INSPIRING Journey Of Building Unicorn MOJ ft. Sharechat Founder Ankush Sachdeva | FO 48 Raj Shamani

you launched m in 30 hours yeah we got. to know on 29th June 8:30 p.m. they got. the Tik Tok is getting banned you can't. take geopolitics for granted when. governments want to fight they they just. don't use their own arms today they use. their private companies at one point. when bite dance came in they had Tik Tok. but they also had a product call hello. okay I didn't and they cloned shed chat. pixel by pixel launched hello we in fact. went to Delhi High Court filed a lawsuit. Delhi High Court told them youve copied. the app and in fact not just copied you.

have scraped content you were going to. get acquired by Google or something like. that at one point in 2015 or 16 we did. not have the money to pay salaries in. fact I was at one point thinking maybe I. should start preparing resume right now. meta versus school so I will build. something for metaverse that doesn't. work that's the the the worst way you. can think about business ideas have you. ever gotten like phone calls from like. particular political parties and be like. hey you know what we're running this. campaign we want you to build our.

favortism we had crazy. stories if you're competing with for. example let's say Tik Tok or Facebook or. Instagram it's always about which. platform is going to give better content. or more sticky content or this the kind. of content I want to consume like who. understands me better that's the whole. battle right because if I'm opening your. your app versus if I'm opening some. someone else's app I need to feel like.

this company understands me better so on. the on the supply side you have content. creators right there you have to see. across content categories across Indian. languages which is another a very unique. Indian sort of thing how do you build. your differentiated content Supply right. you if you have the same creators that. IG has why will people come to you you. have to have a differentiated set of. creators on the demand side it is it is. basically how well or how relevant is. your feed okay essentially you have to. build the best feed ranking engine to to.

win that game and and it's a you don't. have to differentiate it is a hygiene of. this business okay do you have a. world-class recommended system or not if. not you're not in the game how do you. build that how do you build and and that. is the hardest part and the slowest. moving part and the reason why we don't. have a lot of social infs in India and I. think we have painstakingly over last. four five years invested in that in fact. went outside India hired globally most. of our AI team in the senior team.

actually sit out of London and Bay Area. okay and we had to take that conscious. call and in fact while competing with. ban so at at one point when bite dance. came in they had Tik Tok but they also. had a protocol hello okay I didn't and. they cloned shed chat pixel by pixel. launched hello we in fact went to Delhi. High Court filed a lawsuit Delhi High. Court told them you've copied the app. and in fact not just copied you have. scraped content oh so they scraped every. single content comments and we like this. is not fair man so we we we went to.

Delhi High Court uh I think the court. didn't understand the scraping part for. whatever reason but they said okay UI is. obvious obviously same and they are like. a 3 four year old company come here and. copied an Indian app so byans had to. change their entire UI of that app they. still kept scraping content so I think. that that happened but I think um while. competing with them we realized how. underinvested we are in our AI as a. country not just company but as a.

country there is like this the scale of. recommending content the rexus AI scale. even within AI is a very very small. Niche you don't have people in India who. who have done that none of the large. social network companies of the West. have that team in. India that is entirely based out of like. largely Bara and then some in in Canada. and and London so I think end of 2020 we. figured see we are the best Indian rexus. company yeah but that still doesn't cut. it.

we still competing with the Western guys. right so what do we do we the good part. was we were anyways remote we had. launched mod in 30 hours being remote so. clearly we knew how to work remotely and. let's use this as an opportunity go out. and build the global best aor let's. let's not have these artificial. constraints. inding your remote time zones matter. location any anyway doesn't matter right. so we went out and and started hiring uh. London works really well from a time. zone point of view in Bea you have to.

manage the time zones and or that ways. uh but we just went out and and hired. the best people worked out well for you. worked out well and and this is the. hardest problem of this business that I. think a lot of people don't like when. they when you look at and you use these. apps every day right so maybe we don't. go into the technical depth of how hard. it is and I can tell you if you are not. using the social graph as a company the. problem that you're solving is mult. multiple orders of magnitude harder for.

a simple reason imagine when you open. Twitter M right Twitter gives you a feed. yeah you have maybe followed thousand. accounts those thousand accounts have. maybe tweeted 10 times in the last week. so you have a corpus of 10,000 tweets if. if I'm Twitter I have this 10,000 tweets. that from which I have to pick 10 and. serve to the user yeah when I'm share. chat I have a corpus of 100 million post. because I don't care about your. followers My fundamental uh proposition.

is I will find the best content from my. universe and serve it to you so we we. start our search from a corpus of 100. million content and find the 10 that. that you need technically it is a much. much harder problem because my my. universe is way. larger and I think that is the beauty of. of this of the new age recommended. systems which are not based on social. graph it is technically very hard but AI. is so Advanced we can do a better job. just with AI and beat social graph makes.

sense it just sounds very difficult like. now I'm feeling. like I'll just keep doing it for half an. hour or else wow okay you just said. something which which which I can't wrap. my head around it's like you launched m. in 30 hours yeah what where is that like. when Tik Tok got banned is that you. launch like 30 hour yeah so I I told you. the story right we when B dance came in. they copied sh chat M we had the lawsuit.

we had back and forth legal notices so. as a team we we really we we had we had. to get back at them although we. respected them a lot I think a lot of. what we do in terms of operational. excellence is what we have learned from. them but they copied our product so we. hate them um and we got to know on 29th. June 8:30 p.m. they got that Tik Tok is. getting. banned and we're like we have to get. back at them there is there is no way we. will leave this opportunity in in fact. even if I had tried the team wouldn't.

have stopped M and and the team almost. charged like an army within 20 minutes. we had a slack we moved the growth team. at tread chat to launch a short video. product we set ourselves a target of 48. hours we eventually made it happen in 30. hours with intense like the intensity is. is unimaginable I like even today I I. don't recollect any moment in our. history where where we we had that kind. of intensity so we had the this ritual.

at that point every single day we log. into a common Zoom room where there is a. patriotic song playing in the background. and the DI graph of Mo and Sh play every. single person has to log into that look. at that and then start work o crazy. intensity and I think so so I think with. that within 30 hours we launched it and. the reason we could do it because uh I. think shat itself had a short video. section so we could lift a lot of code. from there and the first version of MJ. had the same Supply as shat H so how did.

they have the same Supply so because. share chat is share chat is multiformat. right it has short videos long videos. text images everything P up and so we. had a very very good uh content Supply. to start off from got it got that's what. that was going to be my question like. because it's us user generated right how. do you onboard like a lot of users to. start generating on something which was. made in 30 hours. because honestly I know more content. creators it takes more than 30 years for. them to just create content forget the. app yeah yeah so so see acquiring users.

