How they converted $536 to a $300 Million Business Today

ZeroToHero

Having a Large Capital and making a big company is not a big deal. But starting from scratch with nothing, or very less is a big deal even if you make it big or not.

Bhavin Turakhia and Divyank Turakhia who started their company in 1998 at the age of 19 and 17 respectively, with a capital of $536 (Rs.25,000) which they borrowed from their Father to buy a server.

Today their company, Directi has over 5 businesses, 1,000,000 Customers around the globe, 50,000 channel partners and they are leaders in Domain and hosting businesses in India. Their Company’s total worth is $300 Million+.

It all started in 1998 when they became the first ones in India, to the first ICANN accredited domain registrar in India. This was a great start. In Many interviews they told that, after the first month they never had to look back because in the first month itself they had made enough to go on for the next month.

Their main Focus is on Indian audience though they serve all over the world. Well, i was attending one of their Reseller Club meetups and found their presentations pretty impressive which were mainly concentrated on the Potential India had. The one fact that made me think, was that Most Traffic generated from India (It was among top 5) and when it came to serving the web with sites, India was right at the bottom.

Once one of my uncle said, that a big man is not the one who does all the work, he is one who gets his work done by others  (Here i mean not for free, but obviously by rewarding them). Most of their businesses are not based directly on them but their channel partners who do 98% of the companies business and unlike Google Adsense, they have fair and transparent model which make their partners feel they are surely not being cheated.

In 1998 when they started doing business the Net Speed 14.4 Kb was the fastest available at that time, but in midst of all that, one of their activities that never stopped was experimenting. They wanted to experiment with web services and you never know you might land up with a $300 Million Company!

Linux tries to match fire with fire!

Can you guess which operating system was released besides Windows 7 on 22nd October. Here is a hint its open source. If your answer is Ubuntu, then you are bang on target.

Canonical released the release candidate (RC) of Ubuntu 9.10 this Thursday. Ubuntu 9.10 codenamed Karmic Koala is the latest version of the ever popular Linux OS. Final version of Ubuntu 9.10 will be released on Oct 29 as per company’s release schedule.

An image of the OS is available for download on Ubuntu’s Web site. The  RC is available for download in three versions which include the server, desktop and netbook versions.

Ubuntu910

Visit Ubuntu Official site to download Ubuntu 9.10 RC

A single ad on Twitter Homepage for one day is worth 500,000 dollars

twitter-art

Twitter has been offered $500,00 only if it could host a banner ad on it’s homepage for 24 hours. Who is rich one to pay so much? It’s uSocial, a company which focuses on Social Media Marketing.

The Ceo of uSocial said, 

While $500,000 may seem like a large amount to invest in one banner for one day, we believe that the investment will be more than worth it,

There has been no response from twitter, back on wether this is a deal or no-deal. But,  twitter founders tell that, their focus should be on developing technology and improving twitter and if they would shift their focus to generating revenue, that would be a mistake.

Twitters, Got a different plan in mind, they hope on charging people and brands using twitter for commercial purpose. $500,000 is a whole lot of money and 24 hours is not much time. Let’s See if twitter approves it or not. Any Ideas, Suggestions list them down in the comments!

Via Telegraph.

Windows 7 Student edition has a bug

Since the launch of Windows 7, Apple would have been waiting anxiously to hear about the Windows 7 flaws. Well it seems they don’t have to wait any more as the first Windows 7 flaw has appeared on the scene.

win7

Windows 7 Student edition seems to be the affected version. People have experienced difficulties using the Student Upgrade edition on 32 bit Vista to upgrade to the just released Windows 7.

The likely cause of this flaw is a flawed unpacking process. The unpacking process results into one executable file and two non-functioning bundles instead of producing an OS installer.

When the installation process is initiated, a bug makes an entry and attempts to execute a 64 bit task on the32 bit systems.

Microsoft has stated that it is looking into the issue. Microsoft should come up with a resolution as soon as possible as this will be in their best interest.

