When it comes to finding mobile-related websites, users get plethora of them. On my personal level, I never visited a mobile-related site because I have never made a purchase of a mobile phone that required some research–I keep it simple. However, if you are looking to get price comparison on various models and other information about various mobile handhelds, here is something for you–Phonecurry. It is venture to provide information on mobile phones to users.
Genesis of Phonecurry
Sahil Bajaj, a graduate of the 2008 B.Tech batch of IIT Delhi, always had the entrepreneurial bug, and was itching to leave his job in management consulting to make it on his own. It was while trying to help his mother select a mobile phone for himself in the beginning of 2009, that Sahil realized the lack of any good quality sites in India for helping users find the right mobile phones for themselves. Thus began the story of PhoneCurry. Working part time during late evenings and nights on the development of the website, Sahil designed a website to solve the exact need that he had spotted in the market. The philosophy was to keep it simple and no-nonsense. After making the site online at the end of 2009 and receiving great feedback from his friends, Sahil decided to finally leave his job in February this year and give his full attention to his young startup.
Challenges faced in the start-up phase
Developing a useful site with an extensive database of phones and features meant a lot of dedicated, intense hard work, especially with both the usual office work and the startup work to manage for Sahil. But he made it through the difficult testing period, and since leaving his job and becoming involved with PhoneCurry full time, he has hired another person on the team to help things.
Business model of Phonecurry
The business model for the site is still being ironed out, but is likely to primarily revolve around advertisement, and commission from lead generation for local mobile dealers. Both these components are likely to be added in the coming few months.
Competition
The idea behind PhoneCurry has not really been to match up with the competition, but instead to take a totally different path. So while other mobile sites are focused on adding feature after feature and flooding the sites with content, PhoneCurry keeps it simple by focusing only and exactly on the things that consumers are actually look for while trying to decide which mobile to buy. It just picks this one problem to solve for the user, and does it really well.
Role of innovation for Phonecurry
Innovation is at the core of PhoneCurry. The sparse homepage is indicative of the approach taken. Users normally think of the problem of deciding on a phone is a way like ‘I want either a Nokia or Samsung phones, launched during the last 1 year, with touchscreen, 3G and social networking’ – PhoneCurry is designed exactly to solve queries like this. The extensive search function allows you to create a shortlist of phones according to your exact requirements. On the phone pages, features are not just mentioned, but explained. A summary of user and expert opinion and an overall rating is also provided to each phone, to help the decision making.
First big success
While the site has just started to promote itself, the spread through word-of-mouth has already been exceptional, and the site continues to receive very positive feedback from users who have used the site to decide which phone to buy.
What for future
The plan for the next few months is to market and promote the site, while at the same time making constant improvements in the site functionality on the basis of user feedback. Eventually handset advertisements, as well lists of local mobile dealers will also be added to improve the user experience as well as generate revenue.
