Ajay Nahar, Kuldeep Dabauriya, Amit Rawat, & Nirmal Kannan, Founders, NOMAD Publications Pvt. Ltd.
Tuesday June 22, 2010 , 8 min Read
“Planet’s First Democratic Magazine”
RememME.com has more than 28000 members in just a few months of its launch in January 2010. While you may think that the idea behind it must be great and that is why it is so successful. You would be only half-correct. The young entrepreneurs’ team of Ajay Nahar Kuldeep Dabauriya Amit Rawat and Nirmal Kannan are the foundation that RememME.com has been built on.
Yourstory spoke to Ajay Nahar to know more about RememME.com and its place in the world of Entrepreneurship
How was the idea of your venture conceived ?
Hope you agree every individual has something special that he earned from his life it can be knowledge, experience, thoughts and ideas. Also, there is an inherent desire to share it with the rest of world.
There are few online platforms to express and impress upon others in a meaningful way, like the blogging platforms e.g. word press, BlogSpot etc.
Undoubtedly, these are great platforms and they're free! The only concern is they are beneficial to the few persons whom you’ll invite or chase or threaten to come and read your posts. But don’t you think it should be beneficial to others also?
We wish your wisdom spread around and let the people remember you by your earning from life. Thus conceived, RememME.com and RememME magazine.
What is RememME.com and how it works?
RememME.com is a global knowledge community. It was launched in January, 2010 and has so far 28,000 members from 45 countries; mostly eminent writers, blogger, researchers, doctors, professionals, and university students.
Here they submit scoop/article on the subjects of Entrepreneurship, Business & Management, Science & Technology, World & Politics, Sports & Entertainment, Health & Lifestyle and My Life. These scoops are then knocked and commented upon by this online community in an E-DEMOCRATIC way, which collectively decides top three scoops from each category. The winning scoops are then published in RememME.
RememME a first of its kind “concept-driven” magazine. It’s a high gloss, 48-page,
4-coloured, printed monthly magazine. Through subscription agents & library suppliers we circulate 5000 copies in leading corporate, embassies and libraries of B-School, Engineering colleges.
How big do you think this idea can become?
Considering only the bloggers stats: India – 1 million, US - 25 million, other Asian countries - 10 million and the People who globally read blogs -346,000,000 (Source- Comscore). We strive to enroll another 4 lakh members by the end of year.
How does your venture an interesting value proposition for its users?
To answer this question, let me quote example of Malarkey a blogger, freelance writer and an aspiring best seller author. Pre - RememME.com Era – Malarkey was one among millions of blogger. He was getting 2000 unique visitors/ month on his blog and was earning $$. In order to get visitors on his blog and pursue them to subscribe, he used to spend considerable time doing social media activities, web marketing and promotion.
Post - RememME.com Era - Malarkey is a celebrated blogger among millions!
Around 30,000 people read his post, which are part of growing RememME.com community. Because of this visibility, he is now getting around 3500 unique visitors/month on his blog and started earning $$$$$. He also saved his time doing promotion for his blog and enjoys a quality time with his fiancé. Most importantly, he lived his dream of being featured in a printed magazine besides that he has won gift vouchers as mementoes for his brilliant posts.
What is in the coming future for RememME.com?
We regularly organize meets with our members in café to take their compliments, feedback and brickbats. This allows us to enhance our services and gather ideas for scaling up. The latest we are introducing is a Knowledge Partner Program that will benefit our members tangibly and intangibly.
In this program, we invite corporate & Institutions to become our knowledge partner for these subject categories on RememME.com, Entrepreneurship, Business & Management, Science & Technology, World & Politics, Sports & Entertainment, Health & Lifestyle and My Life
E.g. HCL wish to become knowledge partner for Science and Technology category. Then..
- HCL banner would display in all scoops/articles submitted in science & technology category.
- Online & Offline marketing in social networking, bookmarking sites, exhibitions and events where we’ll participate.
- HCL logo will display among knowledge partners in our newsletter, blog & other communication with corporate, Institutions & members.
- In return, HCL would honour the top three most knocked scoop author from Science and Tech. category by offering their product/services or gift vouchers etc.
What do you personally feel are areas that Indian entrepreneurs face troubles in?Commercial front: Getting capital from bank, seed fund or angel investor. The best of the ideas have to survive through a gestation period and any support system for buffer cash is critical.
Operation front: With scare resources, an Indian entrepreneur juggle and struggle to manage multiple business functions sales & marketing, operations, finances, technology, customer service etc. This allows the nascent entrepreneur to learn the nitty-gritty of business but it also diverts the focus, leading to evaporation of entrepreneurial passion.
Regulatory front: Complex rules, regulations and procedures framed by the Government. It would be wise to focus on business objective and outsource the Company Incorporation and other regulatory work to professionals. Let me share an interesting experience, we applied for the title registration of our magazine and the registration body rejected our application stating RememME is not a dictionary word and can’t be allotted.
We met & explained to them that our website is RememME.com, the letter head & visiting cards are inscribed with RememME. It’s important for us from branding perspective to have our magazine title as RememME. Later we wrote a reconsideration letter giving reference of Infosys, derived from Information System and gave example of (Google, Yahoo!) as the most successful names over the long-term are often those that are initially the most different. We concluded our letter with following words from brand Guru Rick Jacobs that says when you select a brand name, look for something to punch through the marketplace clutter, not add to it. Overtly literal meanings can sometimes limit growth and show a lack of company creativity. After a month of deliberation, the registration body finally allotted us RememME as the title of our magazine.
Personal front: That’s the mother of all challenges for an Indian entrepreneur, from the perspective of a prospective father-in-law being an entrepreneur is equivalent to being an unemployed. Most common challenge is the unwarranted comparison by families with his/her well settled friends’ working in MNC’s.
How did the four of you become entrepreneurs?
We were working in TATA group and our team was responsible for bidding and winning government IT projects. In early career, the understanding of government business and working on important governments IT initiatives especially in the areas of e-governance, power and defense gave us the confidence to dare a date with entrepreneurship.
Also, the entrepreneurial bug was very much there since B-School days but it stung hard as we move forward in our working career with serious confrontation between mind and heart as to what’s our identity? The title on our business card or is it the brand of the organization. Why do mundane work for 3-4 decades, hopping jobs for bucks and then on the death bed reflect upon the past and confess we could have done better, to be at least remembered. This is it! We bid adieu to our 9*5 job and embraced 24*7 entrepreneurial lifestyle for a worthy remembrance.
Did you ever feel like going back on your decisions?
Negative! Once we quit our jobs and joined the ranks of the entrepreneur, we have acclimatized ourselves to face the hostile characteristics of entrepreneurship. As a matter of fact a true entrepreneur may take strategic retreat but will never surrender.
What should a budding entrepreneur keep in mind?
Invest in self – read and watch inspirational, management, leadership books and videos, develop network of entrepreneurs, leverage social media, participate in e-summits & b-plan competitions, get engaged to TiE, NASSCOM Emerge, NEN and other entrepreneurial platforms. As a person you must learn and grow in values, character, skills and knowledge and rest assured your venture will prosper by default.
Your product/services are marketable if as a consumer you see lasting value in it.
Entrepreneurs follow the laws of the nature; the laws of the land are for masses.
Being an entrepreneur is no fame, being an employee is no shame; what matter is who laugh occasionally.
Yourstory wishes RememME.com and its team much luck and good fortune in accomplishing all its objectives.
