Building business platforms

Giving the MSE sector a whole new dimension and impetus is Yofroggy.com, which supports companies with their on-site operations, thus enabling them to grow on a global scale. The mastermind of the initiative, Rakesh Yadav, Head, AGL India, gives us an insight into the portal.

Aadeetya Sriram (AS): Tell us about your portal and how is it different from the existing domain creating ones?

Rakesh Yadav (RY): Yofroggy has been set up to help people sell their services or products through online channels. When I say sell, it does not mean we provide e-commerce and payment gateway solutions. Though we do provide those services, we are primarily handling the marketing aspect of their operations. Around a couple of years ago, we were introduced to the concept of domain booking and hosting and we have slowly progressed into the dynamics of the set up. Earlier, we were handling big clients, but gradually we realised the scope of servicing the small-medium enterprises in the country, which is an ever-growing sector. So we started investing in the product and as we see today, we have a product that can help any small-medium business in India to come online and start getting sales through that channel. The USP of our portal is enabling these businesses to market their website.

AS: What is your key-differentiator when it comes to comparing with your rivals?

RY: Our extensive marketing experience is an integral feature of our portal. We also give them free Google Adwords voucher to promote their sites, which enables them to serve instant traffic on their websites. We have deliberately made it a point to ensure that any technology that we bring is very simple and user friendly. Our product range caters to every possible kind of business – from anyone who has just started up, to someone who is an established player in the market. We have priced them our products attractively and assure customers of high-quality services.

AS: How did the idea of such a portal come about?

RY: There are a number of domain-booking and hosting servers in India. We, as an advertising agency, were working very closely with Google, which has a strong focus on SMBs and they reap good returns when it comes to their advertising vertical. In the US, around 80 per cent of their revenues are accumulated from SMBs and the rest from corporate clients. Of over three million SMBs, we have a very minuscule share of businesses that have serious potential with regards to their growth, which come to about 5,00,000. However, then managing such a figure is an enormous task in itself. So, our objective is to facilitate the untapped market and provide them the tools required to grow.

AS: How many customers you have got on-board?

RY: We are getting very good response and will soon be announcing strategic partnership with some large local partners across India. The idea is to go where SMBs are present, rather than just attract them organically. This would give us the bandwidth to concentrate on the service offering and let partners take care of the acquisition channel.

AS: How do you see the competition coming from Google (www.indiagetonline.in), given the fact that they are providing services free for one year?

RY: There is no competition as we are also backed by Google. For us, it (www.indiagetonline.in) will weed out non serious players and individuals so that we can concentrate on acquiring business customers, which is where our strength lies. Additionally, as mentioned earlier, we will stand to gain from huge publicity and the marketing that Google will do around it. So I do not see any competition as these are two very different offerings.