Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies

(A Constituent of Symbiosis International

University)

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

ASSSIGNMENT

Submitted To: Submitted By:

Dr. Amit Kumar Pankaj Kumar Singh (D-31)

Pooja Palekar (D-36)

Pritika Shrivastava (D-38)

5th January 2017

 INTRODUCTION

COMPANY TIMELINE

Launch of the news inshorts facebook page

April 2013

Raises seed funding from times internet and group of angel

July 2014 investors including founders of Flipkart

news in Shorts becomes india's highest rated news app on

Feb 2015 android with an overall rating of 4.6 on Google Playstore

Rebrands from News Inshorts to Inshorts

July 2015

Enters Vernacular news market

Nov 2015

Launches Toss, pioneering social notification in a news

Jan 2016 app

Founders of Inshorts included in Coveted Achiever list

Feb 2016

Awarded most Innovative Statrup of the year by

Aug 2016 Entrepreneur India Magazine
 ABOUT THE FOUNDERS

Inshorts was founded by AzharIqubal, DeepitPurkayastha, and Anunay Pandey, all three of
whom were dropouts from the Indian Institutes of Technology. Originally called "News
InShorts", the company later rebranded itself as Inshorts. It was launched as a Facebook page in
2013 before being shortlisted as one of Nasscom's 10,000 Startups. It was incubated at TLabs. In
July 2014 Inshorts raised seed funding from Times internet and group of angel investors
including founders of Flipkart. In October, 2015 they have acquired Retention.AI, a data
analytics startup that helps app developer to analyze user behavior. In Feb, 2016 they have been
awarded best innovative mobile app of India by Internet and Mobile association of India
(IAMAI). And in Sept, 2016 they launched Search, i.e. enabling users to search shorts and topics
on their Inshorts app.
 THE TRENDS OBSERVED BY THE ENTREPRENEUR BEFORE VENTURING INTO
THE OPPORTUNITY

AzharIqubal, DeepitPurkayastha, and AnunayArunav were all studying in the prestigious IIT to
become the top engineers of this country when they came across the following-

First, they saw the rise of Flipkart which brought to their attention the rise of the start-up eco
zone in India. Second thing they observed was that to be at the top you need to know what
everybody else is doing. For this on needs to be constantly updated about the current affairs and
news. This is when they realized that to consume the vast amount of news and content available
in the market you need a lot of time on your hand, and that time is a very scarce resource.

There is an overdose of news content by various news channels and print media who are veterans
of this industry and know how to create excellent pieces of news. But from the consumers
perspective such a huge amount of content makes the reader or viewer indifferent, creates a lot of
confusion with respect to which news item to absorb and which to let go. This is mainly because
the consumer has no patience or time to consume long news articles.

There are a few other aspects also like Why is an article newsworthy? What makes it
relevant? Is it factually accurate? Is it free from bias and opinion? Because of this it
becomes very imperative to segregate important from trivial and deliver what is relevant and
important for the customer.

And the most important thing was the absence of any entity which would do all this and simplify
it for the customer.
 THE NEW BUSINESS PRODUCT AND SERVICE IDEA

The whole idea behind the starting up of this venture is that the people these days are so busy in
their lives and non-ending responsibilities that they find it hard to take out time to read the
various lengthy news articles that get published in the newspapers on the daily basis. Thus, the
basic solution, according to Inshorts, is to feed the busy minds with the information about the
recent happenings around the world through their mobile app.

This app product filters the main information out of the entire long news and shortens it to the
length of 60 words and the same they market by saying Stay informed in 60 words.

It is quite well known that a lot many people are used to reading multiple newspapers, or are
used to reading news from different national and international sources on the internet. Inshorts
has made good use of this observation and thus it isnt restricted to providing news from any
particular or selected source. All the favourite sources of the readers are included and the news
from those is presented in the similar 60 words format. Not just that, if the reader feels interested
towards any particular news and feels like to read it in detail the app has provision to read the
whole news within it.

The app uses artificial intelligence technology and thus acts as a personalised app. The app
provides My feed option where the user is catered with all the news which the AI thinks to be
right match to the users interest. So, all the effort that the user needs to make is to keep swiping
the news upside to read the next news.
The app has also noted very well that this generation likes to share information and interesting
facts. And the use of this trend has been properly made in the app by providing the option to
share the news with your contacts on Whatsapp, Facebook, Linkedin, Xender, Skype, etc and
also through Bluetooth and normal messaging feature that every phone has. There is also one tap
sharing option called TOSS.

The app has near about 1 million downloads till date and has a rating of 4.6 on google play.

The advantages that the app offers are ease in searching options of any particular short, ease of
searching and reading about any particular topic and more relevant material, recommendations of
topics on the basis of earlier searches made, a smooth and clean user-interface, information
through videos, ease to contact for fixing the bugs encountered on the app. The popularity of the
app is commendable and it comes through the customized experience it has to offer for various
users with varying likes.

