YourStory.in

"Parellel worlds -- in one place, at one time"

Yogesh Bansal has one of the most intresting profiles you'd come across. An MBA from University of Carolina, Yogesh started ApnaCircle.com in 2006 with a vision to make it a truly mega brand!

ApnaCircle.com is India’s first career and social networking site. A visit to the site provides a refreshing experience as it provides the opportunity for both career and social networking. There is no need to wander for network socially and professionally in divergent direction, it facilitates parallel networking in one place, in one time.

Business Idea

In 2006, social networking was becoming a rage in US and Yogesh was a witness to this growing industry. When he moved to India, he saw the opportunity in the huge youth population and the need for a property which would allow the youth to connect and at the same time derive value for their individual growth.

"I saw the need and I worked and researched. Interestingly I found that friends and career are the two aspects that were at the top of the youth’s mind. And, at that point of time there was no such platform that would have catered both the aspects. So, I developed a platform, ApnaCircle.com, which is a relevant platform and caters to both the aspects." says Yogesh

The networking site ApnaCircle is free to join and it manages the profiles of professionals from various sectors that are available for public view. It helps you to find out the right kind of job options and also helps the employer to have the right kind of professional on board.

The users are empowered to express their thoughts as far as their profession is concerned. Users can also avail interesting applications like redeem rewards and free SMS services. Especially, for the Indian professionals, the networking site provides relevant localized content.

Target Market

The user base of ApnaCircle has been growing at a phenomenal pace. It is today considered as one of the largest interconnected Indian professional networking sites and has a membership of over  nine lakhs members from across the country. Apnacircle.com primarily targets the Indian market and parts of the subcontinent as well.

Yogesh tells us  "As per market estimate, only 5.3 percent of the total adult population in India is online. That means there is a huge opportunity in India for growth. We have already more than nine lakh users in India. In addition to that our recent merger with Viadeo,Tianji and Unyk has also helped us to further expand the horizon of our users. The merger has helped us to connect our Indian users with Unyk’s sixteen million users and Viadeo’s eight million additional users from across the globe."

Future Plans

This company aims to become a "glo-cal" company. Global because they aim to have a worldwide presence and Local because they aim to be percieved as the local actor in each country, catering primarily to the needs of the professionals who are essentially doing their business locally.

"We believe that the 80/20 rule applies in our market, more than 80% of cross-border relationships are generated by only 20% of professionals. Catering to the need of the other 80% needs, should thus give us more market depth, more usage, and ultimately more revenues.We want to become a truly “Glo-cal” company which entirely depends on creating strong member base intially in order to allow for virality and SEO to take off and to generate revenues." says Yogesh.