Q. Please introduce your Co-Founder/Founders and Team.
Co-founders :
Manish Grover, an MBA in Marketing and Engineering in Electronics & Communication is the founder of ShaadiMagic.com which is one of its kind wedding planning portal in India. He is having 9 plus years of experience in Entrepreneurship, Marketing and Consulting projects for startups as well as with top management firm wherein he handled projects worth over $4 billion. He is also a fellow of Startup Leadership Program. He is a startup enthusiast who dreams to make his small venture into a ‘big corporate’. Along with ShaadiMagic.com, he also runs an IT services company and a real estate venture.
Sameer Grover, an Engineer in Electronics and Communication is the Co-founder of shaadimagic.com. He is having 11 plus years of experience in IT infrastructure and support services. He is also a fellow of Startup Leadership Program. He is a hard worker, innovator and has clear set of goals in life. He also runs a real estate venture.
Core Team Members ( Wedding Connoisseurs) :
Aakanksha Sharma, a previous HR professional at Taj Hotels, Baroda who quit her HR job because of her passion for social media and blogging. And when she is not preaching us about new social media tools, she is wearing many hats for the organization. And whenever you are seeing any weird feeds or pile on fashion updates on our social media channels, she is the one to blame for it. If you are looking for a wedding stylist, or want to feel the temperature of ongoing wedding trends, this is the person you should reach out to . Where? On any of our Social Media Pages
Khushboo Khushalani Goel, a distinction holder in Mass Media and an avid Content Writer, following the passion of writing for cars, fashion, lifestyle, beauty and humor. She has been playing multiple roles under ShaadiMagic roof like monitoring content, sales as well as customer service. Known for having a jolly nature, stylish outfits becomes her passion, creativity her all time motto, camera becomes her eye and music is in her heart. To pen it all, words are her weapons and an article her creative playground.
Q. How did ShaadiMagic.com’s journey begins?
I always wanted to start something on my own and move off the beaten path and want to create something innovative.
As always looking for a business opportunity, in February 2011 at my friend’s wedding an idea struck me, to start a wedding planning portal where to-be weds can get all the required information and make their tedious wedding planning experience comfortable. I discussed the idea with my brother and couple of my friends; we researched and found no noteworthy market player in the online wedding planning space. We proceeded to launch an online portal shaadimagic.com, a one stop shop for all wedding needs in the month of April 2011 where to-be weds can get all the required information to plan their dream wedding and make their tedious wedding planning experience easier. Since then, there has been no looking back; our team has started updating the portal, adding new features, forming strategic tie-ups and continuously adding new services & content to make it big in the wedding industry.
#SummerWedding Alert!
See how #VedicPallazo from @JabongIndia made a classic #SS16 look https://t.co/vc73RkeELN pic.twitter.com/FgHaeH5Z0T— Shaadi Magic (@shaadimagic) May 10, 2016
Q. Explain more about ShaadiMagic.com and how is it different from other similar portals?
ShaadiMagic.com is a portal which aims to be a complete one-stop shop for all wedding planning needs
- Online Wedding Planning magazine
- Search Engine for the rated and reviewed vendors and agencies
- Bridges the gap between buyers and sellers
There is no one stop shop and Wedding planning being such an elaborate task, it becomes very difficult without a guiding hand. ShaadiMagic provides a step by step guide on how to plan and manage a wedding. Helping to be brides, grooms and their family from woes of wedding planning by providing all the information on how to plan their wedding such as trends, suggestions planning tools etc and from whom to plan i.e nearby rated and reviewed vendors at same place.
For Example: A to-be bride and her family wants to plan the wedding, they need not to ask relatives, boy’s family or friends to know the latest trends, best vendors and value for money deals, they can simply click at shaadimagic.com for all the information they need. They can simply check the various trends and tips from online magazine section and can contact the perfect vendor from 30 plus categories listed under wedding vendors that includes Jewelry, Wedding Wear, Venue, Makeup, Mehndi Artist, DJ etc. at any hour of the day and plan their wedding by their own way.
We were the first to start Online Wedding Planning in India though now many similar websites have emerged in the market and have also been backed by big names & VCs. Though the hard & smart work of 5 years by the team has ensured we remain the biggest marketplace with more than 1.75 lac plus listed wedding vendors from across the country and the knowledge we have gathered from our failures in the path would make sure that the bootstrapped revenue generated ShaadiMagic would remain on top of even million dollars funded ventures.
Q. What challenges did you face while setting up ShaadiMagic.com? how did you overcome ?
When we started it, we were one of the first in online wedding planning space and its difficult to make people understand what we are trying to achieve. The first impression of everyone was considering us a match making matrimonial portal and after understanding majority of the people thought that market is not ready for it & may be they were right but we have created a market and still in the business with low burn rate and will be there for long period of time.
Self belied and Patience that we will make it big one day has helped us to overcome hundreds of challenges we have faced in our journey so far. Rome was not built on a day neither Apple, Microsoft or Tatas.. Every beautiful stuff takes time and patience though people after 10 years might call it overnight success as they forget the struggle & preparation of past 10 years behind that.
Q. What’s the current path and the future plans?
Current Path is to improvise on our tech and build our team further so that we scale it aggressively in coming one year. The future plan consists of satisfying as many customers as we can and expand globally to become a global Indian player. Big fat Indian wedding is famous across the globe and ShaadiMagic would be a major player in globe not only in India by 2020.
We have 1 lac plus monthly visitors with wide presence on social media platforms.
Facebook : 50K+
Like us on : facebook.com/shaadimagic
Twitter: 14K+
Follow us on : twitter.com/shaadimagic
Instagram: 10K+ and have presence on other channels too
Follow us on : instagram.com/shaadimagic/
Q. If you would like, you can share a views about Viral Indian Diary.
I liked what VID is doing and wish you guys all the success and keep doing the great work.
