Thanks for the tear down, Dharmesh. Definitely an unconventional approach to monetizing Bharat. Not freemium. No ads. I’d never have guessed that the audience would pay for curation. And it’s not particularly cheap (say ₹. 10-20 a month) for the audience.
The other comments are illuminating too - smooth onboarding followed by auto pay traps and dark patterns to make unsubscribing difficult. These are sadly not surprising, though.
The content themes I see here have one thing in common - fear (of not having money, losing out on fame, upsetting your astros etc.). You can drive engagement if you play on fear to get people hooked. I am still trying to think how I feel about playing on people's fears.
Would be interesting to see long term retention for such a platform. If they're playing on trust, these numbers should tell that story.
This is not to discount the other work done around their model or the app.
While the common theme of fear is visible on the surface, they aren't really selling fear. They are selling hope.
The hope of earning money with little investment, the hope of getting views / likes from the content they make, the hope of making big in life through astro recommendation.
Selling hope is probably the best ROI sales a brand a can do in India.
And this is visible on content that sells as well. If you look at the best performing content on audio platforms or micro dramas, it is always those 'rags to riches' stories which sell hope that something similar might come true in the listeners life as well.
People bet on RMG (not banned) with the same hope. They do F&O (without even understanding how they work) because of the same hope. A
ll of these businesses fall under the 'Hopeium' category which works really well in India.
Seekho is a scam.
Revenue via fleecing gullible Bharat people via UPI auto-pay.
Then pumping that revenue into perf mktng machine.
PS: Disabled autopay for a resort staff recently. Seekho, Moj and KukuFM. Same playbook. Abusing UPI auto mandates.
only the low value content works. Astro, update card etc.
Thanks for the tear down, Dharmesh. Definitely an unconventional approach to monetizing Bharat. Not freemium. No ads. I’d never have guessed that the audience would pay for curation. And it’s not particularly cheap (say ₹. 10-20 a month) for the audience.
The other comments are illuminating too - smooth onboarding followed by auto pay traps and dark patterns to make unsubscribing difficult. These are sadly not surprising, though.
Interesting piece, found the bit on positioning to be very thought-provoking. Great article!
Very nicely written content Dharmesh Ba. Good Analysis
Well written article, so thorough.
brilliant edition as always, Dharmesh
TIN is my fav newsletter from India
The content themes I see here have one thing in common - fear (of not having money, losing out on fame, upsetting your astros etc.). You can drive engagement if you play on fear to get people hooked. I am still trying to think how I feel about playing on people's fears.
Would be interesting to see long term retention for such a platform. If they're playing on trust, these numbers should tell that story.
This is not to discount the other work done around their model or the app.
While the common theme of fear is visible on the surface, they aren't really selling fear. They are selling hope.
The hope of earning money with little investment, the hope of getting views / likes from the content they make, the hope of making big in life through astro recommendation.
Selling hope is probably the best ROI sales a brand a can do in India.
And this is visible on content that sells as well. If you look at the best performing content on audio platforms or micro dramas, it is always those 'rags to riches' stories which sell hope that something similar might come true in the listeners life as well.
People bet on RMG (not banned) with the same hope. They do F&O (without even understanding how they work) because of the same hope. A
ll of these businesses fall under the 'Hopeium' category which works really well in India.
They have terrible retention.