easy right like when Tik Tok got banned. people were finding an alternate so you. do marketing you get the users the. harder part was how do you get supply on. day one yeah and and we use share chat. to sort of bootstrap that I tell you a. funny inside okay so I remember last. year I was talking to my manager and I. saidat okay so there was there was there. was Roo Tak all these. plac and my manager is like no I was.

like why he's like no no n we won't. start posting it because we want them to. give us a deal and pay us and I was like. bro. what and for the first so I didn't know. that you get paid to post videos on a. platform till that that point because I. was always posting like Instagram and. YouTube and they were not paying until. now yeah this that was the normal till. the Chinese came in yeah and I think all. all Chinese apps when they came in they. started this entire thing of like we we. never paid and shared CH till 2018 yeah.

because we're like huh because why do. you we will make we will help Revenue. stream we will have brand deals all of. that but you don't pay for content right. but I think uh the Chinese basically. taught India how to be really. competitive aggressive in building. content so you know I and so this was. going on and then yesterday so I was. talking to one of my friends web his his. name he runs a growth School M okay so. he was saying that do you feel that the. market is now drying up do you feel that. influence aners or content creators are.

not going to make enough money because. the ad money is going to dry out right. and I said no it's not going to happen. and the reason is that because as. content creators we are in a business of. making people compete and whenever you. are in a business where you are helping. people compete you make money the only. way you could die is you are not able to. renovate yourself so that like people. stop watching you if people are watching. you no amount of recession dry Winters. nothing's going to stop you because you. in a business of helping them compete.

right because let's say if my content is. really working. out millions of people watch it right so. MJ wants me YouTube wants me Instagram. want me all they all want it because I'm. help helping them compete I'm helping. them keep up with that I started. creating content on Tik Tok on in uh. January in January before the pandemic. okay it I think June July as for they. got banned right and.

so hry June 29 June 29 okay so in. January I started creating content on. Tik Tok and there was somebody from Tik. Tok team they they called us and was. like okay you need to start creating. content and we starting something like. edu talk M they like # edut talk and. we're going to promote you I was like. how are you going to promote me I like. no no no just you use relevant hashtags. you put up like 20 30 videos and we. we'll promote you and then all of a. sudden like from. I think I posted for 30 days I went from.

0 to 150,000 follow 1 L 140,000 follow I. was. like right and then one of my friends. like he explained he used to work at Tik. Tok like after Tik Tok got banned he got. out of course yeah so he said there's a. thing called heat button H so so there. are a certain category of people or. certain C like certain way of content or. specific uh spefic.

specific area or maybe gender or maybe. ratio of like whatever right so if they. decide that as a platform like let's. promote them and try to understand. whether this kind of category can we. attract them or no so at that time they. wanted to try it with education because. they were getting uh very like trolled. for cringe content or whatever content. right so they wanted to try for Ed talk. and that's why the heat button was on so. whoever would make like Ed talker. content would go viral so it's like they. press it they deci.

hey so technically that do you think. does that happen see it's it's not at a. Creator level but essentially you you. should of course not at a Creator level. it's just again you should think about. it like a marketplace right so when if. let's say Co happens right platforms. know that uh the demand for healthcare. content is going to rise yeah because of. of the macro right and organically you. will get creators who will start.

creating on that and the alos will. figure out and the consumption will. happen that's the more organic way if. you want to accelerate that what do you. do you actually go and onboard creators. of that category because you you can. predict that going to become a larger. sort of demand for you so I think if you. think about it like how an e-commerce. company would think probably start. making sense and that is how I think. when we when we got platforms from China. M they were really good at that M the. Western platforms never did it they were. in fact they were so early into the game.

they had no competition they virtually. grew without competition and they were. like organically everything happens for. them so I think when you this is. basically if you are very deliberate. methodical strategic in building a. social network that is the direction you. would probably go to makes sense makes. sense when we look at content creators. right we still feel India will generate. millions and millions of more short. video creators we're still not at. nowhere near the peak in fact in 5 years. we will have every single person in. India being a being a daily active user. of one or the other short video app okay.

and the challenge we see is especially. in in like Southern Indian language. Tamil Tel malum Canada we see a massive. dir of creators like if you want to have. a fashion uh if you if you think about. the fashion category in Tamil today in. MJ a lot of the Hindi fashion content is. being repurposed for Tamil audience. because they have no alternative but the. Tamil audience has a very different. sense of fashion right the the kind of. creators they want to look so there is. actually a a dir of let's say fashion.

content in Tamil and how do you sort of. fix that right so we we actually have. teams which which go out and encourage. maybe beauticians in beauty parlor in. Tamil Nadu and other uh create that kind. of and and and we encourage them to. create short video content so so there. is a in general a big dir especially in. ttmk Tamil telu malam Canada uh for a. lot of uh longtail categories in fact a. lot of these things so finnally the. Chinese came in and went their content. is still rotating on the platform you.

get so many of these manufacturing. videos right a l. machine because we like China has a much. larger manufacturing industry so you can. generate those videos. India there's a big vacuum where people. just want to consume this the and these. very oddly satisfying videos right why. would I go and watch a l machine no. reason right but I still like to watch. it so so there's a big Supply gap for. that yeah and you could have like if if. not manufacturing you could have Indian.

Carpenters right their everyday work. where they're just about to finish a. work if they record that 15 seconds that. can go viral ah it'll be very satisfying. to watch yeah no this is a very common. thing right so in fact in in short. videos we always have this thing that if. you want to get a short video which is. which is full watched like full watch is. a very important metric for our alos and. you also want to get likes like a. threshold of likes if it's if it's a vsh. thing that you are saying. doesn't happen people hate that content.

right so the great short video content. is which you make people finish watching. and at the end there is some sort of. climax conclusion which you feel happy. about yep so so I think that is i that's. human behavior I think it happens in. long form video in a movie in a TV show. in a short short form video but you. really want that that conclusion climax. video I felt good now I move to the next. sort of makes sense makes sense because. you run a platform which is largely. dependent on like. masses so you would have have at least.

built some sense of how people think in. India so you have you noticed any. pattern like this is largely how we. think we're different from States or. maybe let's say how northern region is. different from southern region or east. is different from West yeah I think um. so thinking P like how do we think. differently so I think one very. interesting pattern which we've seen uh. both commenting and. our interaction on public so we have.

audio chat rooms where you can go and. chat we see malalis and punjabis are. like 3x more than the national average. okay and they just like to talk and. comment and be more engaging the other. audiences are like like these guys want. to talk uh on on the platform so I think. that is one very interesting thing the. other interesting thing is I think a lot. of like for for us and share chat one of.

