Pinkvilla Startup Story: One-stop source for Bollywood news!
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Gone are the days when people learned about their favorite Bollywood stars’ love affairs, domestic fights, or street fight gossips from magazines or newspapers. Though many Indians love such news and gossips over any other story, the platform or source of this information is no more the same. Since the media and its mediums have now changed a lot, the nature of Bollywood gossips has been overhauled. People now have Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and 24x7 paparazzi all just on a few clicks.
While there have been many platforms where Indians are engaged to grab such entertainment, information, and news, there is one platform or a brand, which has won millions of hearts and has become their favorite. It is Pinkvilla, one of the most prominent entertainment websites in India. To know more about the startup story and business model of Pinkvilla read this article.
Pinkvilla - Company Highlights
| Startup Name | Pinkvilla |
|---|---|
| Founder | Nandini Shenoy |
| Industry | Entertainment |
| Founded | 2007 |
| Website | pinkvilla.com |
Pinkvilla - About and How it Works
Pinkvilla - Founder
Pinkvilla History - How it Started
Pinkvilla - Business Model and Revenue Model
Pinkvilla - Competitors
Pinkvilla - Growth
Pinkvilla - Awards and Achievements
Pinkvilla - FAQs
Pinkvilla - About and How it Works
Pinkvilla is a one-stop shop for all Bollywood news, whether it's about a specific celebrity or a particular film. In the year 2019, the website was one of the most successful entertainment portals. On the web channel, Pinkvilla has over 40 million followers and over 100,000 posts about celebrities, beauty, fashion, Bollywood news, movies, and lifestyles.
From having movie ratings and learning about all of your favorite celebrities' latest sassy airport looks, Pinkvilla covered it all.
Pinkvilla's content is mostly focused on Bollywood, including celebrity news and movies. Apart from Bollywood, Pinkvilla's content types include niches such as lifestyle, fashion, and beauty, as well as Indian industries such as Marathi, Punjabi, Telugu, and Kannada.
Pinkvilla, in partnership with Facebook, launched India's first live Bollywood game, dubbed "Jhacaaash." In 2018, Pinkvilla partnered with Hotstar on a number of programs, including Cheat Meals with Stars, Under Cover on the Internet, Primetime Partners, Untold Tale, No More Secrets, and a few others that are only available on Disney Hotstar.
Simran Shahid
Pinkvilla - Founder
Nandini Shenoy is the founder of Pinkvilla.
She came from a family where all her family members were extremely talented engineers. And to follow the tradition she went on to pursue engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Karnataka. After completing the graduation program, Nandini went on to pursue her Master's in ECE from Rutgers University, the United States.
After completing the post-graduation program she joined Microsoft, Seattle in 2004 as a software engineer. Though she admired her work as a software engineer, she always fantasized about the idea of Pinkvilla. She was a Bollywood fanatic and somewhere knew that she could foster her passion at a jiffy.
Even though Nandini had a plan for Pinkvilla, she did not quit her job at Microsoft right away, since she wasn’t completely sure about her business idea. After humongous hard work and sleepless nights and weekends, her idea or the dream of Pinkvilla came to a beautiful reality.
Pinkvilla History - How it Started
While Nandini was working in the United States, she was missing the Bollywood fun. In many interviews, she has mentioned that while she was working there with her husband, she couldn’t find any websites that helped her in knowing the latest happenings of Bollywood and its celebrities.
Since Nandini was missing her daily dose of Bollywood gossips she tried to make an online community of Bollywood fans so that these fanatics come together and have discussions on Bollywood. She made a website that was unusual because all famous websites had blogs related to technical content or news information but Pinkvilla was a website where Nandini started blogging about Bollywood, Fashion, and Beauty gossip. One of the most popular platforms of that time was Orkut. Along with Orkut and word-of-mouth publicity, Pinkvilla got established.
In the year 2009, Pinkvilla started getting popular after a few pictures of Sonam Kapoor went viral. That was when Hindustan Times contacted Nandini to use the photos and would backlink to Pinkvilla. That is when she realized that this is something big and a lot can be taken out from this platform. She had quit her job and made a team of editors, photographers, PRs and made links with production houses. It was by the year 2011 when Bollywood celebrities themselves wanted to get featured in Pinkvilla as there wasn’t any digital presence for them. Nandini started doing celebrity interviews from the United States and later opened up an office in Mumbai.
Jeenal Jain
Pinkvilla - Business Model and Revenue Model
Pinkvilla earns its revenue from almost all the major movie production houses. These production houses give heavy amounts to Pinkvilla for creating ad sales on their website. Pinkvilla gets more than 50 million new views every month and more than 10 million visitors. Its engagement on portals like Instagram and Facebook also helps them to endorse these Bollywood celebrities. PinkVilla also aims to have its online web store and e-commerce.
Pinkvilla - Competitors
Nandini is unconcerned about the proliferation of dedicated Bollywood websites. Instead, she swears by Pinkvilla's model of becoming a customer-centric hub, claiming to have amassed a dedicated user base that she keeps engaged and committed.
Similar websites and portals like Pinkvilla are Bollywood Hungama, Zee Entertainment, Rediff, Filmi Beat, Bollywood Life, Santa Banta, First Post, Koi Moi among others.
Pinkvilla - Growth
Pinkvilla, which also has a presence in the South of PinkVilla South and PinkVilla Telly with all the small-screen news, has amassed quite a following, as shown by its massively successful social media presence on Instagram (3.9 million followers), Facebook (1.8 million likes), YouTube (60 million+ video views), and Twitter (951K Followers). Pinkvilla has also featured on television and in international markets such as Kollywood.
PV Vyshnavi
Pinkvilla - Awards and Achievements
Pinkvilla won two Cosmopolitan awards in the categories of Best Celebrity Blogger and Best Celeb-Spotting Blog in the years 2019 and 2016. Pinkvilla received the Website of the Year award from DigiPub in 2019 and has received many such accolades to date. Pinkvilla has been a successful and one of its kind platform and an Indian startup.
Pinkvilla - FAQs
What is Pinkvilla?
Pinkvilla is a one-stop shop for all Bollywood news, whether it's about a specific celebrity or a particular film.
Who is the founder of Pinkvilla?
Nandini Shenoy is the founder of Pinkvilla.
How does Pinkvilla make money?
Pinkvilla earns its revenue from almost all the major movie production houses. These production houses give heavy amounts to Pinkvilla for creating ad sales on their website. And
If you like reading posts and blogs about fashion, lifestyle, appearance, and, of course, Bollywood celebrities, then visit the Pinkvilla website.
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