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Challenge to All Rodinhooders – Answer this One!

By Aneja Raj on 66 Comments / 6423 views

Hello All,

So we know TheRodinhoods reached the Magical Number of 5,000 members last week!

In one of my casual discussions with Asha, she asked me to Predict when we would hit the Next Magical number. I will acknowledge – it is one of the toughest Question any one has asked me in a while. It is not easy to estimate this as there is a “compounding” factor with Viral growth that is hard to Calculate. As you can imagine, there are top level Analysts in the industry working to crack this..

Hey I am not an Analyst, but I like Challenges, and I like to base my facts on DATA & DATA ONLY. 

So I took a stab at it with my cow boy math. My Prediction came to 10,277 members in 10 Months. Below is how I approached –

Current Community size = 5000

  • I am estimating approximately 5% of the community to recommend and bring in 2 new people every two months.

  • 5% of the people = 250 users. In two months cycle they would recommend 2 people which = 500. So total Rodinhood users will be 5000 + 500 = 5,500. 

  • I am estimating a 5% Organic growth (such as coming from search). So total would be 5,775

  • At this Rate, at the end of 10 months Rodinhoods will have 10,277 new members.

The above is by no means the most accurate way to estimate. It is Directional and above all intended to showcase the “thought process”. This is how every Entrepreneurs should approach their Business!

So the Challenge to all my friends in Rodinhoods is to “Predict when we would hit the Magical number of 10,000 users”. As we are all Entrepreneurs here, or aspiring to be one, would be great to see how each of you would approach this scenario & support it with Data.

Way to Go RODINHOODERS! Looking forward to seeing some interesting approaches!

Aneja

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66 Comments

  1. thanks for this aneja!

    as promised, there is something to be won here…!

    PRIZE FOR THE CLOSEST CORRECT PREDICTION: ONE RODINHOOD LAPTOP SKIN!!!

  2. Thanks Asha. That is great motivation. So if no one else replies, I am keeping that skin:)

  3. Asha and Aneja:
    Great task for the rodinhoods!

    I would like your help on this. Can I have the number of member this community had in February 2013 and November 2012.
    It would be helpful.
    I would like to try out.

    As Aneja rightly said… Facts should be based on DATA only!!

    Cheers!
    Tejas

  4. Hi Aneja, My small calculation. I liked your way of calculation, but I am slightly off track this time around. Simple statistics! But for that I making a big assumption! I have assumed we had reached 2500 members in May-2012. I hope this is realistic. Now. we will have Date Values as

    Nov 2010 – 0 members

    May 2012 – 2500 members

    May 2 – 5000

    Date  Members Difference Difference/months  
    Nov-10 0      
    May-12 2500 2500 138.8888889  
    May-13 5000 2500 208.3333333 69.44444
    X 10000 5000 277.7777778 69.44444
    Now going the reverse way we get 5000/277.7778 = 18. 
    We can have viral marketing factor(VMF) as 1.5 to 2. Given the best content and nice advisors we have, I take it as 2.
    In effect we can complete the magical figure in 18/2= 9 months.
    If we assume VMF as 1.5 the  it would be 12 months
    I would assume 9+12/2= 10.5 months
    Final answer= 10000 members by Mid March 2014 or 10.5 months

    Close to what Anjeja said!

     

    waiting for other exciting answers on this!

  5. tejas…

    sorry couldn’t get back to you sooner – according to this post (dec 24, 2012) – we were nearly 4000 members then – https://www.therodinhoods.com/forum/topics/therodinhoods-needs-flashy-people-and-other-volunteers

    hope this helps!

  6. Hey Asha, Thank you so much.
    I appreciate your help.

    Revised Calculations…. This time it would take 2 more months.

    Date  Members Difference Difference/months  
    Nov-10 0      
    Dec-12 4000 4000 160  
    May-13 5000 1000 200 40
    X 10000 5000 240 40
    Now going the reverse way we get 5000/277.7778 = 18. 
    We can have viral marketing factor(VMF) as 1.5 to 2. Given the best content and nice advisors we have, I take it as 2.
    In effect we can complete the magical figure in 20.8/2= 10.4 months.
    If we assume VMF as 1.5 the  it would be 13.86 months
    I would assume 10.4+13.67/2= 12.13 months
    Final answer= 10000 members by Mid May 2014 or 12.13 months

  7. When I joined on Oct,12 Rodinhood than there were approx 3000 members. Now it is 5000 in May,13. I am not good in mathmetics but I can do following scenario analysis as per my experience. So we can consider following growth phase.