the largest categories is uh. breakup uh relationship status all of. that okay it's almost like the entire. country is having a breakup at the same. time it's so large uh a category and. people what what the way they use it is. they had a breakup they saw see this. content this short video status content. they will put that on WhatsApp maybe to. show their X or whatever but that's a. that's a huge category oh that's why. Zakir Khan is famous yeah like I don't. know what is happening maybe it's it's a. very young country gender imbalance.

whatever but we have a lot of breakup. content Demand on CH wow this is new. let's start figuring out breakup. Series so I tell you from a content. creator point of view what I've noticed. that people love to share things which. they feel that they would have. said okay so if they feel there's some. content they feel like oh. that they will share that that is one.

and second they'll share the content. where they feel that that's making them. feel smart like in that Social Circle. like we all share content let's say we. share a business content or a quote or a. funny joke because we all feel that this. is giving us little social. boost so if a content is making a user. feel smart then content has more chances. of getting traveled across domains so. this what have noticed about.

specifically India I don't know about. abroad right so have you noticed certain. pattern like if you want to build a. business in India like what do you have. to do no I think you're bang on that uh. so so so this social status that you. gain by sharing very interesting content. uh is a very real thing in fact this is. how we got our first few creators on. share chat so our first few creators on. share chat were the WhatsApp group. admins okay and they felt really so what. is the uh benefit you get by being a. group admin right that WhatsApp doesn't. pay you it is the social gratification.

that you know you can find great content. and share it on on the group and. therefore being a group admin is a very. prestigious cool thing yeah and most of. our first like first thousands of. creators on sh chat were actually. WhatsApp group admins because they felt. empowered this was a status thing that. they could reshare they're not creating. content they could reshare impactful. content knowledgeable content whatever. they felt is useful for their community. and at the same time gain followers on. shareat so the first few set of creators.

on sh are actually these and a lot of. people I think in India this is probably. very true that a lot of people will do a. lot of hard work for that incremental. status uplift yeah which which is I I. think there's this debate right status. driven versus wealth driven we are very. status driven as a society so even a. small incremental gain in my in my. status in society I will do a lot of. hard work for that y yep and in fact I. feel it's not just India I think it's. worldwide the pattern is very rarely.

you'll find small communities who are. wealth driven but largely nations are. status driven yeah like it's not you. cannot P pinpoint at one nation like hey. this nation is not status driven every. every nation is like you go to America. try to understand them they are hardcore. stat as everybody is so it's just not. India no no I think everyone everyone is. both and you just like have different. degrees people in different because I. think it's it's more than Nation Wise. It's like communities wise or your. personal situation I can tell you like.

people on share chat uh say that we want. a golden ring around a profile to look. different when we. comment there is no reason you don't get. any utility it's just status that when I. comment people should look at it and I. can tell you one more example so when we. have these audio chat rooms okay the. virtual gifting ones I mentioned right. one of the ways we make revenue is when. you enter a chat room there's an entry. animation m. when when I enter there is a horse.

coming in and the entire chat room. sees or X huh and and you have to buy. that it's not free oh you to buy that. for th000 rupees 2,000 Rupees and then. you get this animation when you come in. sweet sweet you've cracked some good. code. bro because I'm just imagining if I want. to enter some audio room I would rather. make sure that hey I've entered bro. nice nice I like this like did is it.

already somewhere or you you were the. first ones to do it no this this comes. organically so people are fighting for. attention even even on your YouTube. lives right like this whole thing of. super super chat and all why do people. do it get attention right clap so I. think if you if you like in the same. Dimension super chats are I think not as. uh I I would say colorful the the way. they come in ours are like. animations that's that's much more. satisfying it's like yo I'm coming nice.

I like it you have Lamborghini. Lamborghini would come in when you enter. animated dude you're cracking this metav. verse nft game way before. anyone like nft is are for status like. right and you guys are kind of doing it. everybody you can like one day be like. hey buy this nft and every time you. enter like the Lamborghini nft would. like Drive in sweet so recently I saw. like we crashed then I saw Uber super. pumped and then I saw Dropout the teros.

one everything like why are all of the. series now becoming like we all are as. if we're celebrating the the destruction. of startups like no I think it is. probably the analogy is why do we watch. crime Patrol crimes are a very tiny. portion of our our daily Liv crimes. let's just say well like the the. negative stuff sells I think that's just. the reality you have to make the good. stuff really exciting for you to sell it.

I think it's probably the the person. producing the content is probably. looking at looking at Roi also I nothing. in this world Works without Roi and they. know this works and and hence they make. it I think just better content you know. what content build communities and. communities Drive culture this is what I. feel right so if there's content which. is a negative sentiment so there's going. to be Community which kind of hate the. startup world will start hating with. like ay SA.

they'll build that community and once. that Community is built the culture will. be very anti startup if you go I think. you probably you've already experienced. that right in your part yeah that's what. I'm saying when when you when you have. stuff which is anti VC funed startup. that that works really well that goes. viral and the other stuff doesn't right. as. much but but why is that like that's. what I'm asking like I I I fail to. understand it it's not so for me as a as. a podcaster right it's really.

interesting to have a couple of. different views because I feel there's. one thing which is going wrong in. celebration and that is Starters are. getting celebrated because they isise. funds and that should that's not right. the way of celebrating this is just my. way of feeling right like you should be. celebrated because the amount of users. you have had the 30r thing you have. built like the the code you have cracked. the the retention you have built the the. amount of daily active users you have. right like they should be celebrated. like how of college kids thought of.

building something in real estate and. then all of a sudden ended up competing. with the like giants of the world and. like chines companies right like this. should be celebrated not that hey series. B like no I think the problem there a. very practical problem not going into. the philosophy of it is the signal is. very very strong when somebody puts. money in a company it is you can read. the details it's publicly filed. everything when we make tremendous gains. in our actual revenues retention that.

there's no there's no Authority which. sort of can validate that okay and. people come with any kind of crap when. they when they publish PR numbers nobody. verifies right yeah so we we lack a. system which can actually verify. business metrics we are all private. companies we don't want to we have no. incentive to disclose uh our numbers. except this funding which which comes in. directly and is filed in the MCA and all. of that happens so what should okay so. if someone comes and tells us hey you. know what we're valued at a billion.

dollar because we have this how do we. verify like what do I. do I have no other option just to look. in someone eyes and like just see how. convincing they are that's. it see see people who are valuing are. valuing on a future potential right and. as I mentioned right so all Indian. unicorns are betting on India's GDP per. capita going up M so you have to assume. that as as truth and then if that. happens why will you so if you're if. you're being valued at 10 billion why.

will you make a billion dollars a year. in. Revenue uh if that happens in the next 5. 10 years and you have to have a. convincing story yeah it has to be a. story right because you're you're you're. putting money for the future uh value. creation yeah yeah that Mak that makes. sense there is no other way right. because I am not generating that money. right now but I. [Laughter]. promise nice but are you bullish on. India story are you bullish on the. growth story of India like how we have. like right now the way we the way we.