BlackBerry Storm 2 arriving to Verizon on October 28

It has been only a few days since BlackBerry Storm 2 was unveiled. Various carriers have announced the date on which they will be revealing BlackBerry Storm 2. Well a document has leaked that suggest Verizon Wireless will be releasing BlackBerry Storm 2 on 28th October.

BlackBerrystorm2

Remember this information has been collected from a leaked document and can’t be given the official status.

There is a twist to this story, a couple of documents from Verizon suggest that Verizon might be revealing a certain phone probably BlackBerry Storm 2.

On the other hand, Verizon is also expected to make another announcement on October 28, related to the Android-based Motorola Droid, so Verizon won’t be all that interested in launching two major phones on the same day. Only on 28th October we will know what will actually happen.

Why FaceBook and Twitter will Kill Google Bad : Very Soon

I just recently found out, that my cab driver was on facebook and was asking me to add him. Well, so any people know me just because of twitter, yes more then those who searched for me on Google too. 

With such rapid growth of Social Media, will Google be able to survive it? Google Being Killed by Facebook and Twitter? Seems, like a joke now. But perhaps in future this may be the truth.

There are so many reasons to support it. Check out some Statistics, when i compared Twitter, Facebook and Google Interms of traffic the receive.

Stats from Compete.com

Stats from Compete.com

Here is a Graph of the Pageviews all three sites receive.

Alexa Pageviews Comparision

Alexa Pageviews Comparision

Now you know, that Facebook atleast is not much far from Google, with it’s 300 Million User Base and growing. If Stats are to be further believed then Facebook had a growth of traffic about 202% in this year while Twitter had a outstanding growth of about 660% but Google only had a growth of 10%. If this Further goes on then. the future is not far when Facebook and Twitter will rule the web.

That may be one of the reasons why many people changed their homepage from Google.com to Facebook.com. As we know, Google’s Main Target is the Search Market which has seen a dip while being compared to facebook, it’s user base has grown enormously.

This proves it out that, now people have become less interested in searching for stuff rather then networking. Twitter has also seen great growth and with the speed at which it is growing, it will soon come near Google and Facebook.

Windows 7 Success Measured : Yeah, i know how many copies they sold

Microsoft’s won’t be ready to face this, or it will shy away from this. Microsoft, in order to tackle Japan Linux Symposium by setting up a Windows 7 Booth across the street from their conference centre.

Windows 7 Booth in Japan

Windows 7 Booth in Japan

Linus (The Man behind Linux Kernel) arrived there and gave  a big thumbs up to windows. If you’ve noticed it seems like Windows 7 has not sold mean too many copies (I see only one space empty on the rack). 

[Via Picasa]

Microsoft Suffers Revenue drop but People are Still Happy

microsoftMicrosoft’s, Third Quarter Reports are out and the Companies Revenues is made public. 

What’s Funny to observe is that, Microsoft’s revenue has dropped about 14% but people seem to be happy about it. Why? Well, as per estimates Revenue was to be $12.32 but fortunately, it’s $12.92 which is not as worse as what was expected.. Well, guys at Microsoft would also be happy about this ;)

The Online Revenue drops from to $490 million well last year it was $520 million. The Major Blow is to the Windows Live Division which reports a drop from $4278 million last year to $2620 this year. The Entertainment Division has suffered just a loss of about $2 million. Servers and Tools Revenue was the only one which saw growth of 17 Million Dollars.

Here are the Reports,

Microsoft Revenue Reports

Microsoft Revenue Reports

Ow! Eating one of those Windows 7 Whopper Burgers is Painful (Video)

Picture 32

Ouch!

We had just posted sometime back, one the Microsoft’s Launch Campaign in Japan, the 7 Patties, 5.1 inch burger found itself one guy who could take the pains of eating the burger. Video Supplied Below.

Well, surely having one of those burgers won’t be good for my apetite though.

[Via Engadget]