fraternity and has also bagged a couple of modelling awards. To add to that, she has also accomplished a few cameo roles in films like Bluffmaster & Fashion and had additionally seemed inside the 4th season of truth display Bigg Boss.
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How Did He Begin His Career?
Born to a marwadi family – Mr. Gopal Krishna Mittal and Mrs. Bhagawatidevi Gopal Krishna Mittal on the twenty third of December 1971, Anupam has had a very humble starting.
After completing his education, Anupam had moved to the United States in the mid-90s to pursue his MBA, and then he had additionally joined a organisation called Micro Strategy, a commercial enterprise intelligence software program firm, as a Product Manager.
Now this changed into the time when the internet had begun to growth in the States and internet organizations like Netscape have been the primary ones from the net world to get an IPO, giving hopes to the others as properly. Clearly, internet had emerge as the talk of the city and changed into at the verge of changing the arena.
Anyways, his career had simply begun and to focus at the same, he used to come back back to India best once a yr, basically simply to relax. While he become in India, because he didn’t have much to do, sitting at his father’s office he used to take in net improvement work for different companies around the mid-90s.
During the identical time, he came throughout one of these traditional & traditional matchmakers from the early days, who might do just about whatever to get you hitched. Maintaining his popularity, he additionally attempted to set Anupam with a number of his clients. While he reached his height of the push, an concept struck Anupam, which modified his life for exact!
Why & How Was People Group Formed?
Now even as he became seeking to dispose of the matchmaker, it struck Anupam that what if there was a portal that may act as a virtual matchmaker for marriages, what if all the data such men held have been placed up at the World Wide Web and have been made on hand for those trying to find a bride or a groom. This might now not best get rid of all of the inefficiencies and address the geographical limitations, but would also ease out the system drastically.
Initiation
Hence, with out thinking a great deal, in 1997 Anupam launched the first model and called it sagaai.Com. Obviously, this was more of an experiment than a stable business at that factor. Even though he was indeed involved inside the commercial enterprise as nicely, but it turned into in particular at the weekends or so, and his foremost consciousness nonetheless remained at his activity.
He put in all the money he had or had saved for the development of the internet module, virtually because that turned into the issue which drove the money in.
Now an thrilling turn of event befell around 2000-2001, when the dot com bubble busted and most the corporations around it crashed significantly.
Micro Strategy, the agency that he turned into working with at that factor, which had a valuation of approximately $50 billion pre-dot com bust, had absolutely gone down as properly.
During the equal time, Anupam passed off to come across Shariah [SP].Com, and noticed that there had been a number of folks that were simply attempting to find existence partners there inside the United States.
He noticed that there has been a actual big pain-point that they could sincerely resolve, and that this held huge potential too!
Another Breakthrough
After going for walks his website for nearly 3 years in India, he had understood that India had little or no internet penetration and it nonetheless had a long distance to journey earlier than it became a credible commercial enterprise. Clearly India turned into far away from the Internet increase, and so Anupam decided to shift his consciousness to the USA market.
Now despite the fact that shaadi.Com technically had started in 1996, but most effective around 2000-2001 is once they actually started out focusing on it as a commercial enterprise and started out to put all the strength that they had at the back of it.
And since the US market had nearly crashed, the idea of quitting the task and shifting lower back commenced to rise up. And frankly, it simplest made experience to come back, due to the fact jobs returned inside the began to vanish away and it wouldn’t had been long before his activity went as well.
Hence, after deep wondering and calculations, Anupam in 2001 stop his task at Micro Strategy, moved lower back to India, modified the call from Sagaai.Com to Shaadi.Com and absolutely diverted his attention.
Now once the choice become made, he needed to narrow down his audience, and while at it he understood that there was a bigger want for the carrier like Shaadi.Com among the NRI’s, or ex-pats from the UK, the U.S., and Canada, truly because those human beings had been geographically distant from their homeland’s but have been looking to get married within their applicable groups, but considering they'd no manner to discover the right one, they observed it absolutely hard. That’s where Shaadi.Com may want to come into photograph!