    Date        Members      Difference        %Growth

    Nov-10          0            

    Oct-12          3000             3000              

    May-13         5000             2000             67% in 7 month  (consider it is as super natural growth period)

    Dec-13        10000             5000             100% in 7 month ( assume more than super natural growth)

          We can consider more than a super natural growth period because more  graduate and post graduate will pass out from their college, if a small amount of them will think of entrepreneurship than they will definitely come to know about Rodinhood. 

         So if I assume 100% growth rate in next 6-7 month then we can see more than 10000 members in till Dec-13 – Jan-14.

  8. An interesting one this and already a couple of thoughtful responses. 13-14 months looks way to long.

    I’m heavily bullish on this. And my prediction is 5-6 months (can someone keep track so in case I win, I get my goodies :P).

    I’m not basing the prediction on any data here for simple reasons that I felt the data points are too less and weak to work out the solution with. We’re talking about virility here. Viral growth hacking is different stuff something beyond calculations and predictions that has betrayed the analysts in past and by a grand margin. Talk of Dropbox, talk of Air BnB.

    On a lighter note: You never know, very soon, one of us 5000 (assuming 1% of the members are the ones decently established players having a decent presence in the market) makes it super-big (2% of that 1%, most pessimistic approach), one fine day some time soon, they talk about the rodinhoods to media, the prints in significantly devoted manner, about how trds is helping entrepreneurs out, and boom we have a sudden rise.

    With all respect and love to all members.

    Prashant

  9. Well said Prashant.
    I just thought about going with a statistical approach because Aneja already gave a thoughtful and non-statistical answer to the problem.

    Even I hope I am wrong this time, and we reach the figure of 10,000 as soon as possible!

    Cheers!
    Tejas

  10. Oct 2012- 3000
    Dec 2012- 4000
    May 2013- 5000!!

    This is highly erratic for statistical calculation! I guess Aneja’s approach is a better option in these cases.
    Anyways, a good statistical method Anil..

    Cheers!

    Tejas

  11. I wont go too much in details. But looking from the past, I have strong hunch that in another 7 to 10 months we would have more then 10,000 members. If Virality effect comes into picture then I might get wrong and we would have 10,000 before December this year.

  12. Good approach Tejas. Nice way to go about this.

  13. Thank you Aneja..
    Just some basic school level stats…

    It is amazing how our answers matched, especially when the techniques used were completely different. 🙂

  14. Being an entrepreneur from traditional business family I have guessed only by using the simple age old method. There were not any maths in it. I do not even understand maths.

    Mathematical formula only works in the book. There is no math for calculating the human behavior or psychology.

    If mathematics formula could have succeeded than “Lehmon Brother would not collapse”. Even brightest Harvard graduate were calculating economic growth of US in luxury office but ground reality was far from their calculation. 

    A layman can not understand these maths and excel sheet and ultimately entrepreneur has to deal with the common man on the ground level. 

  15. yeah.. well said…
    But if you see..we have adopted the same method.

    I took virality factor as 1.5 to 2…
    and you assumed that the growth will be from 67% to 100%.

    Now if we go by your assumption it will be 20.8*(1-0.67) = 20.8*0.33 = 6.864!!
    exactly between 6 to 7 months as you told!!

    You were very bullish, I was lil less..

    Business and maths go hand in hand as long as the things are kept simple!
    🙂 🙂

    Problem comes when we try to complicate it!

    Cheers!
    Tejas

  16. Someone should try applying the learning curve method in their forecasts.

  17. I gave this challenge to one of my friends in my company and then he came up with this simple and short logic!

    This is what Mr Prashant has to say..

    ***December 2012- 4000
    May 2013 – 5000

    In 5 months we have 1000 people joining.

    Now I am assuming that, growth will be 1000 in 3 months(average)!
    That means 5000 in 15 months!!***

    Let me know your views on this calculation done by my friend!