things are progressing or I think you. think we overestimating our growth no I. think we have done some phenomenal. things as a country of course right I I. I could not imagine the trajectory for. our company and we are we are so digital. native right we don't have armies of Ops. people deliveries we are as Tech as you. can get and the way we have disrupted. internet like the Geo coming in. unimaginable that probably pulled a. trajectory uh earlier by 5 years yeah.

the way the way UPI worked we could not. imagine the the amount of. microtransactions we're doing like 400. crores of annual microtransactions these. are like 10 rupee yeah things and it's. going to double by your end could not. have imagined had UPI not happened so I. think in a few areas especially the. digital infra we we've done really well. the physical infra probably I think is. is lagging but we're doing really well. on that which is which I did not expect. so I think overall I am optim mytic um.

even the current macro right so when you. talk to folks in us I think there is far. more pessimism today where in this talks. of recession and all of that versus. India like in us the traditional large. value companies are actually showing. earning weaknesses we haven't seen that. in India yet yes so and and we are what. at inflation of 7 8% we were anyways at. 56 right doesn't doesn't make a big. difference in US you have a massive. difference right in in inflation so I.

think we are in in relative sense. probably in a much stronger Place uh. versus some of the developed countries. and I think we are very fortunate as. entrepreneurs to be here and building. during this time so I think I am I am. very optimistic when we talk about India. growth story India growth story why. India makes sense is when you look at. China right everybody said this cheap. labor it's cheap labor Manufacturing. right they all of a sudden from indust.

like let's say they're developing they. went to develop industrial I don't know. industrialization or industrializing to. industrialized like all of a sudden like. China's potential is like saturated all. of a sudden because there's so much. competition their labor cost has went up. so now all like they don't have any. other option but to give it to India or. maybe Bangladesh or maybe Vietnam right. also like I think diversifying your. supply chain is the thing these days so. but do you think like as a business.

owner diversification makes sense or. whoever is going to give you cheap is. makes sense no cheap Supply makes sense. Diversified see in in a in an Ideal. World which we were sort of we were. assuming the world is uh going to be. different there's going to be no. conflict in the future we now going to. be in Utopia you would always make a. simple decision right cheaper I'll take. it yeah but we are not in that world and. we have I think last few years have. proven that M like you can't take. geopolitics for granted yeah yeah not at. all and and and when governments want to.

fight they they just don't use their own. arms today they use their private. companies to fight the war the proxy war. so I think you cannot imagine that uh. that things will remain cordial with all. countries forever and you as a private. company have to diversify yeah so I. think it's it's not it's not uh that the. private companies will do it uh out of I. don't know. patriotism or whatever they will do it.

with the very practical thing that I. want to diversify I cannot be held. hostage yeah I need to have my options. and keep delivering to my customers so I. think it's it's still a very very uh. profit driven uh sustainability driven. sort of mindset and you will have to. diversify your supply CH 100% when you. are talking about building like having. India's GDP right like we all are. vouching on that India's GDP will grow. and that's what that's where every. startup will make money every startup. talking grow story do you think that. will happen if we keep selling to.

Indians like let's say we all say that. India doesn't have money right now okay. so we need to in increase our earning. capacity and spending capacity don't you. think that will only happen when we. export things no so exports is is one. for sure because until unless we get. like foreign Revenue in how will we get. the spending power because let's say the. Indians have we nation of more than 140. CR I don't know 125 CR 140 CR 140 140. cross right more than 140 cross and we.

said the far majority like like 90% of. the the population isn't very fortunate. to spend and has like a large disposable. income so when 90% of the people don't. have large disposable income how do they. get that large disposable income when. they're making a lot who do they make. from they cannot make by selling it to. each other they have to sell it to. someone else who has the money right. like if you don't have money and I don't. have money doesn't matter what do I make. and what do you make we can't keep.

selling to each other because we don't. have enough money to sustain can we like. isn't it like we need to make products. here which we will be selling it to the. world and then the world buys it from us. at a 2X or a 3X price and that money we. get in and then we spend it and that's. how everybody makes more money is it. that way because that's what happened. with China right that's what happened. with Bangladesh because they started. exporting their services their products. their uh infrastructure yeah outside. world so I think that's one very.

important part because like the global. GDP the external demand is far far. higher than the domestic demand today. right in absolute number so if you are. World leading in one sector and you are. people are willing to buy your products. that's a very very quick way and get to. get access to that larger market so. rising in exports is one definitely one. area where we have lacked I think we've. exported a Services well we've never. exported our Goods well so I think and. that's changing right we are seeing. early sign where both from our internal.

efforts that we are actually looking. what does how does it how do we make it. easier with all these incentive schemes. pis all of that and the world is. realizing that they want to diversify at. the same time right so it's sort of. coming at the right time uh so what do. you think is the bigger opportunity. right now building in India for the. world or building in India for India I. think it depends again we are we are in. India building for India we do have. certain Revenue coming from the Middle. East with the Indian diaspora there so.

uh that aside but we're largely building. for India right and in fact within that. we see a very large opportunity okay and. and the way we think about it is see if. you can build a large in our case a. large multi hundred million da social. media product competing with the likes. of Facebook YouTube then you've built a. world-class platform both feed ranking. creation Tech all of that and that puts. you in a very very good stage to enter. the next Paradigm Shift which happens.

we've always lagged right we when. smartphones happened we were nowhere we. had no tech one the people who were. already large on desktop had all the. tech muscle to sort of start and capture. that new market right we were never. there we were always playing the catchup. game once we have large scaled out. companies in India maybe they're serving. the Indian audience to begin with. because that's that's a Home Advantage. we know like I'm talking about tamill. beauticians I don't I don't think zob is. thinking about it so you have certain. advantages being the home player once. you have built a very competitive. product the next Paradigm Shift the next.

opportunity that comes out globally then. you go and attack that so I think at. least for us we think that way is that. India itself is a massive opportunity uh. we are in fact just on that path where. digital ad revenues are crossing uh like. I think it crossed print 3 years ago. while other China us are already sort of. far far ahead right so we are in that. curve where we're still growing yeah as. a country and once you once you capture. that opportunity build the last te next. Paradigm Shift aim bigger Go Global find.

the global Giants in their in their home. so first is first is and that is what. China did right like imagine in in. social media consumer China is far far. ahead than us yeah they build this. massive company called bite Dan now. they're entering us and hammering the US. companies yeah oh they're killing it. they're killing it right so you need. that large domestic consumption story. domestic Revenue story build World Class. Tech and then you go out got it so it's. like it's a simple story that hey first. you become champion at in your home and.

