I was introduced to the world of income tax filing when I joined a CA firm as an intern. Most of the salaried individuals are clueless about tax filings, and hunt around on the internet or for CA firms to aid them. There were quite a few self-help sites in India. In US, this was a huge market, and the Indian was was growling very strongly.
However, I wasn’t satisfied with most of the Indian sites. They were complicated, ugly and not very user friendly. I used the existing software provided by the Income Tax Deparement (Excel spreadsheet) and modified it to make it more efficient and simple. At our CA firm, we were able to save over 50% of our time by using these forms.
It was good idea, I thought. I needed to scale it. But the problem was that I knew nothing about software development, and I couldn’t afford to hire a developer. I went the hard way. I started learning web development off the net: forums, tutorials, SO, php manuals, etc …
It took 4 months, and I was ready with my site – taxfile [dot] in. I took special care to make the site user friendly, smooth and accessible. The one thing I had in mind through the development was to cut down as many seconds as possible in the return filing process. Also, I kept it free.
Next: how to get users? Um … Google. How? SEO. I learnt SEO, and one month later, I started to get decent traffic.
Some 5,000 users signed up, and the site generated 2,200+ returns during the tax season – in 4 months. Judging by the support requests, quite a few advocates and tax professionals used the site. User feedback was pretty good.
Now, I feel stranded. I realized that ‘making’ wasn’t enough. I have to ‘sell’ it. I am a student with no experience in marketing, entrepreneurship, e-com or even web development. I don’t even know anyone with whom I can discuss this project. I am clueless about the next step. I have a hell lot of ideas that I wish to implement on taxfile.in, but I’ve put them on the back burner. I have come to a stage where abandoning the project seems like the most reasonable idea.
Or maybe I could keep it dormant and return to it after a few years when I have the experience and resources to execute the plan.
I still believe in myself, and in the idea. But is that enough?
Perhaps the best people to ask advice from are The Rodinhooders. So here I am.
Shyam Sunder Vyas
Nishant, the tax return is a summary of all the transactions which took place during the period. If you can create an addon on your website in which users can enter those transactions periodically, so entry of the summarized information is not required. For starters you can charge a nominal amount from users per month/year for the addon service.
Dhaval Parikh
Nishant.Hats off if you made the site all by yourself inspite being a non-technical guy.
One thing I am not clear about is what is your exact problem? Why do you want to abandon it? Is it just because you feel that you are not getting enough users? If yes I don’t agree. 5000+ sign up is not bad at all. See most of the users will come in during year end and thats where you need to actually promote your site. Other time just slowly keep adding new features to it. If you don’t have those programing skills let me know I might be able to help you as I am a software developer myself. I do not think that I am the best person to advice you about how to sell it but one thing for sure don’t abandon it keep it running. Keep the hope on!!
Cheers!!
Sridhar V
Hi Nishant,
I feel that filing tax returns requires some off-line support as well which most of the tax filing websites dont provide.
For instance sending the return from to IT department, following up, checking status, etc.
To facilitate this you may think of offering some offline tax filing service as well, because if one has multiple income sources (salary, investments, business, property, etc) which is common nowadays a lot of paper work and assistance is required.
For instance you may have some investment income as well as expenses, business income, expenses,etc. and for all this most people head to CAs. I do the same. The reason is obvious – if you dont get any response from IT dept there is no way of following up because you wont get to the right person in any case. However, tax return preparers have the time, technology and expertise to follow up and know what happened.
If you can start an advisory outlet (offline and online) then it can be a superhit. These are my personal views……some of which may not be realistic but Im sure it should work.
Nishant Agrawal
Yes, I can do that. That’s an altogether different sector. Personal finance management.
I would love to move on to that, once I am confident about the existing return filing setup.
Nishant Agrawal
Thanks for the compliments.
I get most of the traffic from June to July. 31st July is the last date for filing of returns.
The thing is, I don’t really know how to proceed. Should I introduce paid plans? Add more features? Look for a co-founder?
First, I would really like to know how an e-com / IT company works. I come from a very different background.
Nishant Agrawal
That’s a really good idea – an advisory outlet. It helps fulfill the very reason behind taxfile.in – to make things simple and less time consuming.
It’s one of the hundreds of ideas hovering in my mind. Would like to do it one day.
Sridhar V
Thanks Nishant. Since there are a number of websites for tax filing you can differentiate in some way. A team of CAs and TRPs can this service in an advisory outlet, and I find it an interesting proposition. We can discuss this further. You can also write to me at sridharcw@gmail.com
Dhaval Parikh
Hi Nishant
Let us take this a bit offline and talk in more detail. my email id is dhaval.parikh33@gmail.com
Sumit Panjabi
Hi Nishant – I run an offline tax prep company for US residents – http://www.aotax.com. Send me an email – sumit@aotax.com and lets see if I can cross sell to help you generate leads.
