Shaadi.com Success Story: How Is It Transforming People's Approach to Marriage

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Shaadi.com Success Story

According to Statista, Revenue in the Matchmaking segment will be $292.10 million in 2023. With an annual growth rate (CAGR 2023-2027) of 0.91%, the market volume will reach $302.90 million by 2027. The number of users will grow to 29.4 million by 2027.

Since 1996, people have trusted Shaadi.com, one of the world's oldest and most popular matchmaking services, to help them discover their right life partners. Millions of people have found their life partners and countless others have acquired some very special friends as a result of this groundbreaking matchmaking service.

By promising a higher level of matrimonial success, the online agency has been attracting attention and sign-ups. Shaadi.com has been connecting profiles with potential compatibility for over 26 years, and its marriage success stories have surpassed 5 million.

Every month, it adds over 1.5 million active users to its subscriber base, with about 12,000-15,000 sign-ups per day. That explains why it is the largest online matchmaking service in the world.

Read on to the article to learn more about Shaadi.com's founder, startup story, business model, revenue model, marketing strategies, and more.

Shaadi.com - Company Highlights

Company Name-Shaadi.com
Headquarters-Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
Industry-Internet marriage arrangement, social networking service
Founded-1996
Founder-Anupam Mittal
Total Funding Raised-$8 million
Predecessor-Sagaai.com
Area served-Worldwide
Parent Organization-People Group
Website-shaadi.com

Shaadi.com - About and How Does It Work?

Shaadi.com was founded by Anupam Mittal in the year 1996. It began with the name Sagaai.com but its name was changed in the year 1999, as Mr Anupam thought it to be a more marketable name. Initially, it became popular among Non-Indian Residents as the Indian parents were hesitant to arrange marriages using a startup.

By 2008, it was successful in becoming the world’s leading matrimonial website for Asians and had around 20 million users by 2011. Its main objective is to provide a superior matchmaking experience to Indians all over the world.

Users make their first impressions on potential matches through images and Shaadi.com creates its first impression on its users through photos as well. The photographs are checked for any potentially harmful content or content that violates the company's requirements. The corporation has a team that evaluates the photos that users upload to make sure they are appropriate.

Earlier, it used to take 5-6 hours to upload the photos and activate them on the profile as all of it was a manual process. Shaadi.com has about 201-500 employees in India as the platform does not require too many employees for the work that is to be done. Their global employee count is around 1,001-5,000.

They have an automated feature, which detects fake profiles, gender mismatches on profile photos, or profiles where users have put up their contact details. They have algorithms running on Amazon Recognition to identify these user behaviours. With this technology feature, their first impressions have improved and they have witnessed a 95% reduction in photo screening time

Shaadi.com - Industry

Online matrimonial services are the right combination of traditional Indian beliefs and cutting-edge technology for Indian bachelors and spinsters to search for and find a lifelong partner. Following COVID-19, these websites have seen a rapid increase in new registrations and conversations between prospective brides, grooms, and their families. Even today, the vast majority of marriages in India are arranged.

The online matrimony business in India started almost 20 years ago. At first, people selected it since none of the alternatives had worked out for them. But things are really different right now. Online matrimony offers the convenience and selection of millions of potential spouses as well as a great deal more details about a potential marriage proposal. Online marriage will continue to flourish in India for a very long time to come as long as the market continues to develop, attract more customers, and serve new generations.

Shaadi.com - Founders and Team

Anupam Mittal launched Sagaai.com in 1997, which later became Shaadi.com.

Anupam Mittal

Anupam Mittal is a businessman, entrepreneur, and angel investor. It was in Maharashtra that he finished his schooling. He pursued a business/general commerce degree at Boston College with a major in operations and strategic management. He joined the software business MicroStrategy in Washington, DC as a product manager after earning his Boston College degree.
When internet adoption in the nation was still fairly low, he established this revolutionary online matchmaking company, well-known as Shaadi.com. He had a series of business setbacks, yet he never gave up, leading to his company's current success.

List of Startups Funded by Anupam Mittal

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Shaadi.com - Startup Story

While sitting in his father’s office, Anupam met a traditional matchmaker who was giving his father the idea to match him off. But while thinking about how to get rid of him, it suddenly struck him that he could make the entire process of matchmaking online, taking away all the inefficiencies.
In 1997, he launched the first version called Sagaai.com. (Sagaai means engagement in Hindi) as an experiment, and changed the name to shaadi.com in 1999. He invested all his money into the business. In 2001, he left his job in the U.S. and moved back to India, shifting all his attention toward the requirements of the platform to make it successful.
Over the past few years, due to the advancement of technology, smartphones, andwidespread access to the internet, people have been overwhelmed with the use ofsuch resources. With the increase of education, independence, and advancement inlifestyle both men and women have become busier. People to…

Shaadi.com - Name, Tagline, and Logo

Shaadi.com began as Sagaai.com in 1997. Its founder, Anupam Mittal, changed its name to Shaadi.com in 1999, believing it to be a more marketable name. The tagline of the company says, “A company that connects people.”