Having said that; Anupam quickly set up his workplace within the US and started out aggressive advertising and marketing of his product in the US.
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From the time he left his task until about 2005, all of the agency did turned into simply focused on shaadi.Com to transform it right into a favored location to discover existence partners for Indians all around the world.
After the US marketplace changed into installed, Anupam then moved to the UK marketplace as nicely some years later. Later, recognition being considered one of the biggest troubles for the agency, he also began doing tv campaigns in India.
Challenges
Since their initiation, the enterprise has additionally confronted numerous challenges as nicely. To begin with; till about 2005-06 humans barely understood what the business enterprise did and then again, hiring human beings, more in particular the right type of human beings was a unique ache altogether. To upload to that, getting classified ads become equally tough as properly. Plus, the cultural limitations effectively play their part to make matters worse for them too!
Anyways transferring on, eventually Anupam also began with Mauj.Com & Makaan.Com People Pictures (producer of the movie ‘ninety nine’) for the identical motive that he spotted a pain-point and believed that, his solution can be the ultimate solution!
Now the opposite motive they launched these sites become additionally because Anupam believed that at that time competitive depth turned into very low and had been quite unsure where exactly might the destiny growth come from, as a result, these web sites had been launched as a de-risking method.
And nowadays the People Group has converted into a huge variety of a hit groups which have managed to successfully go away their mark in all walks of existence.
People Group As It Is!
Let’s come up with a more internal appearance of what all of the People Group has created up to now!
Formed in 1996; Anupam Mittal is the Chairman and Managing Director of People Group. Under the banner, the organization has created agencies like Shaadi.Com, Fropper.Com, Shaaditimes.Com, Makaan.Com, Astrolife.Com and Shaadi Point, MAUJ Telecom & 7007, and produced films like Flavors, and ninety nine (People Pictures), and Purple Media.
While it's miles extensively believed that the group’s origins are traced again to the beginning of Shaadi.Com in 1996, however in truth the Group became officially released in 2004, typically to discover opportunities in the Internet and Mobile space.
With an employee base of over 1197 human beings throughout 12 regional and three global offices; the number one commercial enterprise of the Group runs around the patron Internet and cellular value-added services (VAS) sectors, and is segregated into 3 businesses—People Interactive, People Infocom and People Pictures.
People Interactive
Formally, it's far regarded to be the customer net wing of the organisation, underneath which some of the maximum successful ventures of the group inclusive of – Shaadi.Com, Makaan.Com and Fropper.Com (friendship and social networking carrier), are listed.
1. Shaadi.Com – To begin with; their revenue model is also pretty simple & truthful. After both the parties have observed their in shape and handiest whilst you’ve determined someone is whilst one has to pay, until that factor the service is absolutely free of fee. Their charge is highly moderate and stages from US$60 to US$four hundred relying at the provider the customer chooses.
Now the beauty of this model is that, shaadi.Com is one of the few internet corporations which has crossed the obstacles and has turn out to be profitable. And it’s basically because of the version they have got adopted. Here in their case, unlike the opposite internet groups, one hundred% in their revenue is theirs and there are not any middlemen that they've to pay to, and no product cost as properly.
And without a doubt, Shaadi.Com which had commenced as an experimental concept has now transformed into a worldwide matchmaker which has touched the lives of 2 cr (20 million) people globally and now additionally records to about 3.2 million marriages all across the globe. The website today controls kind of forty% of the US$1 billion Indian healthy-making business. It is likewise regarded to be the world’s oldest and most successful matrimonial service.
To add directly to the revel in, shaadi.Com additionally has offline Shaadi Centres and operates one hundred Shaadi Centers in 87 Indian cities.
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2. Makaan.Com – Makaan.Com, that's part of Elara Technologies Pte Limited, Singapore (a rarely recognised truth) is one of the fastest developing property-associated web sites in India. Another piece of minutiae is that, its parent organization Elara additionally owns and operates PropTiger.Com, a virtual actual property advertising and transactions offerings company.