then you go be and it it work. differently for different people right. like there's a lot of this SAS uh thing. that is happening where you build in. India but for the world and like from. year one you are actually having global. clients so I think for different. companies The Playbook would be. different but I I I still won't say that. the only way to build a great company in. India is to have Global clientele right. you can have build for India in fact we. build for tier 2 tier 3 India which is. arguably even less spending you you feel. like the even though the wallet sizes.

are small in India there still can be a. bigger company made just in India. because of the play of volumes Shear. volume yeah there was a rumor right that. you were going to get acquired by Google. or something like that what was it we. we've had multiple rumors we you were. you ever going to I won't take names but. I can tell you we've had three. acquisition offers one of them was north. of a billion. dollars and and we are still here so the. billion dollar you didn't sell it why.

you didn't feel. like yeah I think that that lure is is. very strong when you see like 100. million plus outcome very liquid in. front of your eyes it is very lucrative. yeah and can uh I think change your uh. your your current mind mind space all of. that but I think it eventually comes. down to what you really want to do and I.

thought if even if I get that at 28 what. will I do I'll probably go on a world. tour for like one year stay in the best. hotels never come back home I anyways. unmarried right I don't have to I don't. have any. responsibilities but then what I will. again go back and try to build something. yeah because I just can't stay relaxed. the rest of my life right like and and. will I get what are the chances that I. will have the same platform again which. is a very powerful platform right that. you've. built there are chances but again there.

are this is these are rare occurrences. yeah in in world we only have 100. unicorns in India right so then it. didn't make sense right like even if I. get the money what will I do I'll go. back and do it so why why am I not doing. it now so I think you sort of go through. that entire cycle where you're really. excited you want to do it you can see. the money in front of your eyes and then. you think deeper and then you're like. maybe it doesn't make sense especially. given my context that I'm still very.

young what would I do so yeah I think. back to square one. building but like this is a very. important message for everyone who's. watching like who's young right now. because we all feel like hey you know. let's make billion dollars today let's. do this like let's get an exit. like like let's move on forget billion. dollars let me get like 5 10 millionar. I'm happy more than happy with living my. life right like lot of I think lot of.

people think like that and very few. people think the way you are thinking. that hey let me build the process let me. do something and I I'll be honest this. is not the default that comes to your. mind yeah the default is money is great. why not yeah and it takes a week. probably to get over the hangover so. yeah I was going to ask you this so so a. a a quick tip for anyone who's building. a company got an m&a. offer take two weeks at least take two. weeks off. don't talk to people who could motivate.

you either side talk to yourself what. gives you happiness and two weeks later. if you are on the same answer as on day. one probably you should do that but in. my case and and I think me and my. co-founders I think within two weeks the. whole excitement we figured is a. shortterm that's not what we really want. to do in life and and I think nice so do. you think like if we start getting like. early exits in. in India the real growth story will.

happen because then we'll put out like. lot of capital early at startups no I I. I 100% agree if you I think you have to. put capital in the hand of Builders M. and I can tell you when Flipkart uh m&a. happened although it was I think there. are probably not the best outcome for. the founders at that point but whatever. like it was a large outcome I think that. changed the trajectory for the country. yeah it gave so much confidence and the. and and the money to the right people. how many people came out of that and.

started their own companies or joined. startups right so that that becomes a. very very interesting cycle once that. happens and I think this is this is a. very powerful force right if you give. Capital to people who want to build who. just don't want to like spend it and. have a luxurious life and and just that. like you can have a luxurious life but. you you still want to build something I. think if you give money to people who. just want to like chill out what do you. do that money doesn't come you don't. have Risk Takers you don't fund Risk.

Takers instead if you give money to. builders who also wants to take that. risk even invest in other Risk Takers. that is how you sort of build the. economy right so I think that cycle is. phenomenal it's already happening we're. having few large outcomes and I think. last year we had a lot of eso BuyBacks. for example secondaries happening that's. all great yeah money going to the right. people who want to build change things. they will they will not look at a. problem and say. they will say I will solve it yeah you. want people who will see a problem and.

say I will solve it who was your first. backer like how did you this was India. question okay uh they put the first. check of 50 lakh rupees and what do you. think why did they put it like what. convinced them do you do you remember. any anecdote from that yeah we wored so. we were actually building a product. called gossip gossip gosip which was. anonymous group chat okay and we took. that product to India question we met. Anand mukar uh were the two uh partners. of that fund and we pitched them and we.

I was in my third year uh back then and. they said it will not work uh for. whatever reason they like Anonymous but. you guys are great if you want you can. work out of our office and let's see. what how how things go and I was in my. third or fourth year and I used to. actually travel from canor to Mumbai why. a train because flights were. expensive uh and like almost all of my. fourth year I was in Mumbai and we used. to be there and keep Building Products.

okay and the one thing they liked about. us in like we have teams in an incubator. who take six months still don't deliver. a product yeah they brainstorm with us. an idea and they build in 20 days yeah. and we literally used to work all night. get an app ready in 20 days like. ready and I think that is what convinced. them even before we landed sharat they. got convinced and and invested 50 lakh. rupees I was in my fourth year or eighth. semester last semester when we got the. funding still hadn't graduated I think.

your ability your ability to build fast. is is a very strong mode in your initial. days because a lot of people claimed all. things don't actually build yeah and we. were in their incubator day and night. coding in front of them getting shipping. product in like record time and then. what happened next so we had raised this. money um but nothing was working out. right in fact we had we had got a intent. term sheet not actual money and I was in. my uh fourth year right before.

placements and nothing is working out we. were building this product called after. gossip we built opino okay which was a. debating platform basically you can have. like Sachin versus vat there's a debate. going on you comment and basis. engagement we will tell who won okay I. don't know why we were building but we. were building that and I was in my that. time I was in my uh hostel room and I. was trying to spam the link link of the. debating app onto different Facebook.

groups and one and I was there was one. Facebook group which was sachin's fan. club half million members public. Facebook group within that within that. group there was a post which which had a. suchin photo and a WhatsApp logo and. below that people were sharing their. phone numbers okay the admin was. basically saying that if you want to be. added to a such in WhatsApp group put. your phone number and there were 50,000. people who commented their real phone. number in a public forum. and this is also in the backdrop. internet.org is happening and freeas is.

happening like the elites of the country. are shouting for privacy privacy. neutrality and I'm like this is really. strange why would people do that and I. sort of scraped thousand phone numbers. put that in my WhatsApp and made 10. WhatsApp groups such in photo such in. memes such in wallpaper all of that. because I thought like if they're. putting phone numbers to be in a. WhatsApp group they don't know who that. me May I'm ad they'll assume so I make. that WhatsApp group go down it is lunch.

