ApnaCircle.com, the professional networking site launched in 2006, has extended its presence in 10 countries across three continents with a combined membership of over 30 million within three years. The company has grown through a number of alliances, the latest one being with Twitter.
Yogesh Bansal, founder and chief executive officer of ApnaCircle, speaks with FE?s Avik Das on the company?s journey so far and the plans ahead. Edited excerpts:
Why did you integrate with Twitter?
Twitter is the buzz around, so it was an obvious choice. It makes sense to integrate with Twitter as it will help us to reach a critical mass. Anything one posts on Twitter will automatically get posted on ApnaCircle, and vice versa.
For any networking site, achieving a critical mass is the most important factor. When we merge with a site, two things happen. One, we get access to an already present subscriber base and secondly, our users, most of the time, find their friends or colleagues on those sites.
We integrated with Twitter now, we?ll integrate with other sites as well when we sense an opportunity. As of now, we felt Twitter was the right site to get integrated with. Perhaps we?ll also do something with Facebook in the future. Anytime we find any opportunity that creates value for our stakeholders, we will go for it.
At present, we are not thinking from the monetisation point of view at all. We are more concerned with bringing value to our users. If we can add value to our users, money will automatically flow in. The idea was to simplify and leverage each other?s network.
What has been your strategy to become the biggest professional networking site? And by when do you expect to reach that position?
We adopted a strategy called Glo-cal. Other professional networking sites are one-size fits-all kind of platforms. But we believe 80% of the networking is done locally and the rest 20% globally. So being local is a very important factor. ApnaCircle, as the name says, is primarily meant for India. We collaborated with Tianji in China to provide the local services there. We?re focusing more on the local part with a global layer. This is the strategy we believe will take us to the top.
I believe another four to five years would be enough to reach the number one position.
What does ApnaCircle offer that users do not get on any other site?
Apart from the ?local? factor, we provide different services based on local demands. For example, in India, we do have horoscope services because Indians do tend to believe a lot in astrology. But we don?t have that facility in Europe as it doesn?t make sense there. Secondly, we provide SMS facility.
Then we?ve a point system. The more one uses ApnaCircle the more he/she wins points. These points can later be used to redeem some tangible products. Similarly, in China, we offer some micro-blogging facilities that are popular there. Other professional networking sites cannot offer such services as they are too much global.
You don?t charge users for registration. You don?t charge HR companies for posting jobs on your sites. Then how do you generate revenues?
We offer premium membership in Europe, in return they get to network on a much larger scale. Almost 60% of our revenues come from these memberships, 25% come from recruitment business, again in Europe; companies there are paying for posting jobs and hiring people. And 5-10% come from MBA colleges, like London Business School paying 2,00,000 euros to market themselves in India and China. The rest comes from advertisements.
So you are earning from Europe and spending it in India?
To some extent, yes. We can?t charge in India because India doesn?t have that mindset till now. In
India, we are thinking of monetisation from other sources.
You have a strong presence in Europe. Has the euro zone crises affected you?
In fact, it has affected us in a positive way because people over there are scared and they want to brand themselves more effectively. So they are joining ApnaCircle in large numbers and we have registered a high number of premium memberships.