Shaadi.com - Mission and Vision Statement

The vision statement of Shaadi.com says, “Our vision is a world where the search for a life partner is as fulfilling as the journey with a soulmate.”The mission statement of Shaadi.com says.
“The mission of Shaadi.com is to provide people with a superior matchmaking experience by expanding the opportunities available to meet potential life partners and build fulfilling relationships. We strive to do this through superior technology, in-depth research, valuable matrimonial content & services, and above all the highest quality of customer service delivered with a sense of warmth, understanding, respect, and company spirit.”

Shaadi.com - Business Model

The years 1995-1996 were seen as a digital revolution in India. New websites were coming in and people were slowly getting familiar with the term 'Internet'. Mr Anupam took advantage of this period and created a user-friendly platform where one can fill in their details including all parameters like height, caste, education qualification, etc, and their choices regarding the kind of a life partner they were searching for and the platform will find the perfect match for the user.
The platform acquires its customers using Newspapers, advertisements on television, and digital marketing. Once the user registers on the platform, there is a personal contact created between the platform and the user via regular phone calls to inform them about the different packages available, which eventually increases the conversion rate.

Shaadi.com - Revenue Model

The platform charges money to its users for a premium membership with various plans. Registration over the platform is free of cost but if the user is interested in a person's profile, they will have to take the premium membership for contacting that person. There is a variety of premium memberships available on the platform. Its plans include Gold, Gold+, Diamond, Diamond+, and Platinum.
The portal started as an experiment but now has touched the lives of around 35 million people around the globe.

Shaadi.com - Marketing Strategy

To increase its customer base and to keep the users entertained, the firm has taken several initiatives which include the opening of 123 Shaadi.com centers across 72 Indian cities with headquarters in Mumbai, Maharashtra. They plan to expand the center's numbers to 250. Games are hosted regularly on their social media accounts to keep the customers engaged along with creating awareness in society. It used a ‘Dowry calculator’ for highlighting the social evils prevailing in the society which was appreciated by people from more than 35 countries.
It launched the game ‘Angry Brides’ on its social media page to generate awareness about the dowry culture and child marriage to educate people about stopping dowry in marriages and showed the number of dowry deaths in India in place of the worth value of their dowry. This campaign received considerable media attention and was appreciated by over 600,000 people across the globe.

Angry Brides Game | Shaadi.com

The matchmaking platform took a bold step by starting a discussion about the gender inequalities that have been prevailing in society from generation to generation. Questions were asked to people over social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter using polls. The campaign received a massive response as more than 18,72,272 people took the pledge on the website fastforher.com. The hashtag #fastforher kept trending and got over 78 million impressions. More than 20000 posts were shared on Facebook and got around 6500 re-tweets.

Shaadi.com - Challenges Faced

Initially, it had to face a lot of challenges as internet adoption across India was poor in those times and conservative parents were sceptical of arranging marriage through an internet-based startup and there were a lot of cultural barriers. The mentality that prevailed at those times was a big hindrance. The next and the most difficult challenge the firm had to face was to hire the right people for the job as people did not understand what was the ally.
Shaadi.com has been massively successful in gaining trust in the market and has created a reputation for itself by recording over 3.5 million marriages across the world through its platform and has almost 12,000-15,000 sign-ups in a single day being India’s most trusted matrimonial site.

Shaadi.com - Competitors

Shaadi.com's top competitors in November 2022 are

Jeevansathi.com
BharatMatrimony.com
TeluguMatrimony.com
TamilMatrimony.com
Bandhan.com,
CommunityMatrimony.com
DivorceeMatrimony.com
Matrimonials India.com

Shaadi.com - Future Plans

The founder, Anupam Mittal, stated in an interview that "We are profitable and will be IPO-ready in about 12 months, and it's a good position to be." The business, now, doesn't need financing, Mittal continued. The founder withheld further information on the IPO as well.
After more than a decade of pausing, the matrimonial website Shaadi.com is considering making a second effort to launch its initial public offering (IPO). It launched its initial effort to go public in 2009. Shaadi.com's initial IPO effort was made with the goal of diluting between 15 to 20% of the People Group, Shaadi.com's parent company,'s share. Shaadi.com is getting ready to introduce new products, one of which is Shaadi Live, according to Mittal. The software will enable virtual face-to-face meetings between matches.
“We have experimented for a year and will launch these new verticals in the coming weeks. We will bring people together and make conversations on Shaadi.com beyond chats and messages. These will be real-time capabilities being made available to the customers.”
The consumers will have access to these real-time features. With a wide variety of use cases, Mittal said, the additional verticals would make his product stickier.