Empowering Small Towns in India: Building Lokal - A Content, Community, and Classifieds Platform
Lokal: Empowering small towns in India with a content, community, and classifieds platform. Learn from the founders' journey of resilience, user research insights, and building a successful team.
Discover the inspiring journey of Jani Pasha and Vipul Chaudhary on on India Quotient Podcast, co-founders of Lokal, as they built a groundbreaking content, community, and classifieds platform for small towns in India. After realizing the importance of user feedback, they revamped their approach by conducting extensive user studies to identify genuine needs. Today, Lokal has become the go-to hub for millions across 225 districts in India. This captivating story highlights valuable lessons from failure and resilience, the transformative power of user research, insights into running a successful platform, key metrics that drive Lokal’s growth, and the significance of building a team dedicated to understanding users’ needs.
About India Quotient
India Quotient is an investment firm that funds companies building disruptive businesses aimed at Indian consumers2. They are a new type of early-stage investor that seeks to invest in companies operating in fintech, edtech, health tech, consumer brands, consumer internet, social networks, hardware, logistics, and more5. The firm is based in Bangalore, Karnataka, and is looking for founders with EQ, IQ, and IndiaQ.
TLDR:
The key idea of the video is that a content, community, and classifieds platform called Local has successfully catered to the needs of small towns in India by providing relevant local content and generating revenue through popular user preferences.
Key Insights
Community Engagement and Content Consumption
💬 The platform functions as a content, community, and classifieds platform, blurring the line between social media and news company.
💬 Hyper-localized community platforms provide more than just news, but also relevant and popular content for the community, going beyond headline news.
🤔 The small towns in India have a strong sense of community and value local content, which presents an opportunity for a content platform tailored to their needs.
🌍 The platform discovered a network of stringers across the country who provide news content for free to newspapers and publications, leveraging their credibility and social standing in their respective locations.
🗺️ Local aims to have a presence in hundreds of communities across India, potentially revolutionizing the way information is shared and accessed in small towns.
⚡️ The efficiency and effectiveness of local platforms in connecting people and providing opportunities compared to larger platforms.
📈 The platform’s metrics, including retention rates, surpass those of pure social media platforms, indicating the success of its community-building and content consumption features.
📚 The classifieds feature on ShareChat helps retain users, as they can use the platform for various purposes such as jobs, matrimonial, real estate, and more, indicating potential for further category expansion.
💰 The advertising industry in small towns in India is significant, with agencies earning millions of rupees per month, indicating a thriving market for a content and classifieds platform.
🏡 Hiring people from small towns is crucial for understanding and serving the user base effectively, as they have the advantage of being close to the users and knowing the local language.
💡 “We have not seen startups that do user research as much as we do because we are trying to solve for their real-life use cases.”
Monetization and Revenue Growth
💡 “We have yet to learn how to sell our investments…if we do 500 locations…20 lakh rupees a month.” - The challenge of monetization and the potential for significant revenue growth with expansion to multiple locations is an interesting aspect of the platform’s development.
Long Summary
00:00 📰 A team of entrepreneurs realized the importance of building a product according to people’s needs, leading them to create a content, community, and classifieds platform for small towns in India, serving as a hyperlocal social media company.
1.1 Johnny, originally from a small town in Telangana, studied in Vijayawada and then went to IIT Kharagpur before coming to Bangalore, where he started a startup called half teaspoon.com, but after running it for 10 months, he realized there was no inherent demand for the product.
1.2 Joined kozumo, an online used car marketplace, as an early core team member, but it didn’t work out.
1.3 They initially built a product to solve the problem of fake news, but after seven months of isolation and no user adoption, they realized the importance of building according to people’s needs.
1.4 Vipul, an electrical engineer, worked at Qualcomm for three years before partnering with Johnny to work on new ideas for a mass market product in India, conducting user studies and talking to 400–500 people.
1.5 The platform is a content, community, and classifieds platform for small towns in India, serving as a social media company where users can create and consume hyperlocal news and essential services.
