Pitara on expansion spree; to break even by end 2002

Pitara Kids Network, which entered the worldwide web three years back with children’s portal pitara.com, yesterday launched parentspitara.com, a website on parenting

Pitara Kids Network, which entered the worldwide web three years back with children's portal pitara.com, yesterday launched parentspitara.com, a website on parenting. A virtual home to the Indian parent, the site hopes to provide a comprehensive worldview on "parenting with an Indian perspective". pitarashop.com is the other site that is expected to go live by the first week of April.

With all this in place, by end-April, the company would have a network of six sites: pitara.com, indiabykids.com, krowser.com, giniefind.com, parentspitara.com and pitarashop.com. Currently, the four sites put together generate 1.7 million page views and 160,000 unique visitors per month. The company hopes to break even by end 2002.

parentspitara, which made its debut as a section on the kids' site www.pitara.com, was born out of the realisation that "while we all become biological parents at some time or the other, our education in parenting must never cease". Ajay Jaiman, CEO, Pitara Kids Network, says, "To nurture our children, we need to nurture sensibilities in ourselves that would enable us to give them the best gift of all - a springboard to life."

The site promises to take one through the experiences of parenthood, from pregnancy and childbirth to baby needs and child development in India. It offers an interactive toolbox that can be used to search for baby names, calculate date of delivery, find information on first aid, immunisation, how to plan a nursery and clothes for the new born. It also provides a list of schools for special children around the country.

Besides these, parentspitara.com contains features exploring issues concerning the child's growth, common ailments, feeding and lifestyle changes for the new mother. It also pays attention to parent-child and sibling relationships, especially when there is an adopted child at home, issues of child education, impact of mass media, and travel and leisure. Further, it has a separate section that could be useful to parents with a special child.

The company is looking at below-the-line advertising to popularise its latest offering. "We don't have a very big budget for parentspitara.com. Our current user base is huge enough for us to communicate the message and we will reach them through direct mailing." Ajay says. The company is also looking at outdoor advertising and road shows in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai.

The company claims that it has a robust revenue model in place. The company hopes to sell toys, baby products and other stuff that would interest mothers through the site. "The sale of certain in house products such as CDs would also contribute to making money," says Jaiman. So far, the company has been earning money from advertising and syndicated studies to publications. By April end, version 1 of Krowser (the Beta version of which earlier was given free) will also be up for sale.

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