The website online had visible a lacking gap and therefore, changed into on the whole set up with a sole purpose of connecting consumers and dealers in subjects of real property.
The distinctiveness or as a substitute USP of Makaan.Com is that it additionally has a assets intelligence portal called MakaanIQ. Through this belongings intelligence portal Makaan.Com aims to provide actionable intelligence to the real estate industry in India, which pretty frankly is near non-existent.
To come up with a little briefer insights about MakaanIQ – in easier terms, it's far a device that offers the customers the advantage of records, intelligence and equipment that facilitates the facilitates assets seekers and real property enterprise gamers, to take informed property choices. From the variety of offerings that MakaanIQ offers, some of them include – brand new information at the Indian real property sector and evaluation of the assets trends across major Indian cities.
Additionally; Makaan.Com Property Index (MPI) and Makaan.Com Buy v/s Rent Index (MBRI) are two very important month-to-month indexes that has been released through MakaanIQ, which continues a song of assets and condominium charges throughout the united states.
Recently, round November 2014, News Corp – a global media, e-book publishing and digital actual estate Services Company took a 25% stake in Elara.
People Infocom
Formally talking, people infocom is a Managed Services Provider to Telecom Operators, Media-Entertainment Companies and Consumer Brands. In simple terms, this wing of the organisation manages applications of various businesses and enables content on them through its popular brand – Mauj Mobile.
1. Mauj Mobile – A lesser recognised call – Mauj Mobile, remains well known to be one of India’s maximum Innovative Mobile Content and Applications company which in general collects and distributes content material and packages from various resources from the world over through numerous operators.
Mauj Mobile specializes in top rate apps, games, content material marketplaces, and so forth each inside the domestic and international markets.
With over 1,000,000 downloads a day and more than 20 million User Visits per month, Mauj is a fast developing cell organisation from India.
Some of Mauj Mobile’s merchandise consist of (Sources: www.Mauj.Com): – Mauj.Com: Entertainment videos and casual gaming merchandise for phone customers.
Mobango.Com: A save for Free Apps, Games and Videos. And a user cannot handiest down load an utility free of charge, but also post, convert, and percentage with friends all varieties of consumer generated content -via the net and cellular devices.
AppyStore.In: A keep for some of the Best Apps, Games & Videos for children upto 6 years of age for amusing gaining knowledge of.
M3 Billing API: It is a Single Operator billing API throughout 5 pinnacle telcom agencies in India to permit in-app purchases.
People Pictures
As the call itself suggests, this agency is into the media manufacturing commercial enterprise and become particularly based to discover the market for brand spanking new-age Indian cinema. So some distance the organization has produced films like Flavors (2005) – an NRI cult hit launched and ninety nine (2009), the largest hit of that summer.
Other Angel Investments Of Anupam
Anupam had at a very early level visible that, it became not humanly viable for him to begin any extra agencies after a certain point and therefore, he had taken the direction of Angel Investments.
Since a long time now, Anupam has been ruling the Angel Investment marketplace with the valuations of the groups he has invested in, hitting the roof.
In a complete, Anupam has made a total of 40 investments such as agencies like – Interactive Avenues, Ola Cabs, Druva, Sapience, Pretty Secrets, Café Zoe, ZAPR, IndiaCollegeSearch, ZapStitch, Zepo, Near.In, Truebil, Betaout, and lots of others.
Achievements
- Received the Karamveer Puraskar
- Listed in ‘50 Most Powerful People in India’ by way of Business Week
- Listed in ‘Top one hundred NRIs in North America’
- Awarded because the ‘Entrepreneur of Year’ via IT People
- Listed as ‘25 People to look at out for’ with the aid of ‘The Week’ Magazine
- Listed within the ‘IMPACT Digital Power a hundred list’ for the years 2012, 2013, and 2014