1.6 In small towns, the local newspaper serves as the center of the community, and by delivering it as a social media platform, they are able to hyper localize the content and provide updates and relevant content to the community.
08:55 📚 A digital platform is being created to deliver relevant content to small town communities in India, who have limited internet adoption but rely on local content, with a focus on providing localized news and information.
2.1 Small town communities in India have limited internet adoption, but local content plays a significant role in their lives, which is why a digital platform is being created to deliver relevant content to them.
2.2 The speaker discusses the inspiration and research behind their content, community, and classifieds platform for small towns in India, including their interactions with the founders of ShareChat and InShorts.
2.3 The team interviewed users and found that small towns in India have different content preferences, with newspapers being a prominent source of information, but users expressed a need for a platform that provides localized news and information.
12:42 📰 Local is a content, community, and classifieds platform in small towns in India that started as a dating solution but evolved into a successful platform with a wide reach and easy sell for users.
3.1 The speaker identified a need for a content, community, and classifieds platform in small towns in India through validation with users in different locations.
3.2 We discovered a network of stringers who provide news content for free to newspapers and publications, so we started a WhatsApp group to connect with them before building the product.
3.3 Local is present in eight states, covering 225 districts and 780 towns, and is five to six times bigger than the largest selling newspaper in those locations.
3.4 Players like eenado are present in certain locations, and when a platform has reach, people recognize it and use it to solve their problems.
3.5 The platform started as a solution for dating in India, but evolved into a classifieds platform that replaced offline posters and aimed to provide more new information, making it an easy sell for users to believe in the ROI.
19:22 🏘️ People in small towns in India use a content and community platform for local updates, classifieds, and community engagement, including real estate listings, marriage proposals, job postings, and interesting conversations.
4.1 People in small towns in India use a content and community platform to post classifieds, share birthday wishes, commemorate deaths, and collect feedback.
4.2 The platform aims to provide local updates, classifieds, and community engagement for small towns in India, with a focus on real estate content and the importance of knowing who is selling a house.
4.3 People in small towns in India prefer to marry within a short distance and rely on local platforms for hiring due to trust and efficiency.
4.4 People on the platform are posting interesting things like jokes, selling smartphones, bikes, and even cattle.
4.5 Interesting user conversations on the platform include someone looking to get married for the third time and an advertiser increasing the salary for a job posting to make it more relevant, resulting in more applications.
27:17 📈 People in small towns in India have higher disposable income, local businesses are the main advertisers, users have multiple sessions per day, high retention, and success in various categories due to the platform’s value and convenience.
5.1 People in small towns in India have a higher disposable income compared to those in bigger cities due to lower expenses and the ability to live in ancestral or parental houses.
5.2 Local businesses are the main advertisers on the platform, but there is also value in national brands advertising, and the platform allows for personalized ads to reach the right audience.
5.3 Users in a small town in India can easily compare and access various things through the platform throughout the day, starting as early as 4:35 am.
5.4 Users on the platform have around three sessions per day, with network effects being primarily local and showing better metrics compared to pure social media, resulting in high retention and crazy community growth.
5.5 The time it takes for a use case to be fulfilled decreases over time in a location, leading to increased engagement and success in various categories such as jobs, matrimonials, and real estate.
5.6 Users have high long-term retention on the app because they find it valuable, especially for classifieds, and they open and use it when they have a need to sell or make a transaction.
33:46 📈 The company tracks important metrics to measure success, aims to provide value in various categories, and focuses on generating revenue through popular user preferences in small towns in India.
6.1 The company tracks the median response rate, matches, supply density, and supply connects at a location level as their North Star metrics.
6.2 The platform aims to deliver specific value to users, such as content consumption, real estate, classifieds, jobs, matrimonial, and a general buy and sell category.
6.3 The speaker discusses the process of identifying what is working and popular among users, and using that information to create a product with a high response rate in a specific category, such as a community newspaper, to generate revenue.
6.4 Small towns in India have a significant amount of offline advertising, with classified ads making up 40% and network ads making up 20% of the advertising, but the exact amount charged for classified ads depends on the category and location.
