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Just out of a year-long relationship and bogged down with work, Pankaja Balaji, a teacher, needed respite from her noisy classroom.
"Having a social life after a break-up is difficult. You keep walking into common friends, if not your ex himself," she said. "I wanted to meet new people. I wasn't looking for hook-ups on a rebound. All I wanted was a casual conversation with like-minded people."
A friend introduced her to TrulyMadly, the dating app. While she has not yet found "the one", Pankaja claims to have made new friends through the app.
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She is one of 500,000 people who have downloaded the app on their devices. TrulyMadly was founded in 2014 by Sachin Bhatia, a co-founder of MakeMyTrip; Rahul Kumar, former product head at MakeMyTrip; and Hitesh Dhingra, a founder of Letsbuy.
The need to create a change in the online matrimonial space was the initial idea that inspired TrulyMadly. But online research revealed a more vibrant segment, of 18 to 26-year-olds.
"While there have been previous attempts at dating apps in India, privacy and security concerns kept women away. We looked at solving this issue, which would ensure adequate female participation and maintain a balanced male-female ratio," said Bhatia, chief executive officer, TrulyMadly.
A year after inception, TrulyMadly raised around $5.6 million from Helion Venture Partners and Kae Capital in a Series-A investment.
Ritesh Banglani from Helion Venture Partners and Sasha Mirchandani of Kae Capital will also join the board of the company.
Challenges
Communication and brand positioning are two major challenges.
"The whole idea of dating is misconstrued in India. Dating doesn't necessarily mean you are in a relationship. It means you are meeting and getting to know someone with the end idea of being in a relationship. This is the idea that we are trying to drive through current and future communication," said Bhatia.
TrulyMadly started out as matchmakers. But, soon enough, it reinvented itself as a dating app.
Also, projecting the app as safe for women was a challenge, said Banglani, partner, Helion Venture Partners. "The online dating space is an open market. TrulyMadly needs to create entry barriers to prevent the competition from taking over their user base."
User retention is another challenge.
Business model
TrulyMadly prides itself on the validation and verification process, which has helped make the app relatively safe for users.
The app has a multiple verification process. "Users download the app using their Facebook profile, which gives them a pre-stipulated trust score. They are given multiple verification options, helping them build their trust score and add to the credibility of their profile," said Bhatia. "Higher the trust score, higher the number of matches per user." Once users share a "mutual like", the app gives them access to the messenger tool, which enables chat conversations between them.
"We are also looking at introducing "stickers" and "ice-breakers" as part of the messenger, to ease the process of initiating conversations. These will be sold to users and priced nominally," said Bhatia.
Finance
"As a business, TrulyMadly is not monetising yet," said Bhatia.
Banglani said the online dating space favoured winners to take it all. "The best team will be the winner. Creating a highly engaged user base is vital, as that will help initiate monetising."
Mirchandani, founder and managing director, Kae Capital, also emphasised growth rather than revenue. He said, "We are not in a hurry on revenue, but for quality growth. Once the company grows in the right direction, the network effect comes into play, which eases the revenue making process. The scale of customers is very important to the business."
Bhatia, however, added the team aimed to start the monetising process within six months. He has targeted to break even by the end of 2016.
Road ahead
"We look to explore the market in Southeast Asia," Bhatia said.
TrulyMadly is not a business that experiences large cash burn, since expenditure on marketing is limited. "We also do not have a large team and are not looking to significantly add to it," he said.
"We encourage our users to take a leap of faith with us and enter into online conversations with complete strangers. A simple step can change lives," said Bhatia.
EXPERT TAKE: Anupam Mittal
With online dating gaining popularity in India, the past few years have seen a surge in dating apps and a growing acceptance among single men and women in urban India. Online dating has always been a sector with great potential. Thus, it's no surprise that another dating website or app is targeting this segment.
TrulyMadly uses compatibility criteria through personal likes and interests, along with hash-tag searches, which is nascent but worth seeding. Evolving this will be key, since potential matches don't necessarily follow common likes.
TrulyMadly uses the trust score ratings to assign trustworthiness of its users. Verification of profiles is sometimes a deterrent for users, who don't wish to disclose more to these websites apart from some basic information. It is also a known fact that the biggest challenge faced by an online dating service is safety. Women are still apprehensive when it comes to meeting new people via an online dating service. Hence, an aggressive verification process is key for dating sites.
However, a high-end "pay-for credits" model to monetise, especially in India, generally takes time. Finding the balance remains the key. Since technology is the biggest investment, online dating websites need to continuously innovate to retain members and it will be interesting to see how they do it.
Any online business that faces end-consumers relies on two things - quality of search results on the platform and the experience of current members via their interactions.
The biggest challenge for any online business is the ability to scale well and fast. TrulyMadly will need to conquer the metro markets before penetrating deeper into smaller cities. This would help them generate positive word of mouth and help them understand what really works. Users are generally looking for localised search results and TrulyMadly has a great chance of finding the right balance among the localised compatible results.
Anupam Mittal is founder of People Group and chief executive officer of Shaadi.com
