Bangalore: It is 10am when Ashish Sinha hurriedly enters his office in Jayanagar in south Bangalore after a 45-minute bus ride. Without wasting time, the 31-year-old switches on his laptop and opens his email to search for a telephone number. He dials the number and starts talking, scribbling notes at the same time.
Business plan: Ashish Sinha, an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, and the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, plans to convert some of the features on his portal into paid services. Hemant Mishra/Mint
Sinha is speaking to the founder of a start-up firm. He questions the founder about the firm’s technology, how it is different from what is already available, its go-to-market plans. The toughest questions are aimed at gauging the seriousness of the promoter. The conversation could end abruptly if the promoter were to reveal that the start-up is no more than a part-time business.
Sinha is not a journalist, but a blogger. For the past two-and-a-half years, Bangalore-based Sinha has been profiling technology start-up firms on his portal Pluggd.In, sometimes as many as three in a day. Giving many of these fledgling firms a leg-up, showcasing their products and services to potential investors and early users.
In order to keep his start-up directory—the first of its kind in the country—updated, Sinha meets at least two start-up firms and two angel investors a day. Leaving his office at 8pm, he blogs from home till 2am, profiling the firms, writing articles on the latest developments in the start-up world and discussing issues faced by fledgling firms.
Over months, Sinha has drawn a dedicated following of venture capital firms, such as Ojas Venture Partners and IDG Ventures India, looking for new ideas to invest in. And what started as a mere blog has evolved into a full-fledged portal with channels on funding, strategy, jobs and an exhaustive start-up directory.
It is unlike other Indian websites, including VentureWoods and WATBlog, that too write on start-up firms. Pluggd.In, which claims at least a million unique visits a month on average, stands out because it is usually the first to bring a company to the limelight, giving it the kind of exposure that is crucial to tempt early adopters—people who take a leap of faith to try a firm’s offerings, thus validating its products or services.
The start-up field is splattered with premature deaths of firms whose products or services failed to click with potential customers, and investors, in the absence of a clear marketing strategy.
Sinha, an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, and the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore—both premier institutes—worked for around six years in product management at companies such as International Business Machines Corp., Ketera Technologies Inc. and Yahoo Inc. He started Pluggd.In because he was attracted by the freedom of the blogging medium.