1. What can you tell me about Scalenut? What was the idea behind it? How does it work?
Scalenut is a SaaS-enabled marketplace for content marketing. We help businesses tell better stories, at scale. Started towards the end of 2020, Scalenut works with over 150 small, medium and large enterprises to power their content marketing.
We saw massive potential in organizing the white-collared gig economy space. All the current marketplace are discovery platforms and don’t fully cater to the demands of enterprises. In addition, current marketplaces don’t offer the technical support required to carry out various tasks.
Today is an era of managed marketplaces. We have seen various players disrupting industries like home service, ticketing, good delivery, and many more through a fully managed full-stack approach. The same has not happened in freelancing services yet.
India serving global demand is also limited to IT but has not expanded to other categories. We aim to bridge that gap and build an ‘India serves the world’ business.
To begin with, we have picked content as a vertical. With content becoming critical for enterprises to reach their audience, there is a huge need for a platform that enables seamless content production.
2. Mr. Mayank, what inspired you to become an entrepreneur? What made you switch from Snapdeal after investing 7 years of your life in the company?
I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. I left my first job at ITC and started a venture in 2011. That didn’t work out well. I joined another startup then followed by Snapdeal. Snapdeal was a wonderful opportunity and I spent 7 years building various functions at different points in time. It always felt that one is building different ventures with a fast-growing startup. However, the itch of entrepreneurship took over, and finally, after 7.5 years, I left Snapdeal to start Scalenut with a couple of wonderful co-founders.
3. What is the USP/competitive advantage of Scalenut over other content creators in the market?
We are building an all-encompassing platform for content marketing. Right from content intelligence to content automation to top talent networks will reside under one roof. Anyone looking to grow their content marketing efforts should be able to use Scalenut and get the desired results.
We bring in decades of experience in building marketplaces and SaaS solutions. There are hardly any platforms available that combine technology and talent the way we do. We feel this is going to be one of the strongest pillars for Scalenut.
4. Would you like to throw some light on the “freelancing-as-a-business” scenario of the country?
Globally, freelancing has already become a massive industry but is still in its early innings. Of the estimated total outsourceable professional services market of $500Bn+, only 2-3% is currently freelanced, of which about a third is on organized marketplaces. The freelance portion of the professional services market is expected to grow from $15bn to $50bn in the next five years. We believe organized marketplaces will take a majority share of future growth.
5. How has the technology and overall digitization in India enabled you to scale up your venture?
India is going through a massive digital transformation. Lots of businesses are going digital or massively increasing their digital footprint. Covid-19 has further boosted the digital transformation. Given content is the center pillar of digitization, we have seen tremendous growth in the last 6 months since we started.
6. How is Scalenut building a content creator economy and how are you planning to scale up your business to become a global content marketing platform?
Scalenut provides full-stack content development services to enterprises. We onboard high-quality vetted content creators after multiple levels of screening. Based on the content request from the user, the right professional is matched and assigned. We have built various workflows and processes to ensure tasks are carried out with high quality. As more and more businesses are investing in building content, we are providing opportunities to budding content creators to build meaningful and rewarding careers in this space.
Content is universal and India has immense talent. We are trying to bring top Indian talent and Global brands together. By providing them with the right set of technology tools, talent and processes, we feel we can build India as a global content creation hub.
7. How are businesses using content creation as a catalyst to expand their digital footprint and presence across the globe?
Content is the main medium of communication for all the internet first companies. Companies are finding many creative ways to communicate about their brand and offerings. Blogs, web content, motion graphics, videos, podcasts, infographics, and more and being used by brands across the globe. To get the attention of the users, high-quality content is one of the most powerful ways.
8. The means and modes of content creation have changed over the years. Where do you see the future of content creation in the next 10 years?
This is going to be a very interesting space. On one hand, there have been massive technology advancements in automating content creation and content management. On another, brands need to stand out through unique content. We strongly feel that top content creators, powered by the right automation tools will be the future.
9. Your last piece of advice for a young individual aspiring to become an entrepreneur in the present day and age of technology and for the future to come.
No better time to become an entrepreneur in India. With the booming start-up ecosystem, we are at the right place and the right time to build high-impact businesses. As a country, we are going through significant digital advancements. If someone is thinking about starting up, now is the time!