  18. Hi Raza Sir,

    If we assume X axis to be the time taken and Y axis to be the number of users registering in the Learninig Curve method.

    I think we have still not reached that stage of exponential growth. Also, stagnancy is out of question.
    (Orkut is a best example for stagnant part of the learning curve method, while FB conitnues to have a long learning curve)

    Let me know your views on this. I tried to find a mathematical formulae but again, different results for different eco systems I guess!!

    Cheers!
    Tejas

  19. Hi Aneja,

    I have done a basic modelling – basis what your assumptions, just to make the prediction a forecast and not just a prediction 😉

    So, basis my Forecast, Rodinhoods should: 

    • …have 10k strong count by Month 8 from now

    • …have 20k subscribers (subs) by Month 16 from now

    Okay, so here are a few mods I have done to your approach:

    • Organic Growth – though the rate of growth has been considered same, but this additional count has been assumed to recommend some more people

    • Recommendations – I have assumed that 5% of the new additions by recommendations will also recommend further, but after a 2 months gap. So, if I get recommended in Month1 by an existing user, I will recommend another person (if at all I fall in 5%) but after spending 2 complete months [Fair assumption???]

    • Churn – I work in Telecom company hence the word Churn. How can we forget this? Yes, I have seen that Rodinhoods is an involved community, but this cannot be not taken into consideration. After all, we need an ‘As scientific as possible’ Forecast. I have assumed 1% churn every month.

      Why did I assume 1% – The reason for considering a low churn are:

      • I have seen Rodinhood to be an involved community – so why should people leave or shall I say, a very less number of people should leave

      • Even if I had to take, I could have taken 5% Churn (same as recommendations and organic growth assumptions). But the reason for which I did not take that is that the actual count of subs will decrease only when the inactive subs will get themselves deactivated. I.e. – they will have to manually go and deactivate the account  – by clicking on ‘Leave rodinhoods’ button (I am not disclosing the location of the button 😉 Hehhe). And, my ‘guess’ basis my own behavior on the web is that hardly people go out and do that. They simply leave a website, without reducing that website’s subs count

    Here is what I have not changed:

    • I have assumed recommendations @5%

    • The organic growth too has been also considered @5%

    I have also attached my Excel file that has the calculations.

    Mohit (Proud owner of dhakkanz.com)

  20. Forecasting is always an interesting topic.

    Sorry about using the easiest method available, but here is my contribution to forecasting 10000 users: –
    Optimistic Approach: March 2014
    Pessimistic Approach: September 2014

    I had 4 datapoints from your interactions:

    Nov-10 0
    Oct-12 3000
    Dec-12 4000
    May-13

    5000

    I created a line graph in excel and drew two kinds of trends, logarithmic (more realistic) and exponential (optimistic) for different period of moving data-points.

    The mid-point seems to be a 4 period (Nov to May) trend. I received a trend closing 10000 on July 2014. Which lies between both the earlier numbers achieved through the same method.

    The entire calculation took 3 minutes and writing this down took 5 minutes. The point I am drawing here is it is not important as to when 10000 will be achieved, what is important is how fast can we achieve it.

    Hence the above calculations tell us that 10000 can be achieved by July 2014 irrespective of any external force; but if we can do something about it (we are entrepreneurs after all) then we should achieve this number way before that date.

    Hence forecasting is only to create a base against your work and not an absolute.

  21. Very nice approach! Love it

  22. Thanks man!

  23. aneja… i’m a little awestruck by the kind (and variety) of responses we’re getting!!!

  24. Cutting down all the calculation hereby I declare that trhs will touch the magical figure of 10k in the last week of November 2013 🙂

    For this much accuracy will i get two gifts 🙂

  25. :)))))))))))

    you’re a riot tarun!!!

  26. 100% agreed data. It so great to see estimate supported by data

  27. Asha, when are the results getting declared?

    Mohit

  28. Hi All, I just thought of putting down all the figures recieved till now so that it would be easy for us to see all the predictions at one go… Now for people who have said x to y months, I have just taken the average.