time I go to canteen uh 1 hour later I. come back I open my hostel room door and. my phone is on that table constantly. beeping with. notifications I pick up the phone every. single group that I had formed an hour. ago has hundreds of 100 messages I open. the groups and people are sharing. content around. such would. say and and somebody would reply with a. video and these are Imagine 100.

strangers picked off the internet put in. a WhatsApp group they're not complaining. they're sharing content they're really. happy. content and this this thing is what. triggered and this is one day before I. I'm supposed to sit for placements oh. and I'm like we failed 14 times nothing. has worked so far should I like should. we take this jump uh uh and should I. leave my. placements and I don't know what.

happened maybe it was being so young and. naive I just said. plac I'll get a job if this fails right. but promising even that it's my. 15th and we like all three of us had. tried 14 different times this is our. 15th but something in in your heart sort. of says that go like take a leap and. with that thing I take a train again to. Mumbai. uh far Manu they were they were one year. senior to me in college so they had.

already graduated they were doing their. struggle in Mumbai that. office and I go there I'm like guys. interesting this is very interesting and. actually show them a demo that I will. make a what Facebook group uh Facebook. post and see how many people comment. phone numbers this was a common thing if. you put a WhatsApp logo people will. start putting their phone numbers and. they were like phone number comment and. and I think that is what got got us. excited and we started uh so we built a.

chat bot okay and the way it would work. is key you go let's say it's a saaba. wallpaper chat bot right you will go. there you will say hi uh the bot will. say hi do you want saaba wallpaper. content you will say yes and in all. languages huh Tamil all of that and you. will get a wallpaper then you will. say then the B will give you more and. that is how you will get wallpapers wow. and we also had smart chatbots because. we were engineers and we wanted to like.

simple so we built really smart chatbots. which will predict basis your. requirements which is the best. smartphone that you should buy like some. smart smart chat Bots which could. actually talk to you nobody wanted to. use that okay everyone just wanted. wallpaper ringtone joke shye that is. what people wanted and we. like and it is such a pathetic way of. giving content. the content will come the user will say. or the content will come it's that is.

not how the content experience should be. right and then we pivoted to this. current model that we will have a simple. feed so this idea that a feed like. construct is the best way the infinite. scrollable feed is the best way to serve. content was an organic discovery that we. had eventually God and when we did that. we launched that in October 2015 the. moment we launched that our sharing. shares per Dow went up 5x our 7eventh. day retention went up double wow and it. just kept growing after that we could.

not stop the growth wow and that is when. we got the next round of funding nice. nice nice so how many rounds have you. raised till now five six I've lost the. count we is the C. Edge I don't know F the question that. first like why you have always thought. of building social platform. only not really so as I said right like. you know think about it like everything. is like consumer internet type like. gossip was same the opino was this see. college.

kids I can in fact tell you the first. pmf we actually got was in our we we. built the most popular dating app of our. College. okay so this was this happened on like. few days before Valentine's. Day they're not they're very shy. introverted they not speaking out and. and proposing and all can we build a app.

which can anonymously match I I don't. think Tinder had happened this is 2012. mhm uh and we build this app called. Puppy Love which is still live in fact. okay so every single Valentine's Day in. ID khur they they make it live wow where. you anonymously uh put your crush list. we anonymously match if there is a match. we give you a CCD coupon you can go and. have coffee in the campus CD oh that's a. sexy plan that's a good plan so when. when we build that uh first. in fact a very important learning that. we got from that before building that I.

actually gone and talked to maybe like. 10 different women in campus girls in. campus every single one of them said use. we don't need this product why Why will. why will anybody put the list uh you can. just come in and approach and and have a. chat right and I'm like if you if you. can't get girls to use the app then the. dating app fails right guys anyway will. use so I still thought M we built the. app 70% of the campus signed up and.

actually filled the CR list wow so the. consumer feedback was actually entirely. wrong opposite of what people actually. did interesting and and on that day I. normally wasn't every regular lecture. attending student on that particular day. I made sure I went to a lecture it was. the largest lecture hall in iding. L7 and I was in the the the last seat. and I actually heard the person in front. of me. talking and that satisfaction that you.

get right when you've built a product. and people are talking about it and they. don't even know I'm sitting behind and. who I am but like there was a buzz in. the in the. lecture and I think that was the. satisfaction which I think I still. get and somehow there is this connect. that if you if your platform is reaching. millions of people that sort of give. satisfaction that is why probably the. the this obsession with b2c company you. can't get more more skilled than social. anywhere and it's like you get direct.

satisfaction from your direct customers. like it's not you have to deal with an. Enterprise you have to deal with like. direct. people this was your obsession for. social happen you wanted to build all of. this you made share chat you raised. about a billion dollar right what is the. most important thing which youve learned. like whoever is building right now what. should they. know like I think like in your journey. like what have you learned learned a. bunch of things but I think one thing.

that I would probably point out is there. were so many moments during the last s. years where I thought it's the end of. the story at one point in 2015 or 16 we. did not have the money to pay. salaries and we got funding or the. capital wired just in time to pay. salaries in the first week of a month so. there there have been so many near-death. moments and I don't know what how we.

thought what we did but we we persevered. and went through I think that is. probably one thing that I would say. there are like if you even large really. large. startups go through multiple moments. where they feel it is end of the story. done in fact I was at one point thinking. maybe I should start preparing. resume this is not going anywhere it is. going to end what will I do M so I think. every startup even if you are large uh.

you've raised a lot of capital you're. doing well at at some point in their. Journey they would have faced this. moment and it's about just like being. there uh fighting it out and you'll do. well eventually talking about being. there right it's when you're when you're. beginning you built a let a good pmf you. are three four people building stuff in. the start how do you hire the first 10. people like what did you what do you do. you just hire a bunch of your friends. because obviously you're very well.

equipped with the friends because you. went to the it or what what is the scene. that's the most difficult part right. like you I'm sure hiring is still pain. in the ass even today yes yes very true. uh hiring no matter which scale you are. if you're a fast growing startup it is. always the most important thing that you. can do as Founders yeah uh and. especially if you're a young young. founder right like we were right out of. college we don't have any workplace. connections exactly the only thing I've. done in a corporate is actually an. internship at Microsoft in 30 I've never.

done any other actual job so you don't. even know I don't have any workplace. Network right I can't just go and and. get people so it is really hard and your. network helps I think thankfully we were. uh from IDK so the first three Engineers. we had were all from it it our. batchmates and they were doing really. well they were in Google Adobe sort of. companies and they they willingly took a. bet that because of uh friendship or. whatever they jumped in right that is. that is probably the the the uh most.

difficult hire you would make your first. few hires because AB we have a lot of. things going our way right you have. Capital you have a large story people. people who are attracted with scale you. won't get better scale so there bunch of. things you can sell on day one what do. you sell exactly that's. now you're telling me you will build a. massive company and I should work for.

