Every month, more than five percent of Internet users visit online marketplaces like e-Bay, rediff.com, Craigslist, Olx.com, or one of the other 10,000 classifieds sites worldwide. Aiming to make these online marketplaces simple, quick, and a compelling experience for users, Chetan Adiverekar and Vineet Thanedar came up with the idea of micro online classified sites and founded iJiny in August 2008.

Unlike other classified sites, where the user needs to fill a long form and select from several categories, iJiny lets users post and discover classified ads without any registration or login. Adiverekar says, “Our idea is classifieds stripped bare to the essentials – 160 characters, to-the-point classified ads, no registrations, no logins, a few essential categories, and a search that helps users find just what they look for. You can say we are obsessed with simplicity and user experience.” He also says that iJiny is India’s first micro classifieds site that lets users quickly post and discover 160-character classified ads in their cities.

Seeing the popularity of online classifieds among young tech savvy generation, the company plans to extend the service to the mobile phone and leverage the high SMS usage in the Indian market and provide easy access for users to post and search through classifieds. “We want to reduce the barrier to entry and leverage the mass popularity of mobile and SMS usage in India. While Internet usage in India has increased tremendously, it pales in comparison with mobile penetration and popular use,” asserts Adiverekar. Currently, the status of online classifieds sites in India is far too high, while the relevant stuff is buried under dozens of sections and a cluttered and less-than-intuitive user experience. Adiverekar says, “While these websites have done a great job at increasing adoption of online classifieds, we feel it’s time for a more appealing and improved user experience. We want to build a service that does two things and do them well – help people post and advertise the things they have to offer, and help them quickly find the things they want.”

Since it is bootstrapped and has to be cash conscious to get maximum bang for every buck it spends, the real challenge for Adiverekar and Thanedar is to promote and advertise the site. “There are multiple avenues through which promotions are done for any Web based venture, choosing the right one and getting maximum mileage has been challenging and it will remain a challenge for us for some time in the near future. Also the venture is totally self dependent and without any sort of reliance on outside help, and generating traction using popular mediums such as TV, radio, and newspapers is tough,” opines Adiverekar.

Seeing an enthusiastic response to what they have built and being predicted as the most promising Web startup by a renowned venture capitalist in Pune, now the company is leaving no stone unturned to find simpler and better ways of solving the need to find housing, cars, bikes, textbooks, jobs, and a few other life essentials, and in terms of features, augmenting our online service with posting of ads and searching for stuff via SMS is certainly the most important one in our pipeline,” concludes Adiverekar.