I have this habit of looking up random websites, new ventures et al. People fiddle with their television remotes for zapping through channels, while I go through web directories, search engine results, entrepreneurship forums and groups to learn about new ventures, visit their website(s), try to understand the underlying business model(s). If possible, I also try to analyze the robustness of the business basics, conduct a simple SWOT analysis and make an attempt at predicting how good, bad or ugly the business would fare in the future. Of course, I am no Warren Buffet, and I do this simply because of my love for strategic management.
shovon chakraborty
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| LiveChant, a platform for sellers & buyers, is a portmanteau of Live and Merchant |
That's how I came across an interesting website, a virtual platform to be more specific, named LiveChant.com. The very first impression, the so called "halo effect", made sure that I would spend the next half an hour or so, exploring LiveChant. What attracted me was the simple, yet solid business model, that the promoters of the business have banked on.
livechant.com
By the time I exited the site, I had already decided to showcase this tech start-up in my blog. So, I connected with one of the promoters, Arindam Paul, who is an engineer from National Institute of Technology (NIT), Silchar and prior to founding LiveChant, had worked with some of the biggest names in the IT sector. After a couple of rounds of detailed discussions, my belief about the viability of the business model and success of the business, were further strengthened. It does not mean that they do not have any vulnerability, but if they continue to play according to their strengths, there should not be any reason for LiveChant to not succeed. These discussions and my own background research, helped me in aggregating enough information on LiveChant.com. Armed with these, let me try and decode its target client base, business model, value proposition and its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, i.e. SWOT, which, when combined together, would determine how the business will shape up in future.