I do agree with others that there needs to be a flavor of offline support – CAs etc. For someone utilizing your free services – its pretty easy but for your paid offering, there needs to be a way to differentiate from the competitors. This space has seen a lot of entrants in the past few years including ICICI.
Here is an old ppt that talks about the market – https://www.slideshare.net/lakshay_anand/indian-etax-filing This should give you some idea of what is the scale that you should be looking at.
Let me know if you want discuss further.
Best of luck
Sumit
Anil
Nishant I too have few suggestions and ideas….
You can make money on this only thru following ways
a) Keep the service free and reach a sufficient traffic to get advertising revenues ( will only bring in small revenues)
b) Hybrid model : Keep service free for end use and introduce value added services.
idea 1 : So offering offline services at a nominal cost or an advisory service is one option.
idea 2 : Tax filing can be really taxing if there are too many supporting documents. So you could offer being a data reservoir, who keeps a physical set of copies of e-file receipts and acknowledgements and all supporting documents. Many times people actually want last 3 years papers and start hunting it. So at that time someone wont mind taking the last 3 years files at a cost. The service of course can be pre-sold ( subscribe for the service – so that yo mantain files for them ) to interested people
idea 3 : With an idea 2 in place make Franchisees for your brand. So a franchisee can benefit by lending this as a service in a bouquet of services they are already offering. For example , there is a friend of mine recently launched a website which saves your time and effort and you can subscribe to civil works like plumbing, electrician etc at an annual AMC. cost. So somebody like him can add this as well as a part of service offering, pay you a fixed amount for the franchisee and earn for himself… ( its just an example)
idea 4 : Add an e-commerce feature. So you have traffic and thats growing. Make a relevant product available for buying from your site ( example a plug-in for an insurance premium or policy renewal, some financiual products that offer tax benefits to have a window on your site for lead generation/actual transaction)
Just some ideas I could think of. Hope it helps !
Cheers….
Anil Malik
Amey Asuti
Hey Nishant,
Really liked the idea & the fact that you took all the efforts to DIY. Hats off! Having seen your website – I feel the freemium model would work best – free for individuals & an affordable plan for those who would use it extensively/more than once a year (CAs, etc.)
Also, how about an app? An android & iOS app could be a good revenue stream.
Advertising?
I could help you out with the internet marketing bit. Contact me on amey@socialsquared.in
Mayur Sethi
Hi Nishant,
Amazing concept and can understand the phase you are going through..
Let me know if we can connect over the phone and take it further..
Cheers,
Mayur Sethi
Thinker-in-Chief
MP09 Digital
+91 9826020980
Govind G Prajapati
same here govind@noesisconsultancy.com
Nishant Agrawal
There was a lot of activity in this market between 2007 and 2009. Since then, it’s been cold, as far as new entrants and attention is concerned. However, the market is growing fast.
Thanks for sharing the ppt.
Nishant Agrawal
Woa. Really interesting ideas. Specially about being a data vault. Will note them down. Thanks!
Nishant Agrawal
I have to look after my studies right now, so I would be working on taxfile.in in my spare time. I would be diving fully into it when I’m done with my studies.
Will try to find a technical like-minded co-founder till then.
Thanks
Praveen
Hi Nishant,
Here are my thoughts.
1. Having used some of these sites, i think a hybrid approach may work well. Continue offering some basic use free and charge for premium services – larger tax returns, sending and tracking returns, offering advisory services, offline and online etc.
2. Use this time to build corporate contacts for bulk filing of taxes for offices. It serves two purposes – increases the top line significantly and the usage and you get bulk business, hence locked revenues. also, gives you good credibility and return business if you offer good service.
3. there are other adivsory services that can come in eventually – company set up, tax advice, etc. etc. basically gamut of services which CA/CS’s offer.
Nishant Agrawal
Yes, the basic should be free of charge. Post a certain income, a basic amount can be chargeable. Also, premium services would include expert review and data vault. This is what I have planned till now.
Corporate tie-ups is a big thing in this line of business. It provides leverage. It’s a must for larger top line.
Thanks!
Pawan Deokule
Dear Nishant,
First, I would like to congratulate you on getting this far on part time! Your main area of concern seems to be marketing and expanding the tech/CA offering.
A few pointers: –
1, Have you assessed what kind of people come to your website and why they stay away from the CA? This should give you answers on what tech/CA facilities to offer on your website.
2. Have you worked out the math on how many people visit websites to file their returns? (market size) what are the challenges in finding an online site like yours to file my returns? (assessing the marketing task and cost of marketing) Once this is done, you know how much of spend is required to scale to a level where the profits can convert this to a full time job.
3. The first challenge of using a simple excel sheet is solved. So what is the next challenge? Scale, vision, job/entrpreneur, portfolio services, etc This is a question that you need to answer to yourself before moving any further.
If you do answer the above question and are looking for a co-founder to take this to the next level. Do contact me at pawan@digicat.in and we can talk further. Wishing you all the best!