When it comes to the Bollywood niche, Pinkvilla is India’s most popular social media platform. It was Nandini Shenoy who came up with the idea for this content-sharing website. Let’s take a look at Nandini’s story and how she become successful.
Pinkvilla – Founder
Nandini was up in a family of outstanding engineers in Mangalore. After finishing her education, she moved on to study engineering at the National Institute of Technology, Karnataka (NITK). She then relocated to the United States to pursue a Master’s degree in ECE at Rutgers University. She got a job as a software developer with Microsoft in Redmond in 2004.
Despite the fact that she liked her work as a software engineer, she was always fascinated by the concept of Pinkvilla. A Bollywood enthusiast, she felt that she could quickly develop her interest in the film industry if only she could find the right people to mentor her.
Despite the fact that Nandini had a business strategy for Pinkvilla, she did not immediately leave her job at Microsoft because she was not confident in the viability of her venture. It was only after countless hours of labor and sleepless evenings and weekends that her idea or dream of Pinkvilla became a beautiful reality for her.
“Being from the tech background, I knew I had to figure out the SEO first before I decided on the content. If the content works and the SEO doesn’t work, the website can’t work. If Google and other tech platforms don’t understand the content on my website, I will go nowhere. I have to keep evolving because Google keeps changing its algorithms every other day,”
-Nandini shenoy, founder of pinkvilla
She feels that because it is so simple to start a website, competition in the digital world will only grow. She recognizes her technical skills as a benefit, but content unquestionably comes first.
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Pinkvilla History – How it Started
While working in the United States, she saw that no Indian site was assisting her in keeping up with the current occurrences involving Bollywood celebs in the country. As a result, she decided to create an online community for Bollywood enthusiasts. In the United States, I did not have access to Bollywood magazines. I was missing my regular dose of slumber. According to Shenoy, “I thought, why not develop a forum for Bollywood aficionados such as myself to be able to have a debate about Bollywood?”
Orkut was a prominent social networking site at the time. The platform expanded as a result of word-of-mouth publicity. In 2009, certain images of Sonam Kapoor that were posted on the website Pinkvilla went viral and gained widespread attention. The Hindustan Times called her and asked whether they may use her images with a link back to Pinkvilla. This gave her the impression that something significant was in store for her.
She quit her job and formed a team of editors and photographers, as well as a network of public relations firms and production companies. Because there were few digital websites at the time, various celebrities desired to be included in Pinkvilla by 2010-11. Surprisingly, she was doing interviews with celebrities from the United States. Knowing the possibilities and her fondness for Bollywood celebrities, she established an office in Mumbai.
Create a website where anybody could register and submit messages, a public forum where people could debate their favorite actors and movies, was the concept behind the project at the time. As a techie, she was eager to make Pinkvilla famous all over the internet.
Pinkvilla’s Business and Revenue Model
Pinkvilla receives money from nearly all of the big film production companies. Pinkvilla receives large sums from these production companies in exchange for producing ad sales on their website. Pinkvilla receives over 50 million fresh views every month and over 10 million visits. Its participation on social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook also assists them in endorsing these Bollywood celebs. PinkVilla also intends to launch an online web store and e-commerce.
Pinkvilla – Competitors
Nandini is unconcerned with the rise of Bollywood-specific websites. Instead, she swears by Pinkvilla’s approach of being a customer-centric hub, claiming to have a loyal user base that she keeps engaged and committed to.
Pinkvilla competitors include Bollywood Hungama, Zee Entertainment, Rediff, Filmi Beat, Bollywood Life, Santa Banta, First Post, and Koi Moi.
Pinkvilla – Growth
Pinkvilla, which also has a presence in the South of PinkVilla South and PinkVilla Telly with all the small-screen news, has a sizable fan base, as evidenced by its hugely successful public profile on Instagram (3.9 million followers), Facebook (1.8 million likes), YouTube (60 million+ video views), and Twitter (951K Followers). Pinkvilla has been on television as well as in overseas markets such as Kollywood.
Pinkvilla – Achievements and Awards.
Pinkvilla got two Cosmopolitan awards in 2019 and 2016 for Best Celeb Blogger and Best Celeb-Spotting Blog. Pinkvilla got the DigiPub Website of the Year award in 2019 and has received numerous other awards to far. Pinkvilla is a successful and one-of-a-kind platform, as well as an Indian startup.