INDIA KNOWLEDGE WHARTON – Dec 1 - India wasn't even on Adam Sachs' radar when he and two friends founded Ignighter, a dating site that allows users to organize group dates. But the site quickly attracted the most traffic from India and other Asian countries.
Q: You recently made your first trip to India. What were your impressions?
Adam Sachs: It was unbelievable. I’ve done a lot of traveling in my life, but nothing really compared to the entirely different world that India is.
Q: You traveled to India to establish a physical presence for Ignighter. Can you tell us a little bit about the site?
A: Ignighter is a group dating site. Which means that you and your friends create a profile together. You find another group and you all go out on a group date. The idea is that it’s a safer, less awkward, more fun approach to online dating.
Q: How did Ignighter take off in India?
A: Over 2009 and into 2010, while we were focusing on markets like New York City, Philadelphia and Boston, we would go into our analytics and see that places like India and Malaysia and Singapore and Indonesia were just growing like crazy. At first we thought, that’s interesting, but it’s not our focus. So we ignored it. The growth continued and it started to get to the point where we decided we were going to optimize our site for these markets.
Q: What do you think you were doing right in India?
A: I think the group dating model is right fro India.
Q: Can you also give us some of your impressions about the entrepreneurship ecosystem in India?
A: I think it’s just starting to take off.
Q: Is there now a lot of support around entrepreneurs who do take the plunge?
A: Absolutely. I met with a lot of great VCs.
Q: What’s your future plan in India for Ignighter?
A: Our future plan is to continue to understand what we’re doing right and what we’re doing wrong. We’re in the process of opening an office in Mumbai and hiring people.
Q: Who is Ignighter's target customer in India?
A: Our average age on the site is between 23 and 24
Q: From a management perspective, what do you see as your main challenge in India going forward?
A: I think operating a company on two sides of the world is going to be a challenge. India is by far our biggest market and our primary concern. But it’s also not our only market. We have had success and we’re having a lot of early successes in other markets.
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