I have written before that one way to ensure that your predictions come true is to do yourself what you predicted others would do.
After saying for more than a year that social media outsourcing will be the next big business opportunity for India, and lead the third wave of Indian outsourcing, I’m setting up a business to exploit this opportunity.
I’m setting up a social media company called 20:20 Web Tech with Sunil Agarwal, the founder of 20:20 Media. We’ll be based in Delhi, but focus on providing social media analysis and brand monitoring services for international clients.
There are more than 50 social media analysis tools, but no tool is more than 50-60% accurate, due to the difficulties in decoding spam, slang, sarcasm and sentiment. We will add value by adding a layer of human intelligence on top of the technology, and increasing the accuracy of the results to as much as 90-95%. As we will be based in India, where manpower costs are really low, we’ll be able to do it at a really competitive cost.
We’ll have a fairly robust tool of our own, but we will also work with other tools that our clients might be using. In fact, our business model will be based on partnering with, not competing with, the present social media analysis companies.
I think that the closest example of what we are trying to build is KDPaine & Partners, except that it is based in the US. Being based in the US has a visibility advantage while being based in India has a cost advantage, so we are hoping that, instead of competing, we’ll be able to partner with Katie and other players in the space.
By the way, Sunil and I first met at the South by Southwest Festival in March. I asked a question at a panel and ended up giving the answer myself. My mini-speech led to an interview with BBC, and a discussion with Sunil, and now to this company. So, the moral of the story is: go to conferences and ask questions that only you can answer.
I’m in Washington DC for another month, and I’ll be happy to start conversations that can evolve into business relationships three months down the line. I can be reached at +12022791925 or gaurav@2020webtech.com.
My affirmation is finally coming true, albeit a year late. 2008 was the best year of my life. 2009 promises to be even better. Do wish me luck.
Update: I just re-read my post and realized how cocky I sound. Let me assure you that I feel like a little boy who has just found out that Santa Claus is for real. I still can’t believe my luck in having Sunil as a partner. He is almost like a father-figure and it’s such a delight to be able to work with someone I can look up to, learn from. So, I’m keeping my fingers crossed and hoping that everything works out. I’m very excited and very scared and I do need your wishes and blessings. So, really, do send out a little prayer for me.
