A social network that might just work- imlee for family networking

It wasn't long ago when team Imlee wrote into us about their product. It was a social network and yes, the first reaction was what you'd give as well- "Not again,another social network!" The product is called imlee and is meant exclusively for use by families. Giving the product a spin, I was pleasantly surprised to find the product useful. I was reconsidering when I landed on a review of SocialParent and a sense of deja vu set in. A social network for families can really work out.

The first product from Pebstone

So, imlee comes from Pebstone- a technology startup focused on creating products in the social media and mobile space. Pebstone is founded by Aatish Dedhia who is an IIT Bombay alumni and is the CEO of Zycus, a leading provider of Procurement Performance Solutions. Prior to Zycus, Aatish worked at Intel Corporation in the United States and was part of the core design team on the Pentium-II processor.

imlee is the first product from that was launched in February 2012. It brings the concept of family networking in India , providing people a secured & private platform for family interactions. The name has derived inspiration from the sweet and sour lives of Indian families and intends to be a place where families can get together (and Facebook can be kept for all non-family things).

imlee has a clean looking UI whcih wouldn't take much time to figure out if you've used any of the social networks before. I'd say it's pretty easy for the older generation to adopt as well. Features like "My Tree" (gives the family tree) are well thought out.

In terms of traction, imlee today has more than 34,000 users and over 4 lac profiles. The largest family tree on imlee has over 3000 members.

The competition landscape and How will it make money?

There have been similar attempts in the west with companies like eFamily, FamilyLeaf, SocialParent but imlee seems to be the first Indian counterpart.

The current focus of the team is to expand the user base & enhance visibility. Being a niche social networking website, ads could be a major revenue source according to imlee.

With more than 34000 families already using the product (even if we consider 30% to be active, it gives us 10k+ families), there can be interesting ways of monetizing. If the product is made strong enough and allows one to do more like arranging parties and getting photo pictures delivered, a strong value proposition emerges. The future of imlee can also hint towards the penetration and net savvy-ness of the older generation.

Try out imlee.