With a population of 16 million people, Dhaka could have been the city with lots happening just because of its sheer number of inhabitants. Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case for many reasons-poor financial conditions of the majority of its population, and horrible traffic gridlock being examples.
Things have changed though lately. Events like Tedx, Hay festival, Music fest and many more have started to find their feet in this 400-year-old city and its inhabitants have embraced those with open arms.
Cashing in on this new trend, websites like jetechao.com have emerged to let the Dhakaites know about the happening events.
Dhaka Tribune recently caught up with Reem Shamsuddoha, one of the founders of this website and learned a thing or two about jetechao.com.
1: Where did you get the idea for forming the website of jetechao.com?
The idea of JeteChao spontaneously came to life two years ago in 2013, during a conversation among myself, Mehnaz Tabassum and Fahim Saleh, who are now the co-founders of JeteChao. We all used to live in abroad prior moving to Bangladesh. We used to talk how life was monotonous and boring in Dhaka, and even if there were events happening, there weren’t enough sources to know about them. That’s when JeteChao took its first breath! However, at that time, starting an online event listing portal didn’t seem to be much of a business opportunity and hence the idea incubated, undisclosed. Finally in August 2015, we took the chance and launched JeteChao! Since then JeteChao has seen remarkable growth. In less than two months JeteChao has amassed 3000 daily viewers.
2: Why do you think Dhaka is a good place for such website? Is it because you don't have enough competition, or is Dhaka really now a “happening” city?
The entertainment culture has evolved and grown over the past decade. Earlier, family gatherings and dining outside would have to suffice. Now there is demand for more. This has hiked, especially in Dhaka. Many people complain that Dhaka is boring and there isn't much to do. That is only because they don't have access to the information about what's going on in town. Jetechao believes that it is unfair if you can't go, just because you don't know. That is why we are here. JeteChao aims to be the number one, one stop, entertainment solution in Dhaka.
3: Who or what are your biggest competitors?
Well even if not direct competitors, they (newspapers) are indirect competitors. However we don't think it's a major threat as most of our target group (18-35 years old) rely on social media, ie online sources for entertainment information.
4: What is your business model for the website?
Like every other business, we have a multi layered and elaborate business model. But summing it all down, the services that we provide include bringing to our viewers all the happening events in town, while also providing them with a registration/ticketing option. And we earn revenue by charging a commission on sales of tickets.
5: Please give a short brief of the operational model of the website
To ensure smooth, continuous and uninterrupted functioning of our website, we have a great team of developers who work regularly, and we have partnered with many renowned event galleries and organisations who constantly keep us updated about all the ongoing and upcoming events. Furthermore, we always are on an aggressive search for more organisations to partner with, to ensure that we cover everything going on in town. On our website, we have ticketing and registration options which are under continuous monitoring to ensure that our users receive their tickets on time. And lastly, the co-founders along with the JeteChao team work diligently with enthusiasm to ensure growth and development.