PROBLEMS IDENTIFIED BY THE ENTREPRENEUR BEFORE VENTURING IN THE

OPPORTUNITY

The venture began as a small Facebook page by three guys who had dropped out of IITs. The
problem that the team of 3 co-founders identified was that the traditional printed and online
media had a few ignored flaws. The problem was mainly with the articles and the main ones in
the list were too lengthy articles, thousands of articles being published every single day and
opinionated articles.

The second problem identified was the lack of time with the people of todays world and the
need to get the brief update about everything by the people who do not want to go in detail of
everything. Our generation does not want to invest much time in going through the multiple-para
articles and some solution to this reading habit was required. The generation wanted a solution to
the habit of knowing it all without reading it all(if not all, atleast the top cream of the news in
circulation around the world), and the Inshorts venture identified this too.
To keep the important news information all the time in your human memory was also something
that the Inshorts app entrepreneurs considered to be a problem and therefore added the bookmark
feature in the app. The feature is actually a very simple one to use and thus is solution to an
actual problem.

GAPS IDENTIFIED BY THE ENTREPRENEUR

Before starting any venture, the entrepreneur has to look after every aspect in the market. He/she
have to understand the market and the needs of the customers and accordingly launch their
product. In this case they face lots of gaps which they have to overcome and grab the
opportunities. Few gaps are listed below:

1. In todays time they have to think whether they want to go through physical stores or they
saw more opportunity to connect people through launching a virtual flea market as it
offers a platform that connect buyers and sellers directly
2. To give their business a success, entrepreneurs have to get some non existing idea in the
market or which were failure and customers demands for it. They have to address an
unmet need in the market
3. Asking the W questions who, where, what, when i.e., who is my customer?
What does the customer want to buy? When does the customer want to buy? What price
is the customer willing to pay? is the first step
4. Do customer analysis. By doing that you can have better understanding and opportunity
to zero in on the price points and feature points of where you can differentiate yourself
from existing players in the market
5. Entrepreneur also needs to conduct a broader industry analysis to understand the
attractiveness of the industry they are going to enter. If that industry is growing or
shrinking? If there any barrier to enter the industry? If so, what are they? This is very
important to understand as it will help the entrepreneur
6. Entrepreneurs have to look at the government regulations, if there any with regards to the
industry they are going to enter
 7. One of the major problem entrepreneurs face is finding out Investors, who is ready to
invest in their ideas

PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ENTREPRENEURS

Leadership is the ability to translate vision into reality and thats what entrepreneurs do. They
convert their dreams into reality. People say they are born to lead. They identify what they can
do in best way and they just do that. To become an entrepreneurs there are certain characteristics
which a person must have. Suppose:

Azhar Iqubal

Iqubal is passionate towards his work and dream. He dreams not only to make money
but to make work easier for people and also fulfill the purpose for which they have
started their business
Sir Winston once said, Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no
loss of enthusiasm. Azhar who is a arch follower of this is resilient, and believes in
never giving up and continuing to work hard till he wins.

Deepit Purkayastha
Deepit has a very strong sense of ethics and integrity
He has a competitive spirit and enjoys a challenge and likes to win

Anunay Arunav
Anunay can be identified by his drive to continuously develop new ideas and improve on
existing processes and hence can be called a serial innovator
Being the famous one in the college he has a strong peer network and understands how
valuable it can be

Together they are the perfect trio and compliment each others qualities and very efficiently
mask the shortcomings.
 THE POTENTIAL COMPETITORS OF THE ENTREPRENEUR (Basis: Porters five
forces model)

The Porters five forces model takes into consideration the threat from the following-

1. Bargaining power of the supplier

2. Bargaining power of the buyer
3. Competitive rivalry
4. Threat of substitute products
5. Threat from new entrants

With respect to Inshorts lets get a perspective as to how these threats will affect the business of
Inshorts.

1. Bargaining Power of Supplier

Inshorts picks up its content from a huge number of media and content providers which
are already available in the market. This can be done by them free of cost and it is
completely legal as re phrasing is not a crime. Hence they face very low or almost no
threat from the bargaining power of supplier as there are innumerable suppliers in the
market and they can easily switch from one supplier to another.

2. Bargaining Power of the Buyer

In this case they face a wrath of the bargaining power of the supplier not in terms of cost
but in terms of loyalty to the brand. The buyer or user if does not find the content or
information they want in the way most suitable to them, they can easily move on to
another option which better suits their needs.

3. Competitive rivalry
As of now Inshorts has no rivals in the business. As theirs was a one of a kind business
idea and they have the first movers advantage in their kitty.
 4. Threat of Substitute products
Inshorts in itself is a time evolved better version substitute of already available news
providers in the markets. So it faces very low threat from substitutes. The consumer will
move to Inshorts which is a substitute of the original news providers because they arent
satisfying the buyers need. Hence the chance of the buyer going back to the original
stands very low.
5. Threat from New Entrants
This is the only valid threat against which inshorts should keep their eyes open. The
startup business is booming and entering into it with a disruptive novel idea is very easy.
So Inshorts faces a high threat from entry of new players in their market.

REFERENCES

www.youtube.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inshorts

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/step-up-your-news-game-inshorts-azhar-iqubal-anunay-
pandey-deepit-purkayastha/1/829682.html