you so so I think those are very. difficult hires and I think having uh. College networks friendships help if. you're a young entrepreneur but you have. to get those first few hires right both. from a skill point of view and a culture. point of view M because it is risk right. they they're taking a very high risk. along with you and it takes a very. special mindset to that and another. question like you know on the back of. this let's say you hire a bunch of. college students because you don't know. what's a good hire and a bad hire. because you have a you have never worked.

and B you you don't know until you hire. you don't know what's a bad hire right. like you only have an idea. of I'm sure in the start you make those. mistakes because nobody can even guide. you even if they tell you like give you. good list of 1 2 3 4 C you still up. right I'm sure you must have had stories. of bad hires as well so you hire let's. say you first 10 people you got your 10. people right now you have never worked. so you don't understand management you.

don't understand systems you don't. understand job. description kpis you don't understand. anything how do you learn all of this. how do you build all of this or what do. you do see first few hirs for us were. from our college right so we we knew. what what kind of people were coming in. we had worked not in like this capacity. but College projects in general we've. worked together so I think you have good. confidence there but I think even in the. first 10 high right some of the things. you mentioned like kpis and all that is.

not even needed I would say when you. have 10 people you should be knowing. exactly what everyone is doing it'll be. very very in tune with how they are. working and if it's not working let's. say you made a bad hire the kpi will not. flag that off because you're going to. office every single day and working with. them you will know if they're really. like up for the job and you have to be I. would say very pragmatic and take quick. calls because bad hires can kill. startups it's not just a think they will.

actually drag the entire team down talk. about your mistakes okay so tell me one. mistake you feel people should not make. when they're raising funds then one. mistake which you have made as a higher. like what was a bad higher and then one. mistake which you would you would not. repeat as a as a Founder yeah I think. when we were early on right when we. didn't have and and we we didn't have. exposure to any of this we got a lot of. people who who were who wanted to come. in but for very different reasons they.

did not know what the startup was what. we will do they just wanted to put money. for random reasons and some of those. guys ended up being really painful for. other companies that we sort of thought. so I think you really need to know why. somebody's coming in okay and in our. case we are building a social network so. don't expect revenue for First 5 years. if somebody comes and says. Revenue in the first year when we like. still struggling to find a pmf you know. it's a wrong person for our kind of a. business so I think you will I think it.

is very important to understand what is. that long-term investment long-term. incentive for that uh shareholder. investor coming in will they play the. game with you and and in social media. there there was we are the first social. media right so there is nobody has made. money in that yeah uh before so and and. we want to do things in a certain way M. will they align with us long term or not. so I think thankfully we got great in as. I mentioned that when I went to sandill. Road they were zero takers MH and.

probably for the good because they would. have like backed down in the first uh. hardship but we got really good people. who believed that there should be an. Indian social media company and and sort. of kept uh backing us got it okay next. was bad higher what was one mistake you. made as I would say don't hire domain. experts hm don't hire domain experts. okay we've had this we've burned our. hands so many times High a journalist no. no you get not so let me let me rephrase.

like we are in an industry uh which has. a lot of traditional counterparts right. okay yeah and you get somebody from. print print media mhm and then make them. in charge for a function in social media. don't do that I think we We Are We Now. learned it is far far better to index on. first principal. thinkers and and let them do the job. versus hiring only for let's say that. particular experience that has never.

worked for us got it I think at some. points you have to do at at Mid levels. and all of that but if something is. really critical for you hasn't happened. in the past uh in the country you need a. very strong first principal thinker and. and somebody who can think big think. udicious very good at execution that. Persona is far far better than somebody. who's worked in the same similar domain. in let's say five years the last thing. as a Founder what what have you made. like a mistake so we we failed 14 times. right in in College building different. things I think we were chasing the wrong.

thing we were probably chasing Trends. you you might call them so so I think. the truth of a business problem you will. always hear from customers their. problems that's the real sort of thing. everything that that you hear right like. right now meta versus cool so I will. build something for metaverse that. doesn't work that's the the the worst. way you can think about business. business ideas you should think what is. the customer problem hence what is the.

solution if the solution comes out to be. a some form of metaverse great it's also. a good like a real problem and the. trendy thing so you'll probably raise. Capital but just by picking a trend and. then sort of saying now let me find a. problem I think we've done this mistake. of taking a solution then finding the. problem because we are Engineers some. great Tech comes in we are very excited. and then we start finding problems it's. the wrong way it you can be lucky and. probably succeed but I think we share. chat was the first thing where we. figured a very interesting consumer.

phenomena and then came to a solution. that it is probably not a chat room chat. it's a feed and then we came to a. solution oh ml feed so I think it was. you could be very sort of excited AI is. the cool thing content Fe let's build. that you could have been lucky and still. build shed chat but that was not our. journey got it so this is a question. which we' have recently started asking. people is how do you make money how. would you make like what's the business. model Revenue model for your startup out.

[Laughter]. ofab. next yeah I think we have a simple. business model U we have a lot of people. who come on the app daily spend uh a lot. of time and we serve them ads that's one. model so we help Brands reach out to. users they can in fact leverage our. influencers to narrate their story to. their fans so adds is one large part how. we make money let's say an fmcg brand is. launching a new I don't know biscuit we.

give them a trending hashtag with a. special lens that uh they only can get. because we are building that lens and. we'll give them let's say a uh click. like CTA button because only the. platform can give them so we will make. that that campaign way larger and it's. an ad but the creatives are sort of. sourced from influencers in a way you. can think about it that way okay so as a. platform also you kind of facilitate the. influencer marketing apart from like the.

content and promoted hashtags Trends or. all got it got it and then the ad space. Also you sell yes are the only two these. are the only two models right now no no. so that's this is largely ads as one. bucket then we have microtransactions. okay these gifting uh virtual gifting. things where if you are an influencer. you can go live uh either on audio or on. video and your fans can gift you uh like. a 10 rupee chocolate 10 rupee CH uh ring. it can go like from rupes to 10,000. rupes but they can give you like a. virtual gift if you're let's say playing.

a guitar and your fans like it they will. give you something as a gift virtual. gift so that's the other way other uh. Revenue stream which is actually growing. way way faster than we imagined India. would sort of jump on this. microtransaction. bandwagon and I think that's that's. right now at 50 odd million doubling by. the year end and we see a huge potential. how many how many daily active users you. have on platform so in monthly actives. we are 400 plus in daily actives we'll.

be 100 plus million how many people. India does have access to Internet 600. million 700 million so out of 600. million people 400 million people are no. there'll be so 400 is a submission of. share chat MJ and takatak okay so. there'll be some duplicate maybe 250 to. 300. unique but like 50% of India is kind of. using a product do you understand the. scale of it like do you understand like. how much power and like how much. responsibility you have like it's.

