Sanjeev Bikhchandani on Brijj.com: Need to go local
Posted on August 29, 2007
Filed Under Interviews / Leaders, Social Networking / Media |
The chat with Sanjeev Bikhchandani on Brijj.com finally came through; the excerpts are given below. To read the previous post on this new professional networking site for the Indian market, click here.
Why do you need Brijj?
Job sites primarily cater to active job seekers, whereas clients need to check on those who may be passive in this regard. This is where Brijj.com comes in; we have a strong client base at our job portal Naukri.com who need options like Brijj to tap into this passive market. Professional networking sites have other benefits too including generating sales leads, connecting with old colleagues, looking up career opportunities etc.
Sites like LinkedIn and Ryze have already built highly populated networks, and people tend to stick to the ones with an existing sizeable population. Will another one succeed?
The professional networking space is still very attractive, with room for more. LinkedIn has shown how the fast the multiplier effect works. (They have over 13 million members; another 70,000 plus join in every month). One can still launch a new site and succeed despite the competition. While you have successful global networking sites, the need of the hour is to go local. Only a small percentage of those from India are on LinkedIn; relatively speaking, only Orkut has some penetration in India. A mostly Indian site like this would be more useful.
What are USPs of Brijj compared to the other popular networking sites?
Its main USP is its relevance to the Indian market. We have a better engine to help you find friends; even sites like LinkedIn make it difficult to find your college friends for instance. We are working on adding more features, to be intimated as and when ready.
How do you expect to build traction on the site, critical to its success?
Naukri has a database of over ten million which can be invited to join Brijj to start with; we also have clients who need such a service. We have not promoted the site fully yet, but shall do so shortly.
Have you set some milestones for yourself?
We have intuitive targets of between 4,00,000-6,00,000 members in nine months; this will give us the critical mass to grow faster after this.
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One Response to “Sanjeev Bikhchandani on Brijj.com: Need to go local”
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Hey Ajay,
I am already registered on Brijj and there are some basic things that are missing there for eg. On linked I have an open connection(profile) but here, we cannot have one (: Some of the other things are also missing.
There is definitely a penetration of Business Networking sites but how many Indian professionals really use it and if they use, how many really turn back…So many guys from India who are on LinkedIn dont know how to use it (:
And Brijj already has a competition with ApnaCircle(where the fundamental itself is wrong with non-Indians being featured on the site)….
May be since this is Sanjeev Bhikchadani’s venture, it may take off but have to wait whether it works wonders like Naukri
-Himanshu Sheth