Sulekha.com: Half-a-million pages of content... and growing

INDIA WEST
Jan. 3, 2002

By RAJ S. RANGARAJAN
Special to India-West

He is a dedicated man almost to the point of being obsessive. He talks,
acts and breathes portals. Qualified in engineering, computers and
finance, he is a dot-com pioneer with a difference. He invites people to
write for his Web site, but he does not pay for their contributions. I am
talking about the portal -- www.Sulekha.com -- and its founder, Satya
Prabhakar.

What do these creative producers get in return? The thrill of seeing their
work over the Web.

Prabhakar's is an original concept. His portal hosts creative pieces from
writers, artists, and photographers for free. Does that mean there are
people yearning to write or showcase their creative genius? You bet.

Prabhakar, the electronics engineer, told India-West in a recent
interview: "I knew software and how to create an infrastructure in an
interactive mode, but for content I had to seek help, I had no resources.
It all started as a hobby; I had no intention of becoming an
entrepreneur."

This simple concept started as an e-mail list of IIM, Calcutta, alumni
called Dakghar founded by Arun Kumar, and Satya Prabhakar was on the list.
Today, in its new avatar, Prabhakar's sulekha.com has grown into a
repository of almost half a million pages of content and counting.
Briefly, "su-lekha" means good writing. Contributions pour in from 50
countries and the authors run the entire gamut ranging from students to
military commanders to doctors to businesswomen and, of course, engineers
based in the United States.

Like a basement or garage operation made famous by the likes of Bill
Gates, the husband-wife team of Satya Prabhakar and Sangeeta Kshettry
started their operation out of a spare room of their home in Austin, Texas
in 1998. "After using our personal savings of more than $15,000 used
mainly to obtain high-speed Internet access, and after 10,000 hours of
effort," recalls Prabhakar, "in September 2000, we were ready for the
rough and tumble of the investment world."

They were helped by New Yorker R. Parameswaran, leader of the initial
investor group and now chairman of the parent company -- Smart Information
Worldwide -- that owns Sulekha.com. Says Parameswaran, "The most
remarkable and innovative aspect of Sulekha is organic growth sustained by
the network effect of people-to-people interaction and the contributions
of diverse Indians from around the globe." While amplifying value for all
network nodes in a dramatic fashion, the chairman added, partnerships like
Sulekha's bring extraordinary strategic value to all involved.

Started as a Web magazine, more as a hobby e-zine, Sulekha.com today has
influenced networks of Indians promoting communities through free flow of
expression and interaction. "Since its inception," says Prabhakar, "the
site has grown exponentially, by almost 20 to 25 percent, in traffic." A
predominantly interactive site, people all over the world contribute
content with coffeehouse chats, classifieds, city events, a Newshopper,
and buddy sites for like-minded people.

Content for the site has grown purely by word-of-mouth and the intense
loyalty of its members. Online participation by thousands evidently helps
make the site a vibrant, loyal and dynamic platform. Last May, Austin
became the first self-generative metropolitan city to create content and
host a hub. Sulekha now has 25 cities as hosts including San Francisco and
Los Angeles.

The site's Global Newshopper picks up the latest news from several surfers
who constantly post content. News from the world's newspapers gets posted
promptly which triggers a spate of discussions on their Coffeehouse space.
Being completely interactive, posts appear instantly, leading to
up-to-date comment, time differentials notwithstanding. Sulekha's movie
site has interactive reviews and visitors to the site can soar or sink a
film's rating.

The company's first published paperback, "Sulekha Select," a collection of
42 writings (see separate story), is the Web site's first foray into the
traditional print format, for, generally, Sulekha creations exist in
cyberspace. Selected from about 1,200 writings since 1998, this collection
captures the essence of the modern Indian experience and represents
individual expressions from all over the world.

Interestingly, most of the contributors do not write for a living, and
many happen to be engineers, where the Net plays a dominant role. The book
has also been released in India by Penguin under a different title -
"Black, White and Shades of Brown" - for the Indian subcontinent and
Singapore. However, Prabhakar clarifies, "These are all amateur writers
united by their love for writing and reading and hail from varied
backgrounds, persuasions and cultural contexts." The book represents a
communal art form - a kind of democratic Netizen of the people by the
people -- in that the readers are the ones who produce content, not the
publishers (see sidebar).

Prabhakar, 36, a native of Machilipatnam, Andhra Pradesh, is CEO of
Sulekha.com. An engineering graduate from Regional Engineering College in
Trichy, Tamil Nadu, Prabhakar also has an M.S. in computer science and an
MBA in finance from the University of Florida.

He has had his fill of corporate life in India and America with
multinationals like Philips, TCS, and later with Honeywell as a software
engineer, and with SBC Communications in Texas. His expertise includes Web
media management, electronic commerce, and real-time multimedia.

