Shaadi.com founder Anupam Mittal has recently revealed that he paid $25,000 (about Rs 20 lakh) when he bought the company's domain in the late 1990s. He also shared that at the time, the company had $30,000 (about Rs 25,000 lakh) in its account but it decided to spend big on the site because it believed it would pay off in the long run.
In the podcast Finance with Sharan, Mittal said, “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 Shaadi.com 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.”
When asked about investing in dating apps, the Shark Tank India judge said that there’s no money to be made in the dating app industry in India and that platforms like Tinder and Bumble are not making much progress.
“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 think there’s no there’s not real money to be made,” he said.
Anupam Mittal also revealed that contrary to popular perception that the younger generation is more inclined towards dating apps, Shaadi.com’s audience is mostly millennials. “This whole thing about millennials not using matchmaking sites is not quite correct, most of our audience is millennials,” he said.
In a different podcast, Mittal had also shared how he became a millionaire after growing up in a modest household. He had gone to look for a job in the US and spent many days without any money or food until he finally landed a job that he liked with MicroStrategy where he was offered stock options.
The company was worth $100 million at the time and within the next three years, thanks to the dot com boom, its valuation reached $40 billion. "I had joined as a sales consultant but very quickly I rose through ranks to become the director of strategic partnerships so I had a lot of stock options and had become a multi-millionaire in my early twenties," he said. "It was crazy, I’d never imagined it. I’d ordered a sports car, we used to party in stadiums, our corporate parties would be on cruise ships. It was next level.”
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