    Here goes the results till now!! (Correct me if I am wrong anywhere Asha)

    Name Months Members
    Aneja 10 10,277
    Tejas 12.13 10,000
    Anil Soni 6.5 10,000
    Prashant Chanchal 5.5 10,000
    Mitesh Muley 8.5 10,000
    Mohit Khurana 8 10,000
    Pawan Deokule 14 10,000
    Tarun 6

    10,000

     

     

    Hoping to get more interesting ways to get this one!!

  29. tejas… you are a rockstar!!!

  30. mohit!!!!!!!!!!!!

    minus marks for you 🙁

    arre bhai, when we reach 10k members then only the results will be declared naa????

    facepalm!

  31. You are Awesome! Thanks for compiling.

  32. 7000  November 2013

    10,000 July 2014

    13000 By   December 2014

    I don’t have any calculation just on instinct 🙂

  33. Thank you Asha.. 🙂 🙂

  34. Thank you Aneja.. 🙂 🙂

  35. :O   🙁

  36. :)))))))

  37. Lets pray we get their sooner than later:)

  38. Good to see some good use of mathematics, analytics and psychology but why dont we work on how to reach that number rather when to reach it.

    There are at least 10,00,000 guys passing out every year from engg. colleges + a similar number in others.

    This is a huge and highly aspirational population who can a learn from the Rodinhoods platform. I am sure they can learn a lot here.

    The other TG i.e. the already working professionals can also learn so hypothetically we can take a rough .1% of more than  15cr of the white collar professionals planning to do something on their own. They again be benefited through experiences and learning shared here.

    Lets give ourselves a target to achieve 10k by October. An easy number to achieve. 

    What you guys say??

  39. Nice point Amit. Setting targets should always be part of your business. But you should also have a Plan in place to achieve that target. The plan must be supported by research, insights, data and analysis. 

  40. The RAID( Research Analysis Insights Data) was already done by the intelligent mathematics champs but  I just thought we should do some action too.

    Lets just start with introducing just 5 of our friends to Rodinhoods, I am sure 10000 is not a big number to achieve then.

  41. Hi Amit.
    I do not know if this is relevant. But what do we want here.
    To get as many members as possible or to get members who would be active. We do not want to be another Orkut.
    Sustainability is the key here.

    You know what, I just did what you told. I showed it to 4 of my team mates in my office.
    And guess what, they found the discussion topics boring whereas I found them exciting.

    We would want 5000 people more, but 5000 interested ones!!

    Sorry if this was a digression! Cheers!

    Tejas

  42. Good point Tejas. Sustainability is a key factor. Consolidate your base first and then expand.

  43. Hi Tejas,

    I agree to your deduction but I thought as intelligent entrepreneurs we know there has to be a TG for any platform/product/service. For RHs, its people who want to do something on their own and as you will notice the numbers I shared was just a fraction of the whole population.

    Not everyone can be an entrepreneur and not everyone should be. I am sure we can find 5 people in next 6 months who we think would get benefited from the platform. This is not a product we can sell or we should sell everywhere, its just a platform to share learnings/experiences.. We can just become mediums of sharing with others who might need that advice. If someone don’t see value here, so be it.

    Sustainability and precision in strategy is important for everything.

    I hope you understand my point.

  44. Aneja: Thanks 🙂

    Amit: So finally from two of your comments and the final one I could make out that we are trying to make the same point. Your approach was to put forward the blog to everyone and ask them to sign up. The intent was great, no doubt, but as Aneja said. The base has to be consolidated.

    Now, in my view, experience has to be the base of this as entrepreneurship is all about learning from the experience. (Probably thats why we love Alok’s posts!)

    What I feel here is, we should be targetting more entrepreneurs. The ones who have started. The ones who have succeeded. The ones who have failed. Everyone. What this would do.
    1) The quality of posts and the discussions would go high.
    2) People would respond to Ask questions. (I see some of the Ask Questions getting no replies)
    3) We would have a “better pool” to learn from.
    4) This may attract real people here. People who would really love to read, write and comment. Share. This would create larger percentage of active members. Even if that enables slow growth, be it. Doesnt matter.

    I do not believe in “bhashan-baji” and I do not have enough contacts to get big shot people here.
    But there are some people we can definitely approach, so that they would join us here and become active member.

