E-Commerce is seeing a big boom and many start-ups are fighting for a piece of this alluring pie. DealDrums is one such venture based out of Hyderabad which has been creating ripples. DealDrums has seen a surge and to unfold their story, Jubin Mehta from YourStory.in caught up with the founder Kishore Kadiyala. Edited excerpts:
Tell us about DealDrums.
DealDrums is 5 months old daily deal site based out of Hyderabad. DealDrums negotiates one extraordinary deal each day in a city – deep local discounts of 50-90% typically – for its users at businesses in their neighbourhoods(restaurants, gyms, salons and more). Users just need to buy a voucher from us before the offer ends(we do free home delivery of the discount vouchers), and show it at the business to avail themselves of the offer.
When was DealDrums started?
DealDrums started in January 2011. LRR Technologies, the founding company of dealdrums, also operates the popular fullhyd.com (www.fullhyderabad.com), Hyderabad's biggest local portal and online guide. In addition, we also operate the vast network of local guides localtiger (www.localtiger.com), where we focus on local content. This strong base led us to the concept of DealDrums and the whole idea formed around it and has taken a formidable shape now.
Tell us about your background and the team at DealDrums.
I founded fullhyd.com and localtiger.com before starting DealDrums. I am a graduate of IIT Madras and IIM Calcutta. Our team comprises of highly talented and experienced marketing and e-commerce professionals, and graduates of premier colleges.
In which cities are you operational currently? What are your expansion plans?
We are currently operational in Hyderabad. We plan to expand to all metros in 3 months, and non-metros soon after that.
Are you looking at hiring? For which roles?
We are looking for smart marketing/sales persons to leverage the trust merchants have in us, and negotiate great deals/discounts for our users
How do you make money?
We charge the merchant about 5% to 10% on every customer acquired through dealdrums.com.
Tell us about your customer base.
We have 14,000 fans on our Facebook page, over 65,000 registered opt-in email subscribers(for Hyderabad), and over 300,000 visitors per month to our local Hyderabad portal fullhyd.com.
Anything else that you want to share with our readers?
We believe DealDrums.com is the site best positioned to succeed in the daily deals business, due to our existing networks of local guides and trusting local merchants.
Please check out their site www.dealdrums.com for more details.
