I'm impressed with how they committed to it. I guess they couldn't ignore it, but still, opening an office in India and spending considerable amount of time there when they weren't familiar with the culture at all.
From experience at my firm, I suspect that they are going to commit a whole lot more than the current rotating system they are considering.
Setting the culture and attitude of the firm/division will mean they need to be here 24/7 dealing with their recruits and all the randomness that they will encounter. For example, several people who joined our firm later asked for leave, since a family member was drastically ill. Shortly after that they left the firm.
There are some major cultural differences they will have to watch out for. For example "Yes I'll do it" often means "I will give it a shot" as opposed to "Yes I will take personal responsibility to get it done.". Building a firm culture that believes this and will stop at nothing to get it done takes a LOT of work.
I wonder if insights on dating habits in Delhi would transfer across India. The marketing rule that I read is that India is not one market (monolithic India) but many hundreds (state, district, culture, region, language, etc.) I'd love to know how effectively dating insights from one region transfer to the others.
Dating is generally considered a 'dirty thing' outside metros. Urban India is mostly monolithic. The real differences are only seen in semi-urban and rural regions. And yes the sub-cultures are quite varied but that doesn't mean there is no pan-Indian identity to which you can market. Understanding the differences and similarities is the key if you want to reach the majority of the billion plus population.
Yeah western style dating is pretty much taboo if not anathema to most parents in the rural areas. Should be fun monetizing that market, their site seems to fit a niche ideally suited for this. I'd love to see how they monetize services when (and if) they are dealing with the semi-urban areas; maybe they can tie up with a mobile service provider to have their services paid for as part of their mobile phone bill.
When you say Urban India is monolithic, are you meaning to say that all urban life is generally similar in India?
If so I would point out that the Metros in India differ significantly. I'm a Mumbai/Bombay native, and have family in Delhi and friends all over the country. From their discussions and lifestyles, each metro is quite unique and even more so, in the context of male-female interactions.
For example Delhi has been described as bastion of MCP behavior universally, especially by the women who live there. It could be a bad sample, but that view contrasts strongly with the better reputation for female safety that Mumbai, and (afaik) Bangalore enjoy. This leads to major differences - I know someone who moved here from Delhi, and wouldn't travel alone post 8:00 pm for a long time. (Delhi people, please correct me if I am wrong, or something is being missed). At the same time, Delhi-ites seem to have a lot more cultural activities going on than Mumbai. Since space is also not at a premium in Delhi, it also has places like Bookstores that are sorely missing in Mumbai.
I wonder if this kind of quirky growth mirror's orkut's strange path as Brazil's largest social network (though, some people say it's popularity there is simply because it's easier to pronounce for Portuguese speakers than either Facebook or Myspace).
As a brazillian, yes, there are lots of points in common. Also, orkut is pretty much dead now among my social circle; facebook has pretty much got all users of orkut and some more people who wouldn't have joined orkut (like parents and grandparents of the orkut generation).
As far as I know when orkut came around here there was simply no other social network with a significant number of brazillian members. Myspace was just too complex to understand, I think, and part of the annoying things of early orkut's design (you had no news, so had to keep checking your friends' and comunities' pages out to see what was going on, which fostered a whole cyber-stalking culture of checking people out) really clicked with a lot of the demographics.
I think more than by analogy that the dating market over here is also underdeveloped, and there is definitely demand for something that caters more closely to the brazillian forms of dating (which are different from the european forms of dating, and from the indian).
I'm not sure about the market, as it doesn't seem to be explored, but the culture is certainly different.
First and foremost, we don't have the concept of a date in the same way, and we don't have the concept of a pick-up bar/pub either. As far as I can tell, most people would be really unhappy with posting their face and names on a butcher's shop-like website, in the same way that most people wouldn't want to admit they're out there looking for dates (it makes you seem lame) while flirting a lot.
The interaction patterns between people and specially couples are different, so it's hard to say what would work over here, but outside of the gay market it certainly doesn't seem to be a traditional dating site.
It's not a good idea for the founders of the site to move to India. They will get bogged down with cross-cultural issues, the pressure they will bear would be intense, and they will only be able to observe a tiny part of indian dating culture.
"Next month, Ignighter will open an office in India and hire a dozen local employees. The company has stopped developing its American site, though it remains online." I'd hope these employees aren't developers. If so I'm pretty sure I know how this ends...back in NYC with a team tasked with fixing the mess it has become.
My comment wasn't against Indian developers it was targeted at the idea of outsourcing, my appologies to anyone who viewed it that way. For what it's worth my comment would have applied to any country/culture.
Seriously? As an Indian developer who considers himself at least decent, I'm offended by your statement. Of course there are bad developers, maybe more in India than in other places. That doesn't mean good ones don't exist.