38:02 💰 The speaker discusses revenue and monetization efforts, aiming to increase their monthly earnings from 8–9 lakh rupees to 20–30 lakh rupees, while emphasizing the importance of hiring individuals from small towns in India for understanding user needs and building the platform, and highlighting the significance of user research, local language classes, and moderation for building trust in community platforms.
7.1 The speaker discusses revenue and monetization efforts, stating that they currently make 8–9 lakh rupees per month and aspire to reach 20–30 lakh rupees per month with their existing use cases, while also mentioning their plans to build a tech team and different product and research teams.
7.2 Hiring individuals from small towns in India is crucial for understanding and catering to the needs of the users, as they have a closer connection to the community, knowledge of the local language, and provide valuable insights for building the platform.
7.3 The company has a user research team to guide product managers in building new features and help them with non-leading questions, as well as to ensure that user research is not done in isolation.
7.4 Local language classes are constantly happening to exchange ideas and ensure effective field studies, as it is easier for users to understand and conduct video studies in one common language.
7.5 Moderation and user research are important for building trust in community platforms, and this social media space is still fundable.
7.6 There are problems to be solved in the social media domain, such as education and awareness about financial products, and there is potential for growth in non-tech products like air conditioners, refrigerators, bikes, and cars.
46:31 📝 The speaker discusses the popularity of news related to weather and politics in small towns in India, as well as their ability to provide crowdsource information about local leaders during elections, while also sharing their love for valuable content and their most challenging moment in product leadership and sales.
8.1 The speaker discusses the smallest district with exotic readers, their favorite location with a population of 700,000, the popularity of news related to weather and politics, and the ability to provide crowdsource information about local leaders during elections.
8.2 The speaker discusses their love for valuable content, their favorite Indian startup and founder, and their most challenging moment being in product leadership and sales.
Q&A
Q: Can you give an overview of Johnny’s journey from his small town to starting his own startup?
A: Johnny grew up in a small town in Telangana and later studied in Vijayawada before attending IIT Kharagpur. After that, he moved to Bangalore and initially worked at Tata Steel. However, he found the pace too slow and decided to start his own startup called halfteaspoon.com, which focused on ingredient delivery. Unfortunately, after realizing there was not enough demand for the product, he joined Kozumo, an online used car marketplace, as an early core team member.
Q: How did Dailyhunt build a news platform based on the insight about newspaper consumption in tier two towns?
A: The founders of Dailyhunt conducted research and spoke to users, including friends and family, to understand their content preferences. They discovered that newspaper consumption served the purpose of keeping people informed about local news in a way that other mediums couldn’t. To validate this insight, they conducted interviews in multiple cities and identified the need for a platform that catered specifically to tier two town users.
Q: Why did offline markets replace online classifieds even though there were national classifieds platforms available?
A: Offline markets replaced online classifieds because they were found to be much bigger than the online platforms. Additionally, there were no alternatives with as much new information readily available. People easily believed in the return on investment in the effort and money spent in offline markets. The initial steps of the product included an easy way to upload anything, and people started posting various classifieds, including matrimonial profiles. Social communities also used offline methods, such as banners, to celebrate events like birthdays, deaths, and car anniversaries. The platform evolved from a local content platform to national classifieds following a user-centric approach and feedback.
Q: What types of products are being sold on the platform and how diverse are the users?
A: On the platform, people sell a variety of products, including smartphones, bikes, cattle, and more. The platform has seen interesting conversations, such as someone broadcasting their intention to get married for the third time. Advertisers have also found a way to make job postings more relevant by increasing the salary, resulting in more applications. The users of the platform are diverse, including businessmen, job seekers, students, and housewives. The prominent demographic is 20 to 44 years old, with 80% men and 20% women. While there were initial concerns about spending power, the platform’s users are relatively affluent, with an average salary of 25,000+.
Note - This content is generated by AI, we believe it is accurate, but we don’t claim any liability of inaccuracies in the AI generated content.