Just Dial the Story Behind

JustDial is the local directory listing service in India. I have mentioned about it in one of my previous post on customer service. I seem to like it so much, that I call them two to three times a fortnight. It is fascinating to know the the story behind just dial.

My quest for this information landed me on this article on livemint. Also for details on who powers JustDial go check out this post by Ashish on Pluggd.in. Here are a few excerpts from the post on livemint.

The conference room has walls of glass through which he can see busy directory operators, but V.S.S. Mani’s eyes are focused elsewhere, on some far-away point, as he speaks of the visions he used to have. Back before he founded directory service firm Just Dial Private Ltd, Mani would only have to close his eyes and he would see numbers—not bank balances or account numbers, but phone numbers. “I used to just dream numbers, easy numbers, like 2222 or 8888,” he says. Just Dial’s own number is easy too: 39999999 (across the country). Mani says that there should not be a single person who needs to call Just Dial, but cannot remember the number.

Amazing dream isn't it. JustDial is valued at about Rs521 crore with over Rs 110 crore in revenue. Mani has plans of expanding into US. It will be interesting to see how JustDial will compete in the more aggressive and organised US markets. What ever it be, it's a kick ass service and Mani is a visionary beyond his times.