massive okay what do you feel like your. your revenues are going to. be so five years out our projection is a. billion dollars per year how do you feel. right now do you regret that. eaon no I think it is as I said what. what are you trying to optimize for I. think this is a very fun exciting and. I'm I'm privileged to be uh having this. platform right this is this is far more. rare than $100 million if you just look.

at objectively your power to. influence such a large platform is far. rarer in this world than $100 million. yeah objectively this is more lucrative. of course of course so coming coming to. this point right I was watching this. series called social dilemma okay that. say like how platforms are reason to. shape the way people think M so do you. think that is happening do you feel like. do you guys have that power or you feel. like the the ML and AI is control or.

built in such a way that they. automatically have the power and user. have power of how they think because the. more they consume the more they shown. that thing it's not you who. decide like what's the game like I want. to understand it better from someone who. who knows the game see our our. incentives we we are a private for. profit company right let's start from. that what are we really trying to build. we are trying to build a profitable. company how do we make profit if people. spend more time on the platform or they.

build stronger connections hence they do. more gifting and the third part is. Commerce which will scale up as we go. forward but again that also depends that. as an influencer can you convince your. fans to buy something so there are two. Dimensions that you need to keep getting. stronger on to drive more revenues hence. profitability one is total time spend. the other is stronger connections. between people and our alos essentially. try to maximize those we have no. incentive or or interest in making one. individual or set of individuals consume. a particular content we are simply a.

for-profit company trying to increase. these can we how do we entertain people. more so that they watch more videos it's. a very simple sort of objective or how. do we help uh consumers get more content. from their influencers who they've. already sort of followed and and shown. intent toward so that they build. stronger connection they can comment. better they can get replies so they can. build a stronger connection when when. they go live they can probably interact. gift all of that so so I think we are in.

that very simple business it is not. about so do do you feel that because. someone example if if I'm shown some. let's say a hatred video randomly it. just comes on my post okay and I don't. realize it I finish it but just because. I've seen it I get more of it and then. my hatred towards that particular. subject or particular category or topic. or person increases a lot like a lot. because I get to see more videos on this.

so then my thinking is instead of. becoming like someone who accepts. different opinions is getting polarized. like I'm thinking in one One Direction. now see see one is we do have thresholds. right like we don't allow certain kind. of content which is like hate speeches. uh pornographic content things of that. nature there is a there's a boundary you. cannot cross that boundary because we. feel that's bad for our community yeah. so apart from that if you have opinions.

I think we don't do not want to control. opinions on any side of any debate if. you are uh watching content interested. in one side of debate you will you will. get that you will also get the other. side the if you are only consuming one. side of the thing it doesn't mean you. only get that we also have models which. try to explore other kind of content. that you would want to consume right so. I think we are in like from a objective. of that algo point of view we're not. trying to sort of nudge you in one.

direction we're only trying to uh sort. of make sure that there are a few. categories that you like hence let's. give you more of that but at the same. time let's show you what else do we have. on the platform and maybe you build. definitely for that and as a user if you. always disregard the other side then. probably you do not want that H have you. ever gotten like phone calls from like. particular political parties and be like. hey you know what we're running this. campaign we want you to build our favor. we had crazy stories this is back in. 2016 there was one post which went viral.

it was in. Gujarati uh about one Casto Community. which went viral uh in Gujarat and we. started getting uh threat calls that we. know that your office is in Bangalore. and as a. company because because they thought and. this is like 2016 right very early they. thought we were a magazine. we were like a publishing house and we. have to.

explain so because people didn't know. right this is back in 2016 people. thought. Facebook magaz digital publishing house. so we've had and in fact after that and. even now if you come to a Bangalore. office we we have no sign boards okay. because we attract so much attention. from people we have no sign boards. nobody knows where nobody knows where we. are and a lot of people when they come.

to our office they keep. saying I'm like this it's for a purpose. but so we have we have kept a very low. profile that it's it's good it works in. your favorite I heard lot of. startups I don't. think nobody knows Uber's office H I. think WhatsApp did that WhatsApp did. that as well where do you feel is the. next billion dollar industry where do. you feel in India if the entrepreneurs. are looking at this where should they. start focusing on where should they.

build it where do you feel like next big. thing what is the next big thing so so I. think one area that I feel very strongly. again it might not appeal to a lot of. tech tech. entrepreneurs but I think devotion. spirituality astrology is huge in India. okay and nobody's solving. that so I'll tell you the the offline. Astro consultation Market in India is is. almost equal to our ads Market in.

India and there is no good product. solving for that again it's not a sexy. business very India specific who okay. but nobody's building for that that's a. that's an opportunity at least I see uh. I have invested in sexy business or not. sexy business if it's solving a problem. it's a massive problem we should build. on it I in fact have done Angel. investments in in in those companies but. that that is one I I see which is could. be a billion dollar outcome if if done.

well astrology Market spirituality asy. like helping people with their helping. with their like on on sharat I can tell. you we have a lot of uh jshi who do live. stream and give consultations. interesting and the big Market in India. the biggest spammers on Shar chat are. jesis and that is that is one one signal. right when people who spam the most. probably have a really working business. model yeah yeah yeah yeah that's an.

interesting way of seeing things right. if they spam a lot so most of the spam. which you get is like hey Forex Trading. secrets and astrology problem number. phone you go to a local bus see. pamphlets lot of them will be around. spirituality and. astrology if there are if so so much. money is going into print marketing buy. industry something is working right. they're able to afford that. marketing interesting and do you have.

any any plans of how do you solve it or. how do you pick that up or no it's just. an industry you feel it's going to be. something yeah I think it there is no. easy solution I think a lot of people. have tried failed uh I think it needs a. very product focused company to sort of. rethink how it should happen right on we. are seeing glimpses on on on share chat. on live stream how that is happening. like astrology consultations are being. reimagined of how they should happen on. on a live but do you think the new.

generation also into this yeah yeah the. same jenta which shares breakup status. is also asking love. queries I love queries get solved by. these Babas and astrologist and maybe. they're good ones maybe they're bad ones. but it's just yeah very interesting so. the. I tell you the conclusion of the podcast. is that surprisingly India has one of.

the biggest breakup markets and the same. people who are thinking about breakups. have love queries who are going to. astrologist so if you feel that you can. build and solve this problem then you. should go for it because that might. become a billion dollar industry this is. a very good Insight this is the fresh. like the most fresh answer we have ever. gotten so thank you Kudos on that like. genuinely I never thought of. it.

biology you are yours was like very very. specific nice and insightful thank you. that's that's what happens when you get. like people from different different. fields. right thanks a lot for doing this man I. hope you enjoyed yeah it was great.

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