Here's an account of a start-up that has made millions even before its formal launch, which is slated for September 2009.


"The only people in the world who can change things are those who can sell ideas," Lois Wyse, the popular American writer and columnist, once observed. With a belief in himself, and backed by this adage, Dushyant Bhatia decided to let go of his safe job in a multinational company and leap into the entrepreneurial ocean - a world of wide open horizons, but also uncharted waters. He set up BlogertizeWorld.com-an online portal that sells adspace to bloggers in the form of pixels, and in turn promises them avenues to monetise their blogs without any effort.

Pixel advertising is a form of display advertising on the Web, in which the cost of each advertisement is calculated on the basis of the number of pixels it occupies.

Dushyant Bhatia, CEO & founder, BlogertizeWorld.com "This is the first Web start-up, worldwide, that has raised funds to run its online business by selling pixel adspace on its website."

The portal makes pixel blocks or ad spaces available in four different sizes (of 2000, 4000, 6000 and 8000 pixels) for sale to 2,860 bloggers. The ad space is sold to bloggers on a ‘first come first serve' basis, for a period of three years across 12 categories -- sports, technology, health, politics, finance, gaming, education, showbiz, travel, life, literature and social responsibility.

"The objective is to divert a chunk of the traffic coming onto Blogertize to these blog advertisers. This will help the latter to dig up a couple of loyal readers, which in turn would assist them in monetising their blogs," says Bhatia, CEO and founder, BlogertizeWorld.com.

To draw traffic, Blogertize offers an extensive suite of services such as an online marketplace, podcasting facilities, an online community (discussion board), the ad exchange network, promotional quizzing and a contest portal, Blogertize ROI (return on investment) analytics, exposure via a newsletter, and most importantly, profit sharing.

According to Bhatia, the value proposition that the portal will offer its bloggers, unlike other blogger communities, is that they will not be required to invest their precious time surfing the Internet to promote their blog. "A link to their blog (in the form of an image) will be placed on the website for a minimum of three years and without spending even a single minute on Blogertizeworld, they can potentially make thousands of dollars per year via their blogs by using our services smartly," adds Bhatia.

It's different!
This is the first Web start-up, worldwide, that has raised funds to run its online business by selling pixel adspace on its website, affirms Bhatia. The idea is to combine various important pillars of Internet marketing like affiliate marketing, promotional quizzing models, e-commerce, micro blogging, online community, etc, with pixel advertising and create a business out of it.

Looking back with pride! Bhatia narrates the story behind the firm's genesis: "I was in my final year of graduation when I came across this concept, and that is when I decided that whenever I started my first venture, it would be related to pixel advertising." Bhatia started his research in March 2008 and tried to find a way of using pixel advertising to its fullest potential. After some work he realised that pixel advertising could assist him in raising funds to run his online business and at the same time give bloggers an opportunity to monetise their blogs without much effort.

The concept of the website is similar to that of a mutual fund where the cost of running this website is distributed among a large pool of bloggers. A chunk of adspace proceeds are reinvested in various revenue generating avenues, which in turn, helps all stake holders to earn revenues, says Bhatia.

A collaborative model that works well for all
"Our vision is to create a new collaborative model of business where all could monetise together," says Bhatia. The bloggers advertising on the portal are required to place a link to the Blogertize shopping portal on their blog. If visitors to their blog click on that link, they get directed to the Blogertize shopping portal. Once there, if these visitors purchase anything, up to 75 per cent of the profit will be given to that respective blogger, explains Bhatia. "The main idea is to create an online trading store and have distributors, i.e., bloggers all over the world," he adds.

"Bloggers advertising with Blogertize also have an option to open an online store for free, during the first year of operations. No yearly fee or commission on final sales will be charged for the first year and so bloggers can sell their products via our website, free of cost," shares Bhatia.

The portal aims to offer an advertising network that enables blog and social media publishers at every level to maximise online advertising revenues. Bhatia explains how that would happen: "Bloggers/social media publishers can take control of their online inventory to increase their earnings, and advertisers can run better campaigns because they know where traffic and even each conversion is coming from." According to Bhatia, the revenue split is 70:30 between general bloggers and the Blogertizeworld team, and 80:20 between bloggers advertising with Blogertize and the portal.

Leveraging the social media
But how did the portal manage to reach the masses and generate interest amidst the bloggers' community? "Social media was the key element to begin with. We hired a couple of Internet marketers who were quite active on social networking sites like Facebook, Digg, etc. Some collaborations with blogger forums worldwide also helped us spread the word. Once the bloggers got to know about our site, they started reviewing our service on their blogs, which in turn helped us spread the word. Bloggers from countries like the US, UK, Malaysia, Philippines, China, Israel, NewZealand, etc, also wrote reviews of our start-up," shares Bhatia.

BlogertizeWorld.com timeline 2006: Idea for BlogertizeWorld.com germinated March 2008: The research for BlogertizeWorld.com started September 01, 2008: The firm was set up September 01, 2009: The portal is to be launched (with all its services)

As far as the marketing budget is concerned, the team is expecting to sell off all the pixel adspace blocks by September 2009. "The adspace proceeds that we have by then would take care of the operating and marketing needs for at least 18 to 20 months," says Bhatia.

A few promising statistics!
Moving ahead, the team's primary objective is to ensure that all the 2,860 registered bloggers are satisfied with the

returns (monetary or otherwise) they receive in the next three years. "We intend to make this experimental business model work and resell the adspace to bloggers three years down the line," Bhatia adds.

Bhatia reveals that out of the total of 2,860 spots, the team has already received registrations from over 1,800 bloggers. "Adspace worth $50,000 has already been sold. We are planning to double the prices once we reach the 2,500 mark. The remaining 360 pixel blocks would be sold post September 2009 when the portal is formally launched," he adds.

Now, how many seven-month-old Web start-ups can boast of that kind of progress, Bhatia proudly asks. Not many, we concur!