Prabhakar's wife, Sangeeta Ksheetry, who is vice president of content for
Sulekha.com, has a B.Sc. in economics from Presidency College, Calcutta,
an M.A. in communications from the Annenberg School at the University of
Pennsylvania, and an MBA in marketing from the University of Florida.
Ksheetry, who is experienced in financial analysis and IT strategy
development, told India-West: "'Sulekha Cities' is the most comprehensive
network of city portals that provides geographically-focused communities
that facilitate commerce and information at the city level."

But where's the revenue model? The site earns income through sale and
syndication of content -- offline and online - advertising, sponsorships,
and subscriptions. It has created a rack of transaction services starting
with online ticketing for organizations and companies.

"Whatever we do we want to be the dominant player in that space, retaining
our focus as a community builder," says Prabhakar. These transaction
services help generate revenue and establish relationships with offline
communities, and Prabhakar has to constantly shun opportunities that are
not a close fit.

Sulekha.com is now possibly the biggest online ticketer for events and
movies all over North America on 50 cinema screens - a Ticketmaster of
sorts. One can also send gifts of movie tickets within the U.S. over the
Web -- popcorn not included!

To a question about who does the editing of its content, Prabhakar said
his editors are based in several countries including the U.S., India,
Canada, Pakistan, Bangladesh and England. Before any content goes up on
the site, at least one editor checks and edits the material.

Added Prabhakar, "We are a decentralized operation and have 16 editors
around the world who volunteer their services. The bunch includes an ad
agency CEO, a 19-year-old journalist from Atlanta, a fiction writer from
Boston, a computer engineer from Silicon Valley, a Mumbai mother, a
Calcutta professor, a Kovalam, Kerala writer, and several others with
varied backgrounds."

Most of the editors hold 9-5 jobs. Kris Chandrasekar, an investment banker
from San Francisco, edits manuscripts as a hobby. A writer himself, he has
"the task of selecting pieces, editing for grammar and style, and a brief
turn-around time for copy-edits."

Instead of being paid a salary, Sulekha pays to the individual's favorite
charity. As part of their social initiative, Prabhakar says "we have
contributed more than $10,000 to various charities."

V.Chandrasekhar, a compulsive Sulekha surfer from Indianapolis, Indiana,
who feels that the hardest problem in this country is meeting people of
similar interests, says "Sulekha is a major avenue that draws together our
similar tastes. The other day I got into a discussion with another Sulekha
user about kite flying and how in the good old days, we used to apply
glass to the string - maanja -- to help in cutting other kites."
Chandrasekhar has given up watching television and says, "I would gladly
give up my cable TV for Sulekha."

To a query, "Since Sulekha is an interactive site where anyone can post
content, how do you control irrelevant and objectionable material being
posted?" Prabhakar responded, "We have content managers who, while
allowing free rein to express and interact freely, are like gatekeepers,
who constantly monitor any questionable material getting in." He added
that they also have an auto-alert system which prevents questionable or
obscene material from being disseminated immediately.

Prabhakar hopes to build an influential community of Indians worldwide and
for that, "I believe we require two fundamental components: (i) Expression
-- people must be able to freely express their mind in writing, art,
stills or even in creating audios and videos; (ii) Interaction --
everything we offer on the site is an opportunity to interact and get to
know each other through the interactive Sulekha community."

Yet Prabhakar is also making a conscious effort to be known not as an NRI
site, but as a venue for Indians all over the world, which has nothing to
do with income level or presence, but to make the experience as Indian as
possible. The fact remains that a lot of contributors tend to be in North
America in view of their accessibility, wherewithal and influence. The
current stats are that 70 percent of use emanates from the U.S. and
Canada, about 15 percent from India, with the balance from around the
world, where Indians reside.

Sulekha is preparing to unveil the world's first electronic store selling
digital content sourced from Indians around the world. Lata Sundar,
director of content in the company's Chennai office, explains: "Sulekha
today features free content contributed by South Asians, and we are moving
up the content value chain by compiling valuable content from contributors
from all over the world that people will gladly pay for."

Prabhakar routinely works 16-17 hours a day, yet allocates half-an-hour
every morning to read and discuss a news story from the New York Times or
the Wall Street Journal with his 8-year-old daughter Divya. He is a lesson
or two short of a black belt in the Chinese martial art form, Tai-kwon-do.

The man who talks with equal passion about Advaita philosophy and Zen
Buddhism as he articulates about portals and gigabytes says, "One has to
be totally in love with one's work and be capable of working with
determination and resolve without craving too much for success. It is the
craving for success that corrupts the process and makes success harder to
come by."