Anupam Mittal
, a
Shark Tank India
judge and the founder of the matching platform, has stated that he paid a large price for the Shaadi.com domain. The businessman stated that this occurred in the late
1990s
, when his company had $30,000 in the account and opted to pay $25,000 on the domain because they believed it would produce results in the long term.
He also disclosed that they owned Sagai.com before Shaadi.com.
In a podcast, Anupam shared details, “We had a company, where we provided
IT solutions
to other companies. So there we started Sagaai.com, which was the precursor to Shaadi.com. We had saved about $30,000 in our company. We were getting the domain for about $25,000. $25,000 or $30,000 seemed exorbitant but I believed that without a domain that can become ubiquitous, that can become known for the category, it’ll be tough and this will make our lives easier. So we used all our money.”
He was also asked about his investment in
dating apps
and whether he had missed the boat on developing a dating app. According to the Shark Tank judge, the dating app sector in India is unprofitable. He stated that sites like
Tinder
and Bumble, among others, are not making significant progress.
Anupam said, “Their revenues are not that big and the problem is in India it’s very lopsided. Women always have too much to choose from so therefore you’ll see very few guys get all the demand and all the other guys who come on these sites don’t know what to say. They say the most obnoxious things and the women run away. So I think there’s no there’s not real money to be made.”
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In fact, Anupam argued that contrary to popular belief, the younger generation does not use
matchmaking services
and prefers dating applications. Shaadi.com’s audience is primarily millennials. “This whole thing about
millennials
not using matchmaking sites is not quite correct, most of our audience is millennials,” he went on to say.