Dushyant Bhatia, Founder, Blogertizeworld – Internet and Online Media

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“One stop for Blogging”

“Bloggers of the World unite” may well be the battle cry for Dushyant Bhatia whose vision has bought together the blogging community in an effort to amass and fully utilize their resources and talents. “Blogertizeworld – Internet and Online media” is the name of the venture that the young entrepreneur has created. He spoke to Yourstory revealing the inside details of his world of blogging.

Dushyant believes in the concept of unity and explained how they have utilized it in his venture saying “Blogertizeworld was formed as an online blogger startup that rose funds from bloggers themselves in order to create and run this website. Pixel advertising was utilized to raise funds for tech development and marketing purposes. The concept of the website is similar to that of a mutual fund where the cost of running this website is distributed among a large pool of bloggers and the rewards for their investment is something which no other blogger community offers.”

“Our goal is to establish ourselves as a brand (BW brand) & not just a web based service. We intend to enhance the development of a community for internet users worldwide by providing a platform for bloggers and internet marketers to monetize while they socialize & allow other internet users to network with likeminded groups by:

• Providing a micro-blogging platform (not restricted to 140 char text posting) as a medium to communicate and network with individuals (BWJAMS.com)
• Giving a platform to bloggers / internet marketers / software programmers / talented artists / home based businesses to promote & sell digital products online (BWJASS.com)
• Helping content creators such as bloggers find advertisers willing to sponsor specific content (BWJAPS.com)
• Hosting the collection of casual games for casual gamers (BWJAGS.com)
• Encouraging user generated content by providing a video sharing portal on which users can upload and share videos. (BWJABS.com)

Before you turn up your noses at Blogertizeworld thinking that it is just another blog; you ought to know what they offer. Dushyant says “The services cater to different types of internet users. Like others, we too target masses, but unlike them, we break up the masses into various classes (i.e. bloggers, internet marketers, home based business owners, casual gamers, social networking users and video watchers) and cater to their needs separately under different online properties. Our target users to begin would include internet marketers and bloggers and then the focus would shift onto conventional internet users like social networkers, video watchers and casual gamers”

Aside from providing for every surfers needs, Dushyant stated why they should be your first choice for many an activity saying “It’s a one stop shop for all different classes of internet users – We intend to build a community of internet users not restricted to a limited geographic location. Almost all of the successful online startups in India cater to the needs of domestic users and we intend to change the same.”

Their Business model / Revenue model is different for all the services they offer, so the revenue keeps flowing but in different streams.

BWJAMS – Just another microblogging service - Social media campaigns

BWJAPS – Just another paid-review service –Commission per review

BWJASS – Just another shopping service – Monthly subscription

BWJABS – Just another broadcasting service - Advertising

BWJAGS – Just another gaming service - Advertising

Dushyant is aiming high and planning big, but requires funds to do that. He believes that he has the right combination for success and only lacks the funds to make it happen. He sent out his S.O.S. for finances saying “Currently we’re looking for VC/Angel funding. To grow fast and organically, funds is what we require at this moment. In order to achieve 200K registered members (80% of them from outside India) by Jun 2011, we need some funds to play around with. Currently we have over 6000 odd members across our service offering catalog. We haven’t spent a single penny on marketing the site. Social media and traditional media (TV and newspaper coverage) did the job for us. Bloggers and internet marketers love experimenting with these new services and we aim to capitalize on the same.”

“Our objective is to provide quality service to our users and establish a brand. If at all we attract VC funding, a realistic member base of a couple of million user by June 2012 is what we intend to achieve.”

He believes that finding funds is the sole bane of the Indian entrepreneur and says that other nations have it better. “The funding scene for online entrepreneurs in India, unlike other countries like China and Israel, is still in its nascent stage. Seed funding is quite hard to get for Indian entrepreneurs especially if it’s for an online startup.”

He is a firm believer in working smart and not just working hard. His entrepreneurial journey has been marked by attention to right effort and timing. He explains his beliefs saying “Running a business may be hard work, but that’s certainly not what you are rewarded for. Often times burning the midnight oil is simply the bare minimum for entry into business. Your returns come from working smart, and the quality of your ideas and creativity are now directly tied into your revenue size. A single good idea can make you $10000 in one hour while slaving away for 40 hours on a bad one can have virtually no return.”

“While working a regular job isolates you from the risk of no return on bad ideas, it virtually nullifies the incredible return on good ones. Imagine coming up with a way to save your boss $30000. You’ll be lucky to get a $500 bonus, and in all likelihood you will receive nothing at all.”

His venture and its online nature have posed a challenge from the onset. Dushyant says “The very fact that this startup is bootstrapped, is based in India, and targets internet users worldwide is a challenge in itself. The only way this venture can be successful is by word of mouth publicity. This has been our objective from Day-1, Give your users what they want and concentrate on getting blog reviews and media coverage. If the service is good, you’ll get the returns, if not, opportunity cost is what you stand to lose. The primary challenges for any web service provider are: user acquisition, retention, engagement and monetization. We have some clearly defined plans and strategies for tackling each of these key challenges.”

Dushyant is in love with entrepreneurship and his words reflect it. “It’s an incredibly satisfying feeling to start with nothing and end up with something absolutely amazing. I believe in seizing this building attitude and applying it to life. Probably I’ll earn less if I fail or make less than what I would have made working for a multi-national company. But the satisfaction that one gets by running his/her business is something everyone should experience at least once in a life time.”

He has learned the hard way about putting money into things that have no end results. He recalls “I tried to get paid media coverage when I launched this startup. This resulted in a couple of thousand visitors and no loyal user. That’s when I realized that hype creation does not mean paid coverage. Getting people to talk about you is when the hype is created and that is possible only when your service is good. The first international press release that I paid for cost me $560 and that was the last time I paid for any paid release. I started focusing on social media and got people to talk about Blogertizeworld.”

“After a couple of months, I received my very first non-paid coverage from Mid-day. Mumbai mirror, Hindustan Times, CNBC Awaaz, CNN IBN, Rediff, Sify, Entrepreneur magazine, Dataquest, WSJ etc coverage followed. All of them were organic ones.”

Despite the coverage from the media and mentions from big names like Hindustan Times, CNN IBN, Rediff, Sify, etc, Dushyant is more pleased with a personal claim to fame. He says “The fact that an Indian bootstrapped startup for global internet users survived for over 14 months is something I’m proud of. We’re not even close to what we intend to achieve with this startup but hopefully a couple of years down the line, we could be one of the few successful Indian online startups with a significant global market share.”

Dushyant has derived many truths from his experiences and shares them with his peers saying “Take calculated risks. Take BIG risks only if you could bear the losses. Gambling at an early startup stage could be devastating. Do focus on the service offering but at the same time concentrate on making your presence felt.”

Yourstory believes that Dushyant has a bright future ahead of him and any one investing in him will reap the benefits of his entrepreneurial talents manifold.