The Hindu Business Line : Making the most of marriage

MARRIAGES are made in heaven" is old hat. Today, they are made on the Net too. Gone are the days when a "broker" searched for a suitable bride/groom, with the whole process taking a few months.

Today, the Net has made life easy for those looking to marry. At the click of a mouse, the profiles of thousands of brides and grooms pop up, and the match-making process is now a matter of hours.

Take, for instance, Chitra and Senthilkumar, Sudesh and Shyam Chhibbar and Manju Malnie and Jayaprakash. All these couples, and 1,000 others, were brought together by the matrimonial site, Bharatmatrimony.com.

While most high-profile, pure business-centric dotcoms have gone bust in the last one year, this site has withstood the tough year and has also a regular revenue stream through a combination of online and offline events. The site's monthly turnover has increased by 10 times in the last one year to $50,000 in April.

Founded in 1998 by Janakiraman Murugavel, the site started with 6,000 profiles of brides and grooms, of which 70 per cent were NRIs and the rest residing within the country, mostly from Tamil Nadu. The monthly revenue then was Rs 10,000 through banner advertisements from the Chennai-based Nalli Silks and Classic Club.

Today, the site hosts over 150,000 profiles of brides and grooms, all waiting to find their right match. Incidentally, Murugavel found his life partner through his own site.

From a pure match-making portal, Bharatmatrimony today offers a single-point source for all marriage-related activities - from finding a bride/groom to arranging the honeymoon, says Murugavel.

The portal initially offered Tamilians in the US services such as a Tamil calendar, important festival dates and match-making. Marriage-related services were the most sought after and visitors looking for brides/grooms posted their resumes, he says.

Out of his spotting the business potential for match-making and marriage-related services was born Bharatmatrimony's Tamilmatrimony.com in 1998, he says. The venture got angel funding of $0.5 million from Ranjan Desai, founder of the US-based Real Soft Inc.

The site today offers nine language-based portals including Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Bengali, Malayalam, Punjabi and Sindhi, with Marwari, Oriya, Assamese and Parsi to follow. It is easy to promote language-based portals, since the first preference for a Tamilian or a Malayali is a bride or groom from the same sect, says Murugavel.

Besides match-making, the site provides services such as online webcasting of weddings, booking of marriage halls, legal counselling, and a wedding mall for all marriage-related purchases. It also offers honeymoon packages.

The site also goes beyond online initiatives and conducts "swayamvaras" offline. One such event was arranged in Chennai a couple of months ago, in which over 100 grooms participated. The company is present in seven Indian cities, including the metros, and New Jersey, US, and has about 60 employees, he says.

Son of a retired government official, Murugavel, 31, hails from Royapuram, Chennai. He studied at Presidency College, Chennai, and later at the University of Madras. Afterbrief stints with the Chennai-based Nucleus Software and with Polaris Software Labs, he moved to Singapore and then to the US, before starting Bharatmatrimony.com from New Jersey.

Says Murugavel, Web browsers, especially Indians, are averse to paying on the Net, but not when it comes to matrimony. "We introduced paid services in April last, and it has been quite a success". The company charges Rs 300 for three months, Rs 500 for six months for Indians and $15 for three months and $25 for six months for Indians abroad, to access additional features including horoscope and photos.

Under the free service, one can add his/her profile and photo, but cannot initiate contact with a bride/groom, offered only to paid customers, around 20 per cent. For instance, a person may be interested in a bride/groom, but cannot contact the source without payment.

If a user has found the right bride/groom, he would definitely pay for the extra service, no matter how costly it was. "It was a strategic decision to divert users to pay for the extra features," he says. Access to the site is not restricted to a PC. The company claims it became the first matrimony portal to provide wireless access on both Palm hand-held devices and on mobile phones.

The portal, claims Murugavel, supports instant registration, validation and activation of profiles and a secure international payment gateway accepts online payments.

What's the roadmap like? Says Murugavel, "We want to be known as the online provider of A-Z marriage-related services - right from finding a bride or a groom, arranging a marriage and sending the couple on honeymoon. We will be ready with all the offerings, once the tie-up with various regional service providers is through."

Bharatmatrimony has tied up with portals such as Sify.com, Microsoft's msn.co.in and Rediff.com. The matrimonial link from these portals takes a browser to the Bharatmatrimony site. This will draw more visitors to the site, he says. The company plans a few more tie-ups.

raja@thehindu.co.in

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