That, roughly, is the short story of BG Mahesh whose start-up portal indiainfo.com is taking on local biggies of the business including rediff.com and Satyam Infoway.

With the backing of the $175-million Intelligroup CEO Raj Koneru who has pumped in $5 million into the venture, Mahesh hopes to turn the corner by the end of year 2000.

The result of a six-year trek from a personal Web page (called mahesh.com) launched in 1993 that turned into a search engine offering information on immigration laws and overseas call rates in India, the portal (activated in May '99) now offers the usual stuff from flowers, sweets and CDs in additionto exotica like ethnic handicrafts and articles.

Touted as a one-stop shop for everything on India and boasting 15,000 links, indiainfo.com is targeting Indian internet users at home and abroad apart from "anyone interested in the country".

With distinct sections on news including business and sports, tax and laws, fashion, shopping and careers, the site is also close-tracking the ongoing general elections with frequent updates. Eminent columnists including Arun Shourie and Cho Ramaswamy are a big draw on it as are sections catering to subjects like vaastu and yoga.

Mahesh is proud of the fact that without "a single cent" being spent on advertising, indiainfo.com is getting around 2 million page-views per month. Of the revenue from e-commerce, the overseas-domestic split is 70 and 30 per cent respectively.

Currently, advertising contributes considerably to the company's income. With a revenue target of Rs 15 crore from the portal by December 2000, expectations are that eventually e-commerce wouldaccount for a large chunk of the pie.

While indiainfo.com is the base in cyberspace, the real world operations are through Visual Interactive Ltd registered here and Visual Interactive Inc in the US.

The three promoters, Koneru, Mahesh and Madhu Kodali (an e-com whizkid), plan to offer employee stock options which is expected to grow to around 140 by the end of this year, from the present 55. About 7 to 10 per cent of the undisclosed equity will be offered to employees within a few weeks.

Most of the $5 million earmarked for operations till the end of 2000 will go into the development of the site. However, Mahesh is open to other fund-raising options and a public issue (either here or in the US) is being discussed.