    Nishant Parashar and Arati Parashar from Engage4more
    Neha Juneja and Ankit Mathur from Greenway Grameen Infra
    Varun Khurana Sunil Goyal Lomesh Dutta from Wirkle
    Pulkit Kaur from Gridbots
    Sharat Potharaju and Ravi Pratap M from MobileMotion Technologies.
    These are some of the young entrepreneurs who have successfully started and made it big. I am sure their guns are loaded with a lot of experience. We should just approach them and make sure they fire everything they have towards us!!

    I hope Asha reads this comment. But we all should realize it is a collective efforts(and not only Editor’s) which would enable us to reach that magical figure with magical people!!!

    Thanks!

  45. Hi Tejas,

    Thanks for detailing out your thoughts.

    I agree to all the points and we have been actively working in Delhi to create these things through offline meetings too.

    We need to build a sustainable and crowd sourced community where content as well as action is done..

    You can read about the last one we did here

    https://www.therodinhoods.com/forum/topics/how-to-hunt-for-the-right-talent-for-your-start-up-1

    I am sure the difference we are trying to make will help people in the real sense and not just gyaan,

    PS – I would have loved to share more details which I would love to do over phone. Typing with one hand is a bit of a challenge. 🙂

  46. Hi Amit. I read it. It was wonderful effort from you guys!

    Get well soon Sir!!
    It was a nice discussion with you.

    Hope to have many more. Take Care. 🙂

  47. Thanks Tejas. It was good bumping into you and Aneja through this post.

    Do let me know if you plan to come to Delhi anytime. 🙂

    Stay Blessed and keep Rodinhooding!!!

  48. Sure thing Amit! 🙂 Take care….

  49. we’re on 5401 members as we speak….

    thought i’d let you all know!!!

    🙂

  50. Hahahahahahaha!!!!
    Awesome!!!

    Now We are a chock full House of 5000 strong Entrepreneurs and HERE we have a Challenge to simply touch 10,000

    If each Entrepreneur Just gets 1 More Entrepreneur this could happen Tomorrow!!!!
    When an Entrepreneur is challenged that’s when it Utterly Predictable that Something will Happen for Sure, hence Taking in to consideration not all Entrepreneurs login Daily too and we have 5000 Entrepreneurs, It is exponential growth, not the Straight line growth as when reaching the earlier mark we are at now.

    Hence Monsoon, Traffic, Connectivity, Snowden, not withstanding the occasional Lighting strike We should Celebrate the 10,000 RodinHooders By the End of July Latest!!! If all feel the same way that is…
    Then after all it is a Challenge which each needs to take on oneself and prove it too 😀

    Analytic’s, Statistics and Maths would not work in case of Adding serious Entrepreneurs here, only Members who have FELT this Environment and have been here sometime Would be able to pass the same to others which would get Viral in a way, Time would be the last factor here, Cheers to Entrepreneurship!!!

    Thodi aur Pyaas Badhao!!!

  51. That is not bad..Looks like we are on target with projections

  52. hey folks,

    5706 members. so that means we’re averaging 10 new members a day!

  53. 6121… thought i’d update!!

  54. we are 6514 now….!

  55. 6907 on jan 2, 2014….!!! 

    just updating 🙂

    happy new year folks!

  56. So 3000 to go by end of March per the original article estimate… lets see:) Thank you for keeping track Asha. Happy new year to all at Rodinhoods!!!

  57. 7113 members as of today – 3rd feb 2014….

    have we slowed down? we used to average 300-500 a month!

  58. 7500!!!

    slow and steady….

  59. hello, hello!!

    8039 as on july 18, 2014 !!!!

  60. We should reach by OCTOBER 2014

  61. it’s nov 6 and we are 8600 members 🙂

    thought i’d update all ye good folks!!!

  62. dec 19 – 8804 🙂

  63. I think 10,000 by March or April 2015

  64. 9000 – Strong Rodinhooders today 🙂 10 Feb, 2015

    Reaching there!!! 🙂 

  65. hi all, 

    update april 28, 2015 – we’re now 9400!

  66. HEY ALL,

    DAY BEFORE Y’DAY WE HIT 10K! was anyone close to the mark